INSIGHT ON THE BURQA: PART 5
INSIGHT ON THE BURQA: PART 5
Racial discrimination, religious intolerance or misunderstanding? An analysis of discourse in a hosted debate on Australian television.
Structural Sequence in Mediatised Language
Sheikh Muhammad Omran
This particular sequence of discourse is markedly different from the previous sequences in that no interruption or overlapping takes place except when the people at the forum start to talk among themselves on the Sheikh’s reiterated citation of Jenny’s focus of the Topic Question. This is overridden by Jenny, herself, when she explains her focus. The unnamed man also features in the structural sequence with his judgment of the Muslims’ understanding of the Topic Question.
Table 5 shows the structure of the final conversational sequence. Here Jenny’s style is mixed. At first, she uses the opinion/comment style referred to earlier. But when the unnamed man makes his judgment, “I think you guys misunderstood the question,” (line 112) she seizes the moment to change styles to the question style.
Table 5: Structural Model of the Final Extract
From there on in there is a battle for control of the discourse. In this sequence, although the host attempts to put the speaker on the back foot, it is she who loses control of the discourse to the extent that the speaker has the last word in the conversation.
Individual speech
Sheikh Omran uses one instance of the three-part list to demonstrate assertiveness and conviction (Fairclough, in Talbot et al., 2003: 69). They are two affirmative statements followed by a negative one, and each refers to the assumption that the question – the topic question about the obligatory nature of the veil – is deliberately being avoided by the Muslims. “They have said I refused to answer, he refused to ... no, we don’t refuse to answer”.
Among all the guests, he is the only one to use one of the techniques of the host to turn the reformulation of the question back on her. “No, you didn’t say that, ... say distinction.” Jenny authoritatively denies this: “I did say that!” but the Sheikh repeats, “You said distinction over Islam (in general).” Jenny has to concede that she reformulated the question specifically for Uthman and Hizb at-Tahrir, and has to reformulate the question to apply more generally: “I was just trying to get it ... a clear answer from you as to whether you think that women should wear the burqa.” However, the wording of the question shows that she places Uthman and Sheikh Omran in the same boat.
This was a question he had already answered before in the program. And he does it again with the same words: “That’s up to them.”
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The original document
can be found at Insight on the Burqa