The disaffiliative use of ‘did you know’ questions in Arabic news interviews: The case of Aljazeera’s ‘The Opposite Direction’

Adversarialness in broadcast news interviews

As one of the most thoroughly studied types of institutional talk by Conversation Analysts (e.g. Clayman, 1988; 1992; 2002; 2016; Clayman and Heritage, 2002; Greatbatch, 1988; 1992; Heritage, 1985; Heritage and Greatbatch, 1991; Heritage and Roth, 1995; Rendle-Short, 2007), earlier studies of broadcast news interviews focused on how interviewers in the United States and the United Kingdom balance their acts of adversarialness and objectivity with the interviewees. Because they are not expected to assert their own opinions, IRs have been reported to maintain a ‘neutralistic’ (Clayman, 1992) rather than a completely neutral stance. IRs, for instance, may attribute a controversial position to an absent third party. IRs can also embed their stance through questions. Later studies expanded geographically to study broadcast news in a number of other countries such as Greece (Patrona, 2009), Israel. Saudi Arabia (Alfahad, 2015a, 2015b, 2016), and Australia (Rendle-Short, 2007). Many of these recent studies report that IRs are less concerned about expressing a neutralistic stance toward their interviewees. IRs in these studies often use more challenging and aggressive forms of questioning. In recent years, a more adversarial type of broadcast news interview has appeared. The introduction and advancement of satellite and cable TV, some argue, has allowed for a type of interviews that has many of the formal features of the standard broadcast news interview as discussed earlier, yet combines ‘features of the argumentative and confrontational exchanges often found in other forms of broadcasting, such as talk radio and topical debate shows’ ¹ (Hutchby, 2011: 350). In his study of Fox news interviews, Hutchby (2011) explains that Fox News for instance is a channel unconstrained by any commitment to neutrality and objectivity with its tendency of blending political reporting with stance-taking (Hutchby, 2011). Findings from Spanish, Greek (Patrona, 2009), Australian, Saudi (Alfahad, 2015a, 2015b), and Qatari (Migdadi et al., 2013) lend support to Hutchby’s findings. These studies report that IRs use highly adversarial strategies such as questions with negative presuppositions about politicians’ acts, statements that challenge interviewees’ prior talk and convey a hostile stance through uncooperative conversational behavior, namely interruptions, ironic remarks, and face-to-face disagreements with the IEs.

In the Arabic context, IRs are becoming more adversarial in privately owned stations as opposed to government run channels (Alfahad, 2015a, 2015b, 2016). Saudi IRs challenge their IEs by frequent interruptions, the use of imperatives rather than questions and forms of address that do not reflect the customary respect for officials (Alfahad, 2015a, 2015b, 2016). Other Arab IRs were also noted to consciously suspend politeness strategies for the sake of maximizing rather than minimizing challenge and confrontation (Migdadi et al., 2013). Migdadi et al. (2013) report that IRs and IEs challenge each other by using rudeness, ² interruptions, and abusive language to accentuate their strong disagreement and develop hostile feelings for each other, and by using sarcasm as a face threatening act.

It is clear that there exist some cross-cultural similarities that IRs use to express adversarialness with their IEs. The following section will review one of the most commonly used confrontational discursive strategies as have been reported in the existing literature: questions.

Questions in broadcast news interviews

Questions are the most thoroughly researched strategy in broadcast news interview research. Researchers have examined a number of recurrent questioning practices in broadcast news interviews and studied how these practices are intertwined with journalistic tasks and professional norms. One of the distinctive criteria of news interviews as opposed to many other types of institutional talk is that turns and turn taking are pre-allocated. IRs are expected to ask while IEs answer. While journalistic questioning involves a balancing act or tension between two major professional norms: ‘objectivity and adversarialness’ (Heritage and Clayman, 2010: 227), ‘strict neutrality (or impartiality or freedom from bias) is impossible’ (p. 228). Journalists mitigate their disagreement or convey their agenda with the IEs by asking questions.

In addition to conveying agendas, questions can also incorporate presuppositions, that is, propositions that are not the primary focus of inquiry but are nonetheless assumed to be true in the design of a question (Clayman and Heritage, 2002; Clayman, 2012). Interviewees have been reported to treat such questions as pushing the IR’s personal and institutional agenda on them (Clayman and Heritage, 2002: 146–147). While Wh- questions (what, why, how) can set agendas, question may be answered with a wide range of resources (Clayman and Heritage, 2002: 200–201).

In addition to setting agendas and conveying presuppositions, questions, especially yes/no questions, can also set a preference or expectation for specific answers. Negative interrogatives such as in excerpt 1 below exert more pressure on public figures to answer in a certain way that may damage their public figure’s interests, hence, such questions are adversarial in character (Heritage, 2002; Clayman, 2012: 644). Clinton responds with ‘I disagree with that. hh’. Consider this example from a televised press conference:

Excerpt 1: Yes/no questions (from Claymon and Heritage, 2002: 210)

The grammatical form of the question in lines 2–5 ‘didn’t you put the Vice President (.) an’ Maggie and all the others in your (0.4) administration top side .hh in a very vulnerable position’, is heard as an assertion that favors a ‘yes’ answer, that Clinton did put the Vice President an’ Maggie and all the others in his administration in a vulnerable position. This question is treated as having a view point to agree or disagree with. Clinton hears the adversarial assertion in the question and responds with ‘I disagree with that .hh’.

Among these various grammatical forms, the negative interrogative – namely those incorporating a negative into the copula – stands out as most powerful in its push for a particular answer (Heritage, 2002). Negative interrogatives are routinely treated as assertions more than as questions, and perceived by interviewees as stating an opinion, thus being hostile and breaking the interview conventions (Clayman and Heritage, 2002).

In the next section, we will see that one specific type of yes/no questions in Arabic ‘did you know’ is treated by interviewees as both confrontational and adversarial. While there are few studies on strategies used among mostly interviewees to perform adversarialness in Arabic with each other, interviewers’ question designs and the actions they perform have not yet been studied in the Arabic broadcast news interviews context at the time of writing this article. Therefore, this article focuses on one particular type of yes/no questions (‘did you know’ questions) and it examines how this particular interrogative is used to convey IR’s agenda by blocking his IEs’ agenda. Before proceeding, I will first provide a brief background on Aljazeera, ‘The Opposite Direction’, and the IR/host of the program.

Background on Aljazeera

On its Arabic and English websites, Aljazeera’s code of ethics states that Aljazeera seeks,

[To] adhere to the journalistic values of honesty, courage, fairness, balance, independence, credibility and diversity, giving no priority to commercial or political over professional consideration. Endeavour to get to the truth and declare it in our dispatches, programmes and news bulletins unequivocally in a manner which leaves no doubt about its validity and accuracy . . . [And to] Present the diverse points of view and opinions without bias and partiality. (Aljazeera’s Mission Statement, 2017)

Aljazeera’s main slogan to present ‘the opinion and the other opinion’ is manifested in two of its prominent evening live programs ‘The Opinion and the Other Opinion’ and ‘The Opposite Direction’. The data to be studied in this article come from the latter show.

Aljazeera quickly gained fame in the Arab world. It revolutionized Arab media by broadcasting taboo topics such as secularism, women’s rights, and questioning polygamy as explained by Sharia law, among others. These were topics that no other news outlet dared to discuss at that time (Alkasim, 1999, 2005; Zayani, 2005). By introducing Western-style television journalism into the Arab world broadcasting scene, Aljazeera became the first Arab station to air a series of live talk shows ‘characterized by vigorous discussions and extensive viewer participation . . . [that] seek to break away from dull television talk shows through hosting dissenting Arab world political figures and adopting an uncompromising approach to public issues’ (Ayish, 2005: 108).

In the last two decades, Aljazeera gained its popularity in the Arab world and became a household name after its (mostly live) coverage of the Palestinian Intifada and the Israeli attacks on Palestinian regions. In the following year, as Alshathry (2015) explains, Aljazeera gained international fame after 9/11 and its coverage of the American war on Afghanistan, and later, Iraq. Aljazeera was the only channel allowed to broadcast from and interview major Alqaeda leaders. Having an eventual monopoly over covering the war on Afghanistan from that country, itself, and broadcasting exclusive interviews with Taliban and Ben Laden allowed Aljazeera to compete with its rivals in the West (mainly Reuters and CNN). Later, Aljazeera had exclusives on the war on Iraq (Alshathry, 2015: 7–9) which led its competitors to report and purchase footage from Aljazeera. In 2001, the network launched its Arabic online version Al-Jazeera.net, which was followed by Al-Jazeera International and Al-Jazeera America.

Despite its popularity in the Arab world, Aljazeera’s effects on the media sphere in the region have brought many political tensions for Qatar with other countries, especially its neighbors (Miles, 2005; Zayani, 2005). Because Aljazeera was critical of Arab leaders’ (Miles, 2005: 45) access to Aljazeera was denied or obstructed in a number of surrounding Arab countries such as Egypt and Jordan (Ayish, 2005; Alkassim, 2005; Miles, 2005; Zayani, 2005). Furthermore, many of its journalists were expelled from Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and other countries (Miles, 2005: 323). A likely reason for these drastic initiatives is that Aljazeera expressed implicit or explicit criticism toward the states concerned (Miles, 2005: 45). Indeed, during the first months of what is called ‘the Arab Spring’ in 2011, Aljazeera continued to play a crucial role supporting the political change in the region (Alshathry, 2015: 14).

On the flip side, Aljazeera has been accused of enticing division among Arabs and hatred against America through some of its debate programs, such as ‘The Opposite Direction’ (Alkasim, 2005; Alshathry, 2015). Recently, in June 2017, Saudi Arabia together with UAE, Egypt, and Bahrain formed a coalition against Qatar over Aljazeera. The coalition cut complete diplomatic and economic relations with Qatar and provided Qatar with a list of 13 demands to resolve the Gulf conflict (Fisk, 2017). In an article for the Independent Newspaper, Fisk (2017) explains that among these demands is shutting down Aljazeera under the pretext that Qatar and Aljazeera support terrorism by giving voice to everyone including the Muslim Brotherhood.

Background on Aljazeera’s ‘The Opposite Direction’ and its host

‘The Opposite Direction’, a novel formula in Arab media, is a site for discursively framing the latest news in the Arab world. It features two guests with opposing views who are pitted against each other in a heated discussion. In an article he wrote for the Harvard Journal in 1999, Alkasim, the IR, argues that his show is intended to ask the tough questions without taking any sides with either party. Alkasim (1999, 2005) writes that his show provides a platform for everyone to present their side and for the other side to defend itself. In the early years of its inception, the show was the first in the history of Arab TV to host some of the most hated thinkers and secularists in a relatively conservative Arab world.

‘The Opposite Direction’ is both popular and confrontational; there were cases where the guests walked away from the discussion table and set, on live TV. There were instances ³ in which guests threw their water cups in their opponents’ faces, ⁴ and many more cases where verbal fights turned into physical fights. Some of the speakers have become extremely popular among the Arab viewers for talking about daring issues within the Arab world. Alkasim (2005) claims that his program has given voice to ‘globalized alternative Arab political voices or “rebels” and made them known to a very large audience at home and abroad’ (p. 97). Locally, Alkasim (2005) boasts, his show was voted as the best Arab TV program for 6 consecutive years in the Qatari Al Raya newspaper ⁵ back in 2002, and he was chosen as the media man of the year (Alkasim, 2005: 98).

Who is Faisal Alkasim?

The interviewer, Faisal Alkasim, a Syrian born television personality, is known for his provocative style on his show ‘The Opposite Direction’. In fact, many credit him for playing a main part in Aljazeera’s reputation in the Arab world. Alkasim was voted as one of the top most influential Arab personalities in 2007 by Arabian Business Magazine. Prior to joining Aljazeera, he worked for BBC Arabic as a producer and a news anchor. That said, Alkasim was described as sectarian by Zeinab Hawi, a Syrian blogger and writer. Hawi (2015) claims that Alkasim usually selects pro-government guests only from the Christian religion to debate with opposition figures mainly from the Muslim-Sunni religion. Hawi (2015) accused him of trying to give the revolution a sectarian appearance. ⁶ In 2016, in the last 2 minutes of his show, Alkasim asked one of his Kurdish guests to leave the show while on air ⁷ for being ‘too difficult’. Prior to kicking him out, Alkasim offered his guest some ‘Bendol’ and asked him if he would like ‘a suppository instead’. The IED was upset and murmured that he would like to be excused from the show. ⁸ The clip went viral on social media where many of Alkasim’s fans supported him and his acts. The actual episode on Aljazeera was later edited and that particular clip was deleted.

Academic research on adversarialness in ‘The Opposite Direction’

The popularity of the show stems not only from its discussion of taboos, but also from its host’s style in addressing such topics (Ayish, 2005; Migdadi et al., 2013). ‘The Opposite Direction’ and other live debate shows on Aljazeera constitute an important popular forum where the spontaneous discussions of current affairs are fostered. These live broadcasts on Aljazeera, previously an unknown practice in tightly controlled Arab media, are ideal sites for examining this oppositional discourse (Awwad, 2005). A number of researchers (Alfahad, 2015a, 2015b of Saudi news interviews; Al-Rojaie, 2003; Ayish, 2005; Migdadi et al., 2013 of ‘The Opposite Direction’) note that technological advances and the introduction of private stations has pushed for more confrontational and adversarial styles in broadcast news interviews in some parts of the Arab world. According to Migdadi et al. (2013), interviewees on the program are constantly maximizing rather than minimizing face threats by using strategies such as rudeness, ⁹ interruptions, abusive language, and even sarcasm to accentuate their strong disagreement and develop hostile feelings with each other. Strategies that, according to Migdadi et al. (2013), are ‘equated with skillfulness in debate and is used to increase each of the participants’ own power’ (pp. 94–95).

A number of interesting strategies used by the IEs to disagree with each other in ‘The Opposite Direction’ have been reported in the literature. Some of these strategies include using a loud voice, insults, abusive language, and sarcasm. However, research on the IR–IE interaction is still lacking.

Some of the current findings on the IR’s strategies for challenging his IEs in ‘The Opposite Direction’ as has been documented in the literature. Migdadi et al. (2013) argue that the IR’s role in ‘The Opposite Direction’ is to promote heated disagreements among the IEs. Indeed, one of the strategies reported in the literature by Ayish (2005) is that the IR, Faisal Alkassim, uses the ‘silence’ strategy quite often to achieve such heated discussion. Here, Ayish refers to the IR’s silence. The fiercer the debate between the IEs, the more extended the host’s silence is – particularly, in discussions of highly sensitive issues where he claims the IR takes a ‘more detached posture, appearing to be a neutral observer’ (p. 119).

The lengthy holding of the floor by one of the IEs as opposed to their opponents is common in the program. Migdadi et al. (2013) show that the IR allows one of the IEs to hold the floor more than the other guest by actively silencing the other. Similarly, Al-Rojaie (2003) studies how the IR in ‘The Opposite Direction’ may be helping one interviewee have more access to the floor than the other guest. Al-Rojaie argues that the IR can be ‘overdoing’ interruption with the other guest. These ‘excessive’ and ‘biased’ interruptions, Al-Rojaie claims, are different from interruptions used to clarify or challenge the IE which are common in the context of panel news interviews (pp. 121–126).

In addition, the IR has been reported to use polling and polling results as a strategy to further encourage disagreement and confrontation between the guests. Online polling was not introduced until relatively recently in the program. The introduction of online polling to evaluate audience views of both sides of the debate contributes to the process of rising tensions among the IEs, Ayish (2005) argues. He explains that the IR constantly reminds the guests (or as Ayish refers to them, the ‘contestants’) of the votes’ results as if to encourage them to make more effort to improve their standing among viewers through more tense exchanges (p. 122). For example, in a 2003 episode on the role of the Kurds ¹⁰ in the new Iraq, the IR pitted two guests against each other. One (Al Nereedy) was defending the Kurds while the other (Matar) was questioning their Kurdish geopolitical agenda and doubting their allegiance to a united Iraq. The subject of the polling was whether or not the Kurds are playing a positive role in the new Iraq. At first, the pro-Kurd state had a strong lead, and the IR kept emphasizing that which, according to Ayish, provoked Matar to become more adversarial. As the program unfolded, the numbers gradually shifted to 51% versus 49% at the end of the program. ¹¹ Ayish explains that the IR was ‘actively using the polling card’ and was constantly reminding the IEs of the outcome of the online voting to prompt Matar to be more confrontational while pushing his opponent to be more defensive (p. 122).

A final strategy that the IR uses to display and promote tension and confrontation between his guests includes the use of anonymous sources. Ayish (2005) points out that the IR uses this strategy to substantiate his arguments or to counter those of guests and audiences. The IR’s use of anonymous sources was ‘intended to fuel debates as they were losing their intensity’ (p. 121).

After this brief review of strategies used to promote tension and disagreement in ‘The Opposite Direction’, I will now present one as yet undescribed strategy for preforming adversarialness: using ‘did you know’ questions. This strategy arguably allows the IR to express a more adversarial stance toward his IEDs, and to block the IEs from furthering their agenda by blocking their access to the floor. The IR resorts to these questions because they do not expect a response from the IE. Either response (yes/no) to those questions would be damaging to the latter.

Disagreement through ‘did you know’ questions

The strategy understudy here is ‘hal taʔlaam’ which translates into ‘did you know’ question. In the next excerpt, the IR questions Alasad’s unwillingness to participate in the 2014 negotiation talks in Geneva following the demands of the international community. The IR begins with a series of questions addressing the IED, who represents a Syrian political group in favor of negotiating with Alasad. After a series of disaligning responses, the IR resorts to switching to a local variety, Syrian Arabic. At this point in the interaction, the IR is speaking louder, whereas the IED is using a calmer voice. Switches to local varieties of Arabic will be coded in italics (see Appendix 1). The IR’s first turn refers to Alasad’s unwillingness to go to Geneva.

Excerpt 2: Repeat of IED’s prior turn

The IR’s question ‘>WHY does he not want to GO<?’ is an information seeking question that invites a certain type of answer, usually a phrasal answer. The IR’s question (in Standard Arabic) in line 1 ‘>WHY does he not want to GO<?’ does not receive an answer from the IED who instead asks for the floor to complete his previous utterance. Therefore, the IR initiates another question in line 5 prefaced with nonstandard Arabic ‘I want to ask you’ to gain the floor, and repeats the question again in Standard Arabic ‘why does he not want to go?’ This time, the IED responds with a negation ‘no no’ followed by an answer ‘he does not want to give up authority (.)’ (line 6) and moves his body closer to IR. The IR in line 7 issues a repeat of the IED’s prior turn ‘[>he doesn’t want to give up authority<’. The IR repeat is said with falling intonation in contrast with the affiliative repeats discussed in Shalash (2019). The IED responds with ‘he does not want to give up power .h’ (line 8).

The IR’s repeat here is done as a pre-disagreement. Here, too, as it becomes clear later, the IR’s turn performs a pre-disagreement (Schegloff, 2007) with the IED by repeating the IED’s prior turn. The IED here responds to the pre-disagreement in an overlapping utterance in line 8, where he repeats his previous utterance with some lexical change/correction ‘[he does not want to give up power .h’. It is then that the IR responds with the disagreement, in louder spoken Arabic dialect in the next turn. The IR’s turn in line 9 is said in a much louder voice in Syrian Arabic ‘BUT HIS HEAD’S BEEN RUN OVER=’ while simultaneously doing chopping hand gestures. The statement ‘someone’s head has been run over’ is both humiliating and derogatory in the Arab culture. The IED hears the explicit disagreement and the attempt to discredit him. He tries to take the floor by issuing an overlapping turn ‘brother .h’ while extending his arm toward the IR as in an attempt to calm him down. The IR blocks the IEF’s attempt to the floor and continues with his attack ‘[RUN OVER THE GROUND’.

After the turns end up neither advancing the topic nor abandoning it, and the IED becomes agitated, the IR quickly begins a topic departure at line 21 (continued below). The IR now moves away from content questions and resorts to a more conducive questioning format, polar questions (Clayman and Heritage, 2002). Polar questions also constrain answers (Raymond, 2003). These ‘did you know’ questions are a type of polar question. These questions do not ask for information, nor do they seem to expect a response. They are regularly used by the IR in this specific program to provide an account for previous turns that did not receive the desired response from the IED. They are lengthy, said in clear, loud Standard Arabic, and they typically embed ‘hostile presuppositions’ (Heritage, 2002) and confrontational messages (Hayano, 2013). These as we will see below include information that may at first sound like ‘new’ information. And as with other hostile questions, a direct answer to such questions would accept its presuppositions as valid, and it takes interactional work to refute the presuppositions (Hayano, 2013; Heritage, 2003). By using a ‘did you know’ question in excerpt 3 below, the IR offers an account for his prior comments that Alasad is in a bad shape, or that his head has been run over the ground. Excerpt 3 below is a continuation of excerpt 2:

Excerpt 3: Did you know questions

After the IED calmly and repeatedly asks for the floor in the previous excerpt (excerpt 2), the IR denies him the floor and immediately issues a ‘did you know’ type of question in lines 21–25: ‘did you know that the electricity on the coast (.) his electricity on the coast (.) in .h Tartus and Lattakia .h>comes through regions controlled by the free army’. This at first may sound like unexpected or irrelevant ‘new’ information, but it in fact provides an account for what he had previously said in spoken Arabic in the previous excerpt, that Alasad is losing control in Syria, or ‘his head has been run over the ground’. This ‘did you know’ question does not receive nor seem to expect a response from the IED which is different from other questions by IRs that seek a response. Usually, questions as first pair parts invite a response as a second pair part, with the option of having either a follow-up question or assessment ¹³ by the asker (Schegloff et al., 1977). Had the IED responded with either yes or no, he would have put himself in an awkward position. ¹⁴ On the one hand, responding with ‘yes’ confirms the IR’s agenda and presupposition that Alasad is in a poor position. On the other hand, disconfirming and answering with ‘no’ means the IED simply does not know what is going on. Both possibilities are damaging to his public image.

In addition to being more adversarial and answer-constraining, I argue that ‘did you know’ questions signal that the questioner has more ‘epistemic primacy’ (Heritage, 2012; Heritage and Raymond, 2012) than the addressee. By switching to a more knowing K+ persona, the IR claims to have more power and knowledge. After initiating the initial ‘did you know’ question, the IR immediately offers an account and clarification of his question in lines 26–27 ‘meaning the free army could at any time>cut out his electricity supply<.h IN LATTAKIA AND THE COA:[ST’. This ‘new information’ is treated as confrontational by the IED who attempts to interrupt the IR’s turn to disagree. The IED prefaces his disagreement with ‘ᵒbrother’ in line 29. Prefacing a response with a ‘brother’ has been shown to signal disagreement in the Arabic culture in broadcast news interviews (Al and Rojaie, 2003). However, the IR does not allow the IED a chance to take the floor. Instead, he initiates yet another latched ‘did you know’ question, also louder and in a faster pace, in line 30–31 ‘did you know that the regime NO LONGER CONTROLS any oil wells in Syria’, while moving his hands up and down and fast. Once again, the IR does not allow the IED an opportunity to respond to that second question as he initiates a third ‘did you know’ question in lines 33–35, faster and louder, while continuing to move his hands up and down fast ‘did you know that the only open route in Syria>connects from Lebanon to Damascus and from Suweida and Damascus in the entire country?’

The third ‘did you know’ question is followed by another, a fourth question in lines 37–39. This last one serves as the concluding question and is designed as a yes/no question: ‘is the regime able to exit the 5k of headquarters where he’s been dumped (.)’. The first part of this question in said in Standard Arabic while the second part in Syrian Arabic. As a reversed polarity question (RPQ), this question is not treated as a genuine question. RPQs convey an assertion of the opposite polarity (Koshik, 2002). They are used in adversarial contexts where the asker already knows the answer. Prior to this question, the IR issued a number of ‘did you know’ questions that set an adversarial context. For instance, the IR has claimed that most roads in Syria are blocked, that Alasad is trapped in his headquarters and that he has no control over electricity and power lines. Hence, IR’s question ‘is the regime able to exit the 5k of headquarters where he’s been dumped (.)’ conveys the assertion ‘the regime is not able to exit the 5k of headquarters where he’s been dumped’. Neither yes nor no constitutes a good answer. A ‘yes’ answer would agree with the presupposition that Alasad has been dumped. A ‘No’ answer would agree with the RPQ that Alasad cannot leave or exit his headquarters. The IED tries to respond in an overlap in line 40 ‘I- I- my estima:::te’ which is quickly interrupted by the IR’s louder and faster speech. The IR continues to withhold the floor and issues yet another, a fifth, and latching question in line 21 ‘=[then why negotiate with him?’. As a reversed polarity question, this question, too, conveys the assertion that there is no need to negotiate with Alasad. RPQs, as Koshik (2003) explains, can be used to convey ‘negative assertions that challenge the grounds for a prior claim or action, suggesting that there are no adequate grounds for it, and therefore no basis for asserting the claim or doing the action in the first place’ (pp. 101–102). The IR here is making the assertion that there is no reason to negotiate with Alasad. This last question by the IR ends what may be heard as closing remarks in a cross-examination talk. In this short sequence alone, the IR issues five questions, but allows the IED to respond only to the last question.

The IR’s last question is said in Syrian Arabic in line 41, while the IR is simultaneously opening the palm of his hands ‘=[then why negotiate with him?’. By indicating that Alasad is no longer in control of anything (traffic, oil wells, electricity), the IR refutes the IED’s original statement that Alasad is in a position to negotiate and that he still has power and authority. When the IED is finally allowed a chance to respond without any interruptions from the IR, his response in lines 43, 45–46 is significant. The IED responds by rejecting the IR’s assertion and by providing a transformative response (Stivers and Hayashi, 2010) which alters the terms and agendas of the questions ‘<unfortunately (.) you’re not living in Syria>’. Such responses indicate there is a problem with providing a direct answer and they reflect a high degree of resistance as they adjust and reject the agenda of the question, and in particular, the presuppositions upon which the question is built (Hayano, 2013: 429–430). The IE not only refutes all the IR’s accusations, but he also cancels all the presuppositions and assertions in the IR’s questions. By marking or labeling the IR and the IEF as ‘not living in Syria’, the IE rejects the epistemic stance that the IR has claimed in this exchange through his use of ‘did you know’ questions. The IE had previously stressed his own K+ position by repeating and stressing ‘I’ in line 40. Another important point about the IE’s response is that he is addressing both the IR and the second IE (by using the plural form of you, and by looking at both of them). The fact that he is addressing both is a way for him to take a stance against not only the IR but also the other IE. (Note: whereas, the IR is Syrian, he in fact lives in London and Qatar. The IEF also does not seem to be residing in Syria at the time this aired.)

A similar questioning pattern takes place in the next excerpt from a different episode with another IE. Here, the participants discuss Lebanon’s Hezbollah’s involvement in the neighboring Syrian war where Hezbollah fighters have joined jihadi groups alongside the Syrian regime against the Syrian people/rebels. The IE in this excerpt (a continuation of excerpt 2) represents Lebanon’s Hezbollah. The IR hints that Hezbollah’s involvement will cause undue negative damage to the Lebanese people in general and to Hezbollah in particular. Lebanon has suffered political unrest in the past decades anyway, and Hezbollah’s involvement in another neighboring war, according to the IR, might cause worse damage to the people of Lebanon.

Excerpt 4: did you know questions

In this excerpt, the IR begins with an information seeking question ‘what are you doing in Lebanon (.)?’ After asking a content question that invites a potentially lengthy answer, the IR aborts his first question and initiates a more conducive and answer-constraining (Raymond, 2003) question, a negated polar question ‘aren’t you paying the price for Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria?=’ in lines 2–3. This yes/no question conveys a hostile assertion that ‘the Lebanese are paying the price for their involvement in the Syria war’ and is treated as challenging. The IE responds with the negation ‘never=never’ in line 4 and refutes the assertion implied in the IR’s question. The IR then issues another follow-up question in line 5 ‘who is bombarding’ referring to the recent attacks on Lebanon in retaliation. By choosing a category specific question (‘who’), the IR may be expecting an answer along the lines that the bombarding in Lebanon was committed by Syrian groups (i.e. ‘who’), in retaliation for the Lebanese involvement in the Syrian war. The IE rejects the IR’s agenda that the Lebanese people are ‘paying the price for their involvement in Syria’ and downplays the threats of bombarding, by responding with ‘<things could have gotten worse>’ in line 6. Here, the IE means that the attacks on Lebanon were inevitable, and had Hezbollah not gotten involved in Syria, the damages/attacks on Lebanon could have been greater. The IE’s response transforms and rejects the question’s agenda (Stivers and Hayashi, 2010). Hearing the growing challenge by the IE, the IR resorts to ‘did you know’ type of question which allows the IR to move from an ‘unknowing’ (K−) to a ‘knowing’ (K+) stance. In addition, it will block the IE’s responses. The IR’s question ‘ok did you know that what’s coming>according to the information I have I’m not saying my opinion<that Hezbollah and Hasan Nasrallah have dark days ahead of them?’ is not only confrontational, but it also conveys even more hostile presuppositions than his previous questions. The IR’s question presuppositions are threatening to Hezbollah. The question is heard to include an ‘assertion’ from a K+ position. The assertion made here is that ‘Nasrallah and Hezbollah have dark days ahead of them’. Hearing the threat in that question, even the IR himself tries to adopt a somehow neutralistic stance by referencing a third party and distancing himself from that threat ‘according to the information I have I’m not stating my opinion’ mid turn.

These questions are designed to discourage any confirming or disconfirming responses from the IEs. The IEs do not respond with either yes or no. Instead, they respond by rejecting the assertions and presuppositions conveyed in these questions. The IE in this excerpt answers in an evasive statement that alters the question’s agenda ‘and I’ll tell you something’ in line 10. This is heard as challenging by the IR who quickly interrupts the IE’s turn as he clearly becomes upset and responds by repeating and discrediting the IE’s statement ‘=>brother “I am telling you” not telling you<’ in line 11. In Arabic, this phrase has the following meaning: the first part of the IR’s statement ‘I am telling you’ is a mocking quote of the IE’s turn because the IE in line 10 started his turn with ‘and I’ll tell you something’. The second part of the IR’s statement ‘not telling you’ means something along the lines ‘how about you don’t!’ In short, the IR asks the IE to stop talking. The IR then reissues his first question again, in rising intonation and higher pitch ‘↑what will happen in Lebanon?’ in line 13.

Conclusion

To conclude, this article argues that Faisal Alkasim, one of Aljazeera’s most notorious hosts, strategically employs ‘did you know’ questions with interviewees with whom he disagrees. At a first glance, these questions may seem that they provide new information, but they are in fact used to reformulate and rephrase previous questions that had already been asked by the IR. They are employed when the IR does not receive a favorable response from his IEs. Therefore, the IR resorts to ‘did you know’ questions to block the IEs’ access to the floor and to block the IEs’ agenda as well. IEs in fact orient to these ‘did you know’ questions as disaffiliative which is evident in their responses, as we have seen from the excerpts analyzed in this article. The importance of this article is that it builds on and adds to the existing Conversation Analytic literature on adversarialness in broadcast news interviews. In fact, this specific type of questioning (‘did you know’ questions) has not been described in the CA literature prior to this study. The study also fills a gap in the Arabic linguistic literature. At the time of writing this article, literature on Arabic question-response design in natural talk is still in its infancy. This article also provide some insight onto the Arabic media sphere and the role of IRs in furthering or blocking certain agendas in the region. I would like to end this article by noting that the findings in this article are based on one specific program on Aljazeera only. Future studies should determine whether or not this is true for other programs on Aljazeera.