Epistemic Stance Markers in German and English as a Lingua Franca Media Sports Interviews

Abstract

This study investigates a particular type of media interview to explore the use of epistemic stance markers in professional media sports contexts. The study focuses on interviews with male professional football players usually taken straight or very shortly after the match (post-match interviews or PMIs). Two data sets were investigated using a simple quantitative and an ethnographic conversation analytic approach: 57 interviews conducted with German professional football players in German, and 27 interviews conducted with professional football players of various nationalities and first languages, including German, in English as a lingua franca (ELF). The aim of this study is to find out how the use of epistemic stance markers such as I think in English and the German equivalents ich denke/ ich glaube contributes to the foregrounding of the player’s perspective and thus the maintenance and negotiation of an epistemic gradient, which is essential for a smooth and unproblematic progression of the interview.