Position offerings in German radio phone-in talk shows

Taking the example of a German radio phone-in talk show, this study discusses the forms and functions of “position offerings”. Position offerings are accomplished by means of outlining the social, ideological and moral dimensions of candidate positions and giving other discourse participants the choice to adopt, to negotiate or to reject them. Fundamentally, mono-position and bi-position offerings can be distinguished between. Mono-position offerings establish one candidate position as an issue to deal with by the addressee while bi-position offerings comprise two candidate positions as alternatives. Both mono-position and bi-position offerings are correlated with the institutional and genre-specific conditions of radio phone-in talk shows. In particular, they are employed by the host of the show but not by the caller, and they do not occur immediately at the beginning of an interaction but are a resource for ongoing topic talk. Furthermore, position offerings are a subtle but powerful resource for conducting a conversation: Mono-position offerings can be integrated into the prior speaker's turn in order to increase his readiness to accept it, and bi-position offerings tend to draw the addressee's attention to the positions being offered while keeping him or her away from introducing a completely new position. All in all, the dialogical accomplishment of position offerings in radio phone-in talk shows represents one way in which social and moral facets of conversational identities can be negotiated in talk-in-interaction with regard to genre-specific roles such as “host” and “caller/guest”.

► Conversational positions can be introduced into discourse by means of position offerings.
► In German radio phone-in talk shows, position offerings are a means for ongoing topic talk which is only employed by the host of the show but not by a guest.
► In German radio phone-in talk shows, mono-position and bi-position offerings can be distinguished.
► Mono-position offerings establish one candidate position as an issue to deal with.
► Bi-position offerings comprise two candidate positions as alternatives.