Through a ‘micro’ and ‘macro’ level analysis, this study focuses on elements of questioning and question design in the Senate Judiciary hearing conducted for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Specifically, two lines of questioning are analyzed: that of Kamala Harris, D. California, and that of Ted Cruz, R. Texas. Through an analysis that builds heavily on prior research that uses Conversation Analysis (CA) to understand the news interview, this study attempts to expand such research to institutional talk done by politicians in Congress. The analysis portion of the paper investigates, on a ‘micro’ level, the linguistic elements at play in each line of questioning. In the discussion section, a ‘macro’ level analysis situates the findings of this paper within the broader US political climate among the public.

通过“微观”和“宏观”层面的分析，本研究侧重于为最高法院提名人布雷特·卡瓦诺 (Brett Kavanaugh) 进行的参议院司法听证会中的提问要素和问题设计。具体来说，分析了两行问题：加利福尼亚州的卡马拉哈里斯和德克萨斯州的特德克鲁兹。通过在很大程度上建立在使用对话分析 (CA) 来理解新闻采访的先前研究的基础上的分析，本研究试图将此类研究扩展到国会政治家所做的机构谈话。本文的分析部分在“微观”层面上调查了每条问题中起作用的语言元素。在讨论部分，“宏观”层面的分析将本文的研究结果置于更广泛的美国公众政治氛围中。