Yes-no Questions and Wh-questions in English and Albanian Spoken Discourse: Focus on Political Debates

Abstract

This paper aims to draw reliable conclusions regarding yes-no questions and wh-questions in English and Albanian spoken discourse. The study outlines the differences and similarities in these question types between the two languages.

The corpus of the study includes seven Meet the Press (NBC News) interviews (totaling 2 hours and 51 minutes) with the former President of the USA, Donald Trump which contribute to the English spoken corpus. Additionally, there are two Rubikon (KTV) interviews (totaling 2 hours and 51 minutes) with Hashim Thaçi, the former President of the Republic of Kosovo that are part of the Albanian spoken corpus. A qualitative method is employed to compare, analyze, and draw conclusions based on the findings of the conducted research. The study finds that the English yes-no questions feature the inversion of auxiliary and modal verbs to the subject position. However, the Albanian yes-no questions are characterized by the interrogative particle ‘a’, which may be positioned as the initial or final element or be absent altogether. The results also offer compelling evidence of the differences in the number of wh-words used to ask wh-questions in English and Albanian. They also highlight the most frequently used wh-words and the respective functions of wh-questions in both English and Albanian.