Kinga
Tátrai
Discourse
analysis and turn-taking in talk shows
This essay is going to be about
turn-taking in talk shows which express power relations. First, discourse
analysis will be introduced in general which is the basis of conversation
analysis and the turn-taking system. Discourse analysis mostly originate from
sociology and focuses as much on spoken language as on written language. That
is why we need to go a little bit deeper and only focus on spoken language.
That branch of soliology is conversation analysis which deals with dialogic,
spoken discourse of informal charatcers. The most important questions of
conversation analysis are: How do people take turns in conversation? How do
people launch new topics, close old ones, shift topics etc.? Turn-taking is every occasion when one
participant stops and the turn end so the other participant can take a turn.
The shows I am going to examine are the Monika show and the Joshi Barat show.
The aim of this essay is to analyise the discourses and turn-taking and how
hosts express their dominance through these aspects.
The method which is used in order to examine
these shows is called conversation analysis (as it was mentioned above). According
to sociologists such as Hutchby and Wooffitt, conversation analysis (CA) is
defined as “the systematic analysis of
the talk produced in everyday situations of
human interaction: talk-in-interaction” (Hutchby and Wooffitt, 2008, p.11).
CA is a non-interventionist approach. it means that researchers do not
intervene in the data and they do not invent examples. CA starts from the
premise that spoken interaction is ordered and has a special focus on the “turn
by turn unfolding of talk-in-interaction” (Hutchby and Wooffitt, 2008, p. 138).
One of the aspects of CA is turn-taking.
In
1974, an article was published called A
Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn-Taking for Conversation. In
this work Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson write about a systematic method for
turn-taking analysis. The authors list a set of facts (from which I took only the
relevant ones) that can be scrutinised in any conversation:
(1)
Speaker-change recurs, or at least occurs
(2) Occurrences of more than one speaker at a
time are common
(3) Length of conversation is not specified in
advance
(4)
What parties say is not specified in advance
(5) Number of parties can vary
(6)
Talk can be continuous or discontinuous
(Sacks et al. 1974, p.700-701)
In their article the
authors explain a method with which they can analyse everyday conversation and
the main point is to provide an appropriate structure for it.
The
authors differentiate between two segments and rules: the first one is the turn
constructional component and the second is the turn allocational component.
Turn-constructional units are called “various unit-types with which a speaker
may set out to construct a turn” (Sacks et al. 1974,p.702). The second
component is the ’turn-allocational component’
and deals with the distribution of the turn. According to Jeffries and
McIntyre, “[t]he turn-allocational component regulates turn change and assumes
that only one speaker may speak at a time” (Jeffries and McIntyre, 2010, p.102).
The distribution of
turn-taking has been found to express power realtionships in talk shows.
O’Donnell sums up findings of several studies:
Interactionally,
greater power is correlated with floor holding, topic control, and
interruptions. Friendly talk among equals is more likely to be characterised by
utterance completions, latchings and casual overlaps. In sum, speech analysists
agree that the power semantics is realised in assymetry in speech choices,
while the solidarity semantics is characterised by greater linguistic
reciprocity. (O’Donnell, 1990,p. 211)
The
activity, attitude, questions and compensation of talk show hosts is their
alternative tool of problem-solving. In this case, compensation means when the
hosts try to discuss the concerned people’s personal problems from a different
perspective.
In
practice, we could say that in Monika show, turn-taking is not interrupted when
she says or asks something. Only when the guests argue, comes up the case of disturbance.
The same is ture to Joshi Barat’s show: the host is never disturbed, however,
guests always tend to interrupt each other. In this way, power relation is
clearly expressed considering that the hosts are never interrupted but they can
do it with the guests. The two hosts’ compensation technique is very similar as
well. Monika and Joshi Barat both try to express the cases from the perspective
of the concerned guest but they also try to see the other relatives’ point of
view. They try to make all of the guests see the other people’s concerns and
perspectives. The general pattern is the host introduces the problem and then
invites the guests one by one. In Monika show,a particular case was the
following: a man broke up with her girlfirend but they had three children. They
broke up but the father is still not sure if he is the biological father of
those kids. The woman did not know it either because she had an affair with the
man’s cousin, who can be another optional father. The questions Monika asked
(picked out randomly from the show just to see where her questions led the
conversation) were the following:
So
Péter, you’re here because you don’t know if you’re the real father of the two
boys.
But
why don’t you know? Who do you think could be the other possible father?
What
if both/one/none of them is yours?
How
do you think it could be solved if they are not yours?
let’s
ask the mother as well.
Gabi,
how come Péter might not be the father of your children?
Why
did you do that?He said he loves you. I don’t understand then.
What
will be the next step?
We can see that the
activity and the tool of problem-solving is very nicely organized and includes
a lot of WH-questions.
In Joshi Barat, the
case and the technique was very similar but Joshi tended to emphasise the sense
of guilt in his conversations. The story was about a child not knowing who his
father is and the contemporary father refuses to take him as a son until he
knows the DNA result. The questions Joshi raised were the following:
Why
do you doubt he is yours?
What
we could see is from the perspective of a six-year-old boy. I don’t know if you
can picture yourself in his situation when he is told „You’re not my son.”.
A
little empathy?
What should a
six, seven or ten year-old boy do. He might not even comprehend it. He
might think”Why doesn’t he want to be my father?”. What do you think?
Let’s
ask the mother.
Szilvia,
why do you think Laci is suspicious about whether he is the father?
Laci,
proven that the child is yours, what are you going to do?
It’s
a case from which everyone should learn.
To
put it in a more statistic way, researhes show that in Monika show, in 60% of
the cases, the host did not use compensation and 18% of the time the host asked
detailed questions. However, in Joshi Barat, 54% of the time, the host asked
direct and detailed questions and 20% of the time, no compensation was needed.
In this aspect, Joshi Barat proved to be more active. Naturally, considering
the most common topics, both hosts were active, but Monika always stayed
restrained even with topics, such as partner searching, matrimonial or other
family issues and sexual faithfullness. The language used in these shows were diverse
as well. According to researches, it is shown that in Monika show, 30% of the
guests use simple and shallow language and behaved agressively while in Joshi
Barat this number was zero.
To
sum up, Hungarian shows follow the regular pattern of turn-taking, except when
guests argue in which case interruptions are very frequent. Considering this
fact, power relations are obviously expressed. The hosts compensation is almost
the same and direction of their dialogues have a very effective problem-solving
result.
References
Carnel,J. (2011-2012). Aspects of Talk Show Interaction: The
Jonathan Ross Show and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Ghent, Ghent
University.
Jeffries,L., &
McIntyre,D. (2010). Stilistics. Cambridge,Cambridge
University Press.
Hutchby,I., &
Wooffitt,R. (2008). Conversation
Analysis(2). Cambridge, Polity Press.
O’Donnell,
K. (1990). Difference and dominance: how
labor and management talk conflict. Cambridge, Cambridge Univesity Press.
Penz,
H. (1996). Language and control in
American TV talk shows, an analysis of linguistic strategies. Gunter Narr
Verlag Tübingen.
Sacks,H., &
Schegloff,E.A., & Jefferson,G. (1974). A
Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn-Taking for Conversation: Language.
Vol.50. Retrieved from
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0097-8507%28197412%2950%3A4%3C696%3AASSFTO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-R
Szabó,D. (2010). A Magyar, a Lengyel és a Német Talkshow-k
Összehasonlító Tartalomelemzése. Budapest, Műegyetemi Kiadó.
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