Move and Act Analysis of Discourse in Talk Show

王慧盛（浙江金融職業學院 浙江 杭州 310018）

0 Introduction

Sinclair and Coulthard (1975)have proposed a descriptive framework for analyzing spoken discourse,using classroom data as a starting point.They borrowed the concept of a rank scale from Halliday’s(1961)descriptive units at the grammatical level,and suggest the following descriptive units:act,move,exchange,transaction and lesson.These units are ordered in a hierarchical manner:acts combine to form moves,moves combine to form the exchanges,exchanges to form transactions,and transactions to form the lessons.

The talk show on TV is special kind of conversation,in which there is usually a topic for the participants,turn taking and ranks mentioned above,so we can see that one talk show is a complete text.The talk show is worth our attention to analysis.

This paper will focus on one aspect of the framework,i.e.the act part of the host discourse,in the analysis of the talk show.The data for analysis in this paper are two talk shows in CCTV-2 program the Dialogue:one is對話UPS(Dialogue with the UPS),the other is再造惠普 (to Create a New HP),which is quite familiar to many of us.

1 Acts structural analysis in talk show

According to Sinclair and Coulthard (1975),the units at the lowest level of the discourse are acts,which are characterized according to their function in the discourse.Based on this view, “…the discourse value of an item depends on what linguistic items have preceded it,what are expected to follow,and what to follow(ibid.:34)”.Look at the following example:

Host:Mr.Eskew,you once delivered the package,and did you drive to do it by yourself?)

Mr.Eskew:I did deliver the package.I never did it very well.The real driver do much better than I.

Host:So you did not quite well in delivering.Did you ever deliver the package out of schedule?

This is a typical dialogue or talk show exchange.According to Sinclair and Coulthard,it is made up of three moves:an initiating move from the host,a responding move from the guest,and a follow-up move from the host.The initiating and the responding move is very typical in the talk show,as the talk show is kind of conversation with the feature of turn taking.However,the follow-up move hardly ever occurs.Only in minimal ritual encounters,or in extended formal talk,or among people acting our classroom situations,can this be seen as recurrent feature(Goffman,1971).The host’s initiating move in the example is made up of three acts:a question,“did you drive to do it by yourself?”;a statement, “You once delivered the package”;a nomination, “Mr.Eskew”.So a move may be made up of more than one act.The responding and follow-up moves,however,are each made up of one act.

As the special status occupied by the host in the talk show:the guide or the conductor,the initiating move in the talk show attach great importance in the process of the talk show.There are three major acts that probably occur in host’s initiating move:elicitation,directive,and informative.

2 Elicitation

The term elicitation is first introduced by Sinclair and Coulthard to describe utterances in the classroom that elicit a verbal response.They write:An elicitation is an act the function of which is to request a linguistic response—linguistic,although the response may be a non-verbal surrogate such as a nod or raised hand.(Sinclair and Coulthard,1975:28)

Utterances,which realize this act,have often been referred to as “questions” in the linguistic and speech act literature(Tusi,2000).In the talk show,the host employs this act much more for the sake of smooth flow of interaction than those two other acts.The term elicitation used in this paper as a discourse category to describe any utterance,both inside and outside the classroom,which functions to elicit an obligatory response or its non-verbal action.Here follows four kinds of elicitations will be indentified according to responses prospected.

2.1 Elicit:nomination

This is a very simple kind of act,usually in the form of name or address name or pronouns.An example here follows:Mr.Eskew,you once delivered the package.Here “Mr.Eskew”is the nomination act.This kind of act usually indicates to nominate the addressee to answer the question or request of the talk show host.

2.2 Elicit:inform

Inform is a kind of act which invites the addressee to supply a piece of information.Example:

Host:After emerging of two companies,have you met the CEOes of Dell and SUN?Have you?

Carly:The IT business is a small world,I always have the chances to meet and talk to them.

In the example,the host’s utterance is asking for a piece of missing information and seeking further information that are concerned to both of them.

2.3 Elicit:confirm

This kind of act is to invite the addressee to confirm the speaker’s assumption.This subclass can be fulfilled by the tag interrogative questions,declaratives,and positive and negative polar interrogatives.Through the tactic of this kind,the host can reduce the distance between him/her and the addressee.(Tusi,2000:82).

Host:Do you think she is cute?

Audience:Of course,she is a man-killer.

In the example,the host expects the audience’s positive answer and the audience confirms the host’s question.In addition,the declaratives can be used as this act as we mentioned.

Host:…So when I see you,I feel like we were sisters.Carly:OK,Sister Anna.

2.4 Elicit:commit

There is yet another kind of elicitation which is different from the above three subclasses in that,in addition to a verbal response,it also elicits some kind of commitment.

Host:Thanks.Ms Carolina,at the moment of your sitting down,I’d like to tell you a Chinese fairy story.Would you like to give the ear?

Carly:Sure,I like Chinese fairy tale.

So this kind of elicitation not only invites an obligatory response,but also invites commitment on addressee’s part to further interaction.This kind bears strong similarity to the request in the sense that if responded with positive answer,further interaction is possible;if not,next exchange will have its way.

In the talk show,the host usually designs and conducts the guest to proceed,so that he/she can make sure the dialogue can go smoothly and successfully.Through all kinds of elicitations,the host gives the appropriate and effective question or request to bridge the gap between the host and the quest.

3 Directives

Directive act is kind of act realized by command.Its function is to request a non-linguistic response (Sinclair and Coulthard,1975:41).But there is an interesting problem of overlap between directive and elicitation (Burton,1980:132).Look at the following example:

Host:We have talked so much,let us take a break.We’d like to invite Mr.Eskew to watch the big board together.

In one sense,it is clearly an elicitation to expect a positive answer from the guest;in another sense,it is a request for a non-verbal response to see the big board.In the talk show,the relationship between the host and guest is not similar to the teacher and the students as Sinclair and Coulthard suggested.The teacher and the students have a larger power distance than the host and the guest do.So in the talk show,the frequency rate of the directives is much less than the elicitations.

There are two major subclasses of the directives employed in the talk show:

3.1 Advisives

Advisives are acts which advocate a course of action for the benefit of the addressee,and in which the consequence of compliance is desirable.

Host:Why the door of the garage is only slightly open?There is kind of something rushing out,why not open it completely?

Carly:Sometimes imagination is more inspiring.People can imagine.

Actually,the host is giving an advice or a piece of suggestion to the host while eliciting a response from the host,in this way she/he gives a comfortable atmosphere.The advisives func-tion as a question to elicit the guest or the audience’s feeling for the subject matter.Sometimes in talk show,the host intentionally gives an unreasonable advice or suggestion to achieve the pleasant and casual atmosphere,which then can ease the dull and aggressive tone of the host.

3.2 Mandatives

Mandatives are directives by which the speaker attempts to get the addressee to perform,or to refrain from performing,an action for the benefit of the speaker himself(Tusi,2000:127).According to the Tusi,mandatives can be sub-classified into instructions,threats,etc.In talk shows,we rarely see the threats and warning mandatives since the talk show is shown to the public and is very formal.More often,what we see in talk show is in the form of instructions:

Host:Before your arrive here,we did a small investigation among the audiences,one of whom,Mr.Ju,is very optimistic about your company’s acquisition;another one of whom,Mr.Yue,is cautiously optimistic about the acquisition.Mr.Ju,could you first give your opinion on your optimism?

Usually the host employs this act to interact with the guest and the audience to encourage the audience and the guest to participate the topic-talk more actively.

4 Informative

The term informative is first introduced by Sinclair and Coulthard as a category that has the function of providing information and prospects an acknowledgement of attention and understanding (Sinclair and Coulthard,1975:41).This paper adopts Tusi’s idea of informative that covers not only utterances that provides information,but also those,which report events or states of affairs,recount personal experience and express beliefs,evaluative judgments,feelings,and thoughts.Both the host and the guest employ this kind of act,but the guest in the talk show will show more affection for this act due to the characterization of the talk show,i.e.elicitation by the host,and the response by the host.The response part is usually more informative than the elicitation part.

4.1 Reports

A report gives a certain account of the event,states of affairs,or personal experience in the past,present and future.

Host:A month ago a cute lady did what most people thought not a smart thing,i.e.the merging of the HP and Compaq.

In this example,the host gives the account of the merging of the two companies as the opening stage to draw attention of the attention.In the talk show,many occasions see that the opening stage goes the way of employing the reports.A report can be responded to by a message-received signal which is typically prefaced by “oh” (Tusi,2000:138).As Heritage(1984)points out, “oh” marks the receipt of information delivered in the previous utterance.

Audience:Oh,she is perfect.

Actually,the audience’s answer “oh” is a response to the reports from the host for further confirmation of the host’s information.In addition,there is some overlap between the reports and the elicitation as you can see that most of the host’s utterance is to lead the guest and audience to go further.

4.2 Assessments

Assessements are a subclass of informatives in which the speaker asserts his judgment or evaluation of certain people,objects,events,states of affairs,and so on.According to Tusi,local items such as “good”, “scholarly” and so forth,can convey the evaluative element.

Audience:Oh,she is perfect.

In the example,the audience also gives the evaluation“she is perfect” of the guest apart from “oh” to confirm the host’s information.

Tusi gives the features of five sub-classes of the assessments:

In talk show,most of the acts fall into addressee-directed to give the positive compliment rather than the negative criticism,and often the speaker gives neither speaker or addressee directed assessing.

Host:His answer,is to be a combination of a lion and a camel,more a lion.So we can have the spirit of the lion’s aggressiveness and camel’s perseverance.

Carly:This is not a beautiful picture,but I like the metaphor.

In this example,both the host and the guest give the assessments.And the guest’s response is slightly downgrading the evaluation given by the host.Sometimes the upgrade of the evaluation is necessary,while sometimes only the confirmation of the evaluation has the way.This is one of the features of the talk show;kinds of assessments are interweaving to add more color of the talk show to draw the attention of the audiences.When giving the assessments,the host and the guest should take the context into consideration to avoid the offence to the audience to the addressee(Sheng,2004).

5 Conclusion

This paper mainly talks about three major acts of host discourse in the talk show:the elicitations,the informatives and the assessments.As a special kind of conversation,the talk show has its own features in term of act.As the host of the talk show,he or she dominates the whole process of the talk show with the form of elicitation,informative and directive acts on a fixed topic.With these acts,the host can achieve a better effect and create a more pleasant and comfortable live air.

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