| The Oprah Winfrey Show is the most famous TV talk show in America. SinceSeptember1986, this program has played up to more than3,000episodes, rankingthe first of the same type for18consecutive years and playing in100countries andregions. Taking five transcripts (King of Pop—Michael Jackson; BrokebackMountain; Simon Crowell; Twilight; Richey Martin) from the show as the researchsubject, and with Sack’s classic turn-taking pattern as the theoretical basis, thisthesis probes to verify whether this pattern could be suitable for the Oprah Show,with the focus on analyzing the differences of turn-taking strategies used by thehostess and guests and explaining the influencing pragmatic factors for differentstrategies. This thesis will also use Chi-square test of SPSS19.0to verify thedifferent distribution of turn-taking strategies adopted by Oprah and guestsThe study result shows:(1) Sacks’ turn-taking pattern could be applied in theOprah Show;(2) Turn-holding and turn-yielding are the most frequently strategiesused by Oprah and guests, totally accounts for more than90%. The differences ofturn-holding and turn-yielding strategies adopted by the hostess and guests aresignificant;(3) The differences of the four sub-strategies of turn-claiming are notsignificant, which shows that both Oprah and guests used the strategy least becauseit is impolite and inappropriate to claim a turn;(4) Grice’s Cooperative Principle,Leech’s Polite Principle and Brown&Levinson’s Face Theory are the main factorsin these differences of the hostess Oprah and her guests.Such findings will be of value to better analyze the conversation rule of TVtalk shows, provide further reference for the comparative research between thedomestic and foreign talk shows and provide better guidance for other talk shows,let hostess have more wonderful words, skillfully yield his turn and timely givefeedback without deviating from the topic so that the audience could betterunderstand and appreciate TV talk shows. |
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