Conversation Analysis Of Ellen Show

With more than 90 years’ development, talk show has already become popular and mature in TV media industry. Chiefly manifested in the form of face-to-face conversation between hosts and guests and characterized by its own distinctive conversation mechanism and regulations, talk show is a typical conversation form that has attracted attention of many linguistic scholars. Based on the Conversation Analysis theory(CA for short) proposed by Sacks and his associates, this thesis aims to investigate the conversation structure of the American popular TV program—Ellen Show which has rarely been analyzed from the perspective of linguistics by other researchers in the past few years. This thesis, drawing data from 40 episodes of Ellen Show, analyzes turn- controlling strategy and topic sequence organization.Conversation Analysis was created by Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson, etc. who conducted innovative research on conversation in 1960 s. At the beginning, conversation analysis focused on describing casual conversation which mainly refers to face-to-face talk and telephone calls. With the development of the study, Gail Jefferson established a set of transcription system which paves the way for researchers to carry out explicit and elaborate study in the future. Scholars wrote down detailed and meticulous records of conversation and then analyzed the meanings and functions of these words depending on their context and co-text. Based on new findings, they began to analyze and describe conversation structure in terms of turn-taking, sequence, repair. Conversation Analysis has grown increasingly sophisticated in recent years, making it popular and recognized in many fields. Turn-taking system and sequence organization are two important parts of this subject. Turn-taking system mainly includes turn, turn-construction component, turn-allocation component and turn-taking rules.This thesis will explore the turn- controlling strategy of Ellen Show according to Turn-taking system. Turn- controlling strategy refers to the strategies adopted by conversation participants to fight for, keep or give up floors. Sequence organization is a significant concept used to explain the organization model behind social interaction, involving adjacency pair, expansion and preference organization. In this thesis, the author investigates the topic sequence organization of Ellen Show which is rarely mentioned in previous studies and forms a five-step topic sequence organization.This thesis is composed of three parts: introduction, body and conclusion.The first part is the introduction to the thesis. It introduces the study of the Conversation Analysis Theory and that of talk show both at home and abroad. In addition, it also puts forward the realistic significance and innovation of the thesis.The second part is the main body of this thesis, which contains three chapters.Chapter One is literature review. The author gives a detailed description about Conversation Analysis Theory and talk show. The first sector is a general survey on Conversation Analysis Theory from the perspective of definition, history and key notions, laying a foundation for the following chapters. In the second sector, the author presents the definition, development and characteristics of talk show. Besides, the author also makes a brief introduction of Ellen Show.Chapter Two analyzes turn-controlling strategies in three aspects: turn-claiming, turn-holding and turn-yielding, and then summarizes what accounts for such a phenomenon. Through thorough analysis of the times and users of these strategies, the author summarizes the differences between the host and guest in employing these strategies due to their unbalanced status in the program.Chapter Three probes into the adjacency pair and topic sequence organization of Ellen Show. As a fundamental unit for analyzing conversation construction, adjacency pair plays an essential role in Conversation Analysis. In this part, the author mainly explores the type of adjacency pair commonly seen in talk show as well as types of expansion, which are also beneficial for researchers to have a deeper insight on the topic sequence organization of conversation. Sequence Organization is another central point in Conversation Analysis, yet it has rarely been studied in the past decades. Based on 40 episodes of Ellen Show, the author in this thesis summarizes the topic sequence organization in five steps: topic initiation, topic reaction, topic establishment, topic development and topic closure; which helps us to realize that the seemingly disordered conversation is actually governed by some rules, thus explaining the popularity of the program.The third part is the conclusion. The author makes a conclusion on this study and puts forward the findings and weaknesses of this thesis, hoping this study can shed some light on further study.Through the analysis of turn-taking strategies and the sequence organization of Ellen Show, this thesis aims to gain a deeper understanding on the nature of interactions in TV talk shows and to provide new insights into the audience’s comprehension and appreciation of such programs. In addition, it facilitates the usage of language skills for other TV shows to interest audience.