Interruption Strategies In Institutional Discourse

Speech interruption is a common phenomenon in conversation.This speech act seems to be inconsistent with the general cooperative principle and politeness principle,but it actually reflects the speaker’s special speech strategy.Televised debate is a special institutional discourse.There have been few studies of its interruption strategies over the years.This study collects all the dialogue materials in the first televised debates of the 2016 presidential election of the United States,focusing on the interruption strategies used by the two party candidates and the host,and classifies and summarizes these interruptions.In this study,discourse analysis is used as a guide,combined with critical discourse analysis theory,to discuss various strategies and specific features of interruption.It discusses how the interruption signals---the discourses markers help debate participants successfully implement interruption strategies and adjust their power.This thesis analyzes the interruption strategies of the candidates and the host to examine the purpose of the speakers in the United States presidential candidates’ debate.This study will also explore whether gender differences affect speaker’s interruption frequency,and combine pragmatic principles and politeness principles,so as to make a pragmatic analysis of host’s speech interruption.Based on the above research,the author hopes to enrich the research of interruption strategies in institutional discourse.In the special context of the televised debate,the use of appropriate interruption strategies can achieve the purpose of communication and can also be used for reference to people’s daily communication.