A Conversation Analysis Of Sensitive Talk In Chinese TV Talk Show

With the increased intensity of reform and opening up policy, new things and new ideas emerge endlessly, which will lead an increasingly less stressed social culture. This change allows people to communicate and talk about more extensive topics which are especially reflected in the TV talk shows. In order to provide a more extensive and convenient communication platform for general public, such programs like talk shows are introduced into interpersonal communication as a form of mass communication. Some sensitive topics are no longer gleaming but discussed with multi-levels and different points of view. Conflicts between different ideas and points of view have become increasingly fierce confrontation.With the approach of Conversation Analysis, this thesis analyzes the sequences of sensitive talks in Chinese TV talk shows. TV talk show is a sort of institutional interactions, at least semi-institutional interactions. Sequential patterns in institutional interactions involve discernible differences from ordinary conversation. The interaction in many institutional settings is characterized by question-answer sequences in which the questioner routinely makes some forms of response.With the help of the methodology of conversation analysis, the author has made a sequential analysis of the sensitive talk in Chinese TV talk shows through the data collected and transcribed, trying to answer the research questions proposed in the introduction chapter. We may draw the following conclusions:First, the construction of TV talk show is a kind of task-orientation that both the host and the guest routinely co-construct in routine ways. The talk show hosts always initiate the sensitive topics straightforwardly or with pre-sequences, because it is the hosts'task to ask guests about some specific questions and make their best to make the guest answer their questions more adequate and detailed. Second, when respond the sensitive questions, the guests usually initiate the dispreferred sequences in order to show their potential evasions or their hesitations of giving any further details. The devices are mainly three types:silence, initial-delay and question reformulation. They occur in the initial place of the guest's responding turn as a refuse or a preface to further talk. Third, the TV show host seems to be able to recognize the potential evasive import of certain question reformulations even as they are initiated. Countering a response in dispreferred organization, it is the host's turn to decide whether to pursue the original sensitive question or stop to initiate another topic.