A Contrastive Analysis Of Conversation Structure Between Chinese And English Blind-Date TV Programs

Based on the theory of conversation structure analysis which was set up by Sacks and his colleges, this thesis chose two reality TV programs from home and abroad, namely If You Are and Take Me Out as the objects of the research to compare the differences of the two programs, both from local structure and from overall structure of the conversation. The study of this thesis mainly focuses on the analysis of conversation local structure including Turn-taking mechanism, Feedback, Adjacency pair, Repair mechanism and conversation overall structure such as opening and closing. Then analysis the conversation differences in different cultural context.About the sequential analysis of conversation, the study shows that the conversation between the hosts and the guests follows the sequence of I-R-F, namely initiation move, response move and follow-up move. Furthermore, the host controls the initiation move and follow-up move, so as to control the rhythm of conversation.The overall structure of conversation is clear which contains an obvious opening, the main body and the closing. This chapter mainly talks in two aspects:the opening and the closing. The opening part includes the background introduction and exchange of greetings between the hosts and the guests; the complete closing part should transmit naturally from the body part.The local structure of conversation is the body of a reality show which consists of turns between the hosts and the guests and "question-answer" is the main form of it. The local structure have several subordinate themes that support the main theme, Turn-taking mechanism, Feedback, Adjacency pair, Repair mechanism.The hosts play the leading role in the show:controlling the conversation development of the show, leading the guests to talk, allotting the turns appropriately, making some necessary repairs and giving feedback to the guest's speech in time.Cultural context plays a very important role in the conversation of communication; Chinese culture and British culture belong to different cultural types. Chinese culture is high-context culture but British culture is low-context. The thesis discusses it in three aspects:Directness versus Indirectness, Individual Initiative versus Collective Initiative, and Hierarchy versus Equality.The results of this paper realize the similarities and the differences between Chinese reality show and British reality show. Meanwhile the culture also has a great influence on the conversation structure.