Pragmatic Functions Of The Non-Standard Question In American TV Talk Shows

With pragmatic theories as the theoretical foundation, this study is conducted on the exploration of the pragmatic function of the non-standard questions in the American TV talk shows. This thesis investigates30episodes of TV talk shows extracted from three major talk shows in America. Based on the fact that the pragmatic function of these questions in talks within a certain group of guests seems to show similar features, the author divides the guests into two groups:the group of entertainers and the group of VIPs. Most of the studies that have been done on talk shows were from the perspective of the conversational analysis or institutional power distribution. However, the function of non-standard questions in talk show, which has not yet received enough attention should obviously not to be neglected.After a thorough investigation of the two data bases, the author finds out that the pragmatic functions of the non-standard questions in the two groups are different. There are seven pragmatic functions in the entertainer group, while there are only four of them shown in the VIP group. Even for those shared functions, the frequency is different in these two groups. Further, the author concludes that talk show though agreed to be a semi-institutional talk, still has feature differences according to different topics and guests. As for the two groups studied by this thesis, the features of the entertainer group are more close to those of conversational talk, while the features of the VIP group are more close to those of institutional talk. The author hopes this study can work as a springboard for the future exploration in this perspective.