Analysis Of Verbal Impoliteness In English TV Talent Shows Based On Adaptation Theory

Despite the fact that both politeness and impoliteness coexist in linguistic communication, they seem quite unequal in linguistic studies. Impoliteness is generally taken as the opposite side of politeness, and it also seems to attach itself to politeness in a subsidiary way by most researchers and is seldom studied specifically in language usage. Recently, some researchers have realized this problem and they have been calling for more attention on it. As the study of verbal impoliteness is still in its infancy and the available theories or relative researches are not watertight, much more efforts should be made.Based on the data collected from the two famous TV talent shows—American Idol and Britain’s Got Talent, the objective of the research is to investigate the verbal impoliteness conducted by both judges and contestants. Either theoretically or practically, this thesis is of great significance. On one hand, by a thorough and critical review of the previous studies on impoliteness, it attempts to enrich and extend the field of the study of impoliteness. On the other hand, it not only explores the reasons for the application together with the characteristics of verbal impoliteness in TV talent shows, but also summarizes its functions which can help people have a better understanding of various verbal impoliteness in talent shows.According to Verchueren’s general functional perspective on language, the function of language is actually a process of making choices on the basis of the three properties of language: variability, negotiability and adaptability, among which adaptability locates at the highest level of the three. To investigate adaptability in language use, Verchueren suggests that four angles should be taken into consideration, and they are contextual correlates of adaptability, structural objects of adaptability, dynamics of adaptability, salience of the adaptation process. As speech acts, impolite utterances are also produced and influenced by the contextual correlates and structural objects and hence the Adaptation Theory can be applied in the investigation of verbal impoliteness.Under the framework of Adaptation Theory, the thesis tries to research on verbal impoliteness in TV talent shows with several major findings as follows. Firstly, as a result of adaptability in communication, judges and contestants tend to take verbal impoliteness as communication strategies attempting to achieve their purposes. Secondly, adaptability in language use exerts much influence on the frequency, strategies, and causes of verbal impoliteness as well as language structures. Thirdly, verbal impoliteness in TV talent shows may occur at every possible linguistic level but is affected by the adaptability of language. Last but not the least, verbal impoliteness is conducted by judges much more frequently than that by contestants, because it can help keep solemnity and create humor which is important for world-widely broadcast TV talent shows.