A Comparative Analysis Of Metadiscourse In Chinese And American TV Interviews

Metadiscourse which refers to “discourse about discourse” is used to be an effective way of understanding language between speakers and receivers, representing a writer's or speaker's attempts to guide a receiver's perception of a text. Studies on metadiscourse have been paid more attention by scholars in the linguistic field in recent years. Researches mainly concentrate on the written texts instead of the spoken texts with regard to the empirical studies. However, studies on the integration of metadiscourse with the spoken text can be found rarely in the academic area. The program of TV interviews is one of the most representative spoken texts.On the basis of Hyland's Metadiscourse Model, this study evaluates the utilization of metadiscourse selected from the two programs of the TV interviews—A Date with Luyu and The Oprah Winfrey Show by adopting qualitative and quantitative approaches. The findings demonstrate that metadiscourse devices are used frequently in the TV interviews—A Date with Luyu and The Oprah Winfrey Show. The findings demonstrate that metadiscourse are used frequently in the TV interviews—A Date with Luyu and The Oprah Winfrey Show. The frequencies of using interactional metadiscourse are more than the frequencies of interactive metadiscourse in both of the TV interviews. Meanwhile, there are also some differences in using metadiscourse in these two TV interviews. In terms of the program of A Date with Luyu, there is a big difference of the frequencies in using interactional metadiscourse and interactive metadiscourse. However, the differences of the proportion in using interactional metadiscourse and interactive metadiscourse are very small. The author thinks that similarities are attributed to the pragmatic functions of metadiscourse, whereas the differences are led by thinking modes, cultural conventions, religious backgrounds and linguistic characteristics of English and Chinese in these two TV interviews. This study can enrich the research content of metadiscourse and extend the research area of metadiscourse to some extent. Additionally, it can provide a new perspective for the further study of TV interviews.