Pragmatic Analysis Of TV Talk Show

With the continuous progress of science, technology and the times, the spiritual requirements of people are also increasing gradually, so in order to meet the needs of audience, a variety of entertainment TV programs have came into being, such as TV talk show, reality talent show and contest show. Among different kinds of TV entertainment programs, TV talk show's uniqueness lies in its fancy language, that is, improvisation and special personal characteristics of the host (assistant host), guest and audience, more than that, the language is often imitated and handed down in daily communication. In western countries, talk show is a video column as well as a kind of hosting style. In China, TV talk show started later than that in Europe and the United States. After CCTV launched Straight Talk in the mid-1990s, many TV stations have also put forward other new types of talk show one by one.Every utterance has a certain pragmatic meaning no matter how wonderful it is, and the ultimate purpose is for communication, so TV talk show is no exception. However, so far, the number of systematic and comprehensive articles of the pragmatic research on TV talk show are rare, and they seldom summarize the pragmatic strategies as well. Taking the characteristics of TV talk show into account and from the perspective of pragmatics, this thesis is based on the corpus of two latest talk show programs in China and America named Jin Xing Show and Conan Show, and the purposes of this study are as follows:1. On the basis of pragmatic theory, the thesis is to study TV talk show in detail from the perspective of Speech Act Theory, Conversational Implicature (Cooperative Principle) and Politeness Principle, and then try to find out its pragmatic features and functions.2. Through the pragmatic analysis of the corpus of Jin Xing Show in China and Conan Show in America, this paper intends to prove the feasibility of pragmatic theory in the analysis of the language in TV talk show.3. By specific pragmatic analysis, and finally to sum up some pragmatic strategies corresponding to the basic pragmatic theories which can demonstrate the scientific effectiveness of pragmatics in practice and theory, and to provide reference for the daily language exchanges.This thesis is organized in six chapters. Chapter one is a brief introduction to the research content, including the research background, significance, data collection, methodology and layout of the thesis. Chapter two is about the literature review, mainly including the TV talk show, the development of pragmatics and the current situation of domestic and foreign research on TV talk show. Chapter three introduces the theoretical framework of this study, including three basic theories of pragmatics, namely, Speech Act Theory, Conversational Implicature (Cooperative Principle) and Politeness Principle Theory. In chapter four, the author uses the three basic theories of pragmatics to analyze the corpus of the latest Chinese and American TV talk shows Jin Xing Show and Conan Show. Based on the vivid analysis of the data, chapter five summarizes the pragmatic strategies corresponding to the three basic theories of pragmatics. Chapter six is the summary of the major findings and limitations of the thesis, and puts forward suggestions for further research.Through analysing and studying, the major findings of this thesis are concluded as follows:In the first place, TV talk show programs usually cover the improvisation and reflection of personal characteristics, and by doing this research, the author finds that the changes of speech acts of the host and guest are frequent and irregular which contain the locutionary act, illocutionary act and perlocutionary act. However, the one with great research significance is illocutionary act which indirectly expresses the real purpose of the speaker.Furthermore, Cooperative Principle and Politeness Principle, with universal applicability, are still adapted in the study of TV talk show, whereas by the specific analysis of Jin Xing Show and Conan Show, there are cases in which the two pragmatic principles have been devalued and even violated by the host and guest of expressing certain implied meaning to achieve special communicative purpose.Moreover, although the host and guest possess distinct speaking styles, whether for Chinese or American TV talk show, one thing in common is the indirect expression of " implicature" in order to achieve the best communicative effect.Lastly, this paper summarizes the corresponding pragmatic strategies under the guidance of concrete data analysis and pragmatic theories, which provides a reference for the TV talk show and people's daily communication.To sum up, through the pragmatic analysis of the two latest TV talk shows, Jin Xing Show in China and Conan Show in America, this thesis finds out the pragmatic features of the language, and further concludes the pragmatic strategies corresponding to the basic theories of pragmatics to provide reference for communicators. On the pragmatic research of TV talk show, this paper is just a preliminary and tentative try. The author hopes this thesis can inspire more scholars'concerns and interests of this topic, and expects to promote further research and exploration, even to explore the mysteries of all kinds of languages.