A Contrastive Study Of Conversation Structure In Chinese And American TV Talk Shows

TV talk show originated in Am erica in 1954.Because of its relaxing and hum orous style,it has becom e a major m ethod of mass communication rapidly.There are plenty of TV talk shows in America now,among which Ellen Show is one of the most popular ones.The rapid popularity of TV ta lk show has aroused the at tention of m any a scholar,especially in the field of li nguistics.One of the m ost outstanding studies is the one conducted by scholars with the help of convers ation analysis put forward by Sacks in the 1960 s.With the development of Chinese economy and the implementation of the reform and opening-up policy,China has enhanced the co mmunication with the western cou ntries.Thus,the TV talk show was also brought into China and m any TV talk shows have appeared since then,am ong which A Date with Luyu,hosted by Chen Luyu,has become one of the most famous ones.With the enhanced communication,the conversation analysis theory has also been brought into Chinese li nguistic field in the 1980 s.Hereafter,the Chinese scholars have conducted so many studies that many outstanding results have been obtained.Based on the above m entioned background,the present thesis will analyze the data from the Ellen Show and A Date with Luyu by using the theories of turn,conversation repair and adjacency p air from the conversation analysis theory in order to find ou t the differences between English conversation stru cture and C hinese conversation structure.And the reasons for the differences will be explained from the perspective of intercultural communication as well.By studying the language data selected from Ellen Show and A Date with Luyu,the author has already observed plenty of differen ces existing in the conve rsation structure of English and Chinese.The differences m anifest themselves both in the macro conversation structure and the micro conversation structure,especially the micro ones.A case in point is the interruptions appearing in the data.The interruptions in Ellen Show appear much more frequently than that in A Date with Luyu.More im portantly,the tim es of successful interruptions initiated by guests is much more than those in A Date with Luyu,which can be explained by the intercultural comm unication theory of power distance.In addition to the power distance,the author has already em ployed other theories,taking the uncertainty avoidance for example,to explain the other differences found in the conversation structure of English and Chinese.Due to the lim ited number of data and the restriction of data source,the pres ent research cannot avoid obtaining limitations and weaknesses,which in return have provided the following scholars with som e study direct ions,for example,the studied data which would be selected and the domain where the data can be obtained.