Power Relation Between Host And Candidates In Job-hunting Reality Show Only You

Nowadays, TV reality show program has widely accepted by ordinary people, and hasbeen an important part of popular culture. As a social phenomenon, it reflects the socialdevelopment, and at the same time it is influenced by the society. Under the fierceemployment pressure, the Tianjin Television launched a new Job-hunting reality showprogram Only You, which provides a new and favorable platform for the job-hunters, andwhat’s more, they can show themselves in front of the stage. As the TV reality show is akind of media discourse, it bears some similarities with both institutional discourse anddaily conversation. To start from this point, we will study it from the perspective of CriticalDiscourse Analysis perspective (CDA) in the present study.This research starts with the following two questions:1) What is the power relationbetween the host and candidates in job-hunting reality show Only You?2) What are theways that the host and candidate exercise the power relation in job-hunting reality showOnly You? This research mainly adopts qualitative approach, such as the method ofdocumentary analysis, and the method of comparative study. The data in the present thesisare selected from sixteen episodes of Job-hunting reality show Only You broadcast fromOctober2010to June2013in which sixteen candidates are included. All video programsare downloaded from the Baidu video, and then are transcribed into text according totranscribing conventions.The study first introduces Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and defines the conceptof power and its relationship with discourse, based on Ruth Wodak’s Discourse-historicalApproach. The thesis interprets the discourse between host and the candidate asinterlocking and successive. Then the author uses the Conversation Analysis to reveal thehost Zhang Shaogang’s power relation towards the candidates through turn-taking strategy,initiating-turn strategy, adjacency pairs, and interruption and overlap. Finally, with the aidof Halliday’s systemic functional grammar, the study examines the host who is not alwaysthe more powerful part. Sometimes, the candidates become dominant, especially in theprocess of “Born talented” and “Talking about the salary without injury” stages, because oftheir professional knowledge. In so doing, this thesis discovers the asymmetrical anddynamic power relation hidden in Only You between the host and candidates.