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See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/289370357 Talk Shows Article · December 2006 DOI: 10.1016/B0-08-044854-2/00357-6 CITATIONS READS 24 4,774 1 author: Cornelia Ilie Malmö University 57 PUBLICATIONS 476 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects: Parenthetically Speaking: Parliamentary Parentheticals as Rhetorical Strategies View project All content following this page was uploaded by Cornelia Ilie on 09 December 2018. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. Provided for non-commercial research and educational use only. Not for reproduction or distribution or commercial use This article was originally published in the Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics, Second Edition, published by Elsevier, and the attached copy is provided by Elsevier for the author's benefit and for the benefit of the author's institution, for non- commercial research and educational use including without limitation use in instruction at your institution, sending it to specific colleagues who you know, and providing a copy to your institution’s administrator. All other uses, reproduction and distribution, including without limitation commercial reprints, selling or licensing copies or access, or posting on open internet sites, your personal or institution’s website or repository, are prohibited. For exceptions, permission may be sought for such use through Elsevier's permissions site at: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/permissionusematerial Ilie C (2006), Talk Shows. In: Keith Brown, (Editor-in-Chief) Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics, Second Edition, volume 12, pp. 489-494. Oxford: Elsevier. Talk Shows 489 Talk Shows C Ilie,O¨ rebro University, O¨ rebro, Sweden all-news radio programs, which were intended as ß 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. services to the listening community rather than sta- tions in the traditional sense. Since the listeners were potential customers, controversial and sensationa- Introduction lized talk soon developed to attract them. ‘Confron- The talk show is a highly confrontational discursive talk’ (Hutchby, 1996) became a syndicated television genre, a widely influential media phenomenon, as talk genre in the 1960s. well as a politically and morally controversial Phil Donahue was the first to adapt the audience form of entertainment. Few discursive practices of participation talk show (also termed ‘‘audience dis- popular broadcast culture have been more conten- cussion program’’ and ‘‘studio debate program’’) tious and subject to cultural and scholarly examina- from radio to television in 1967. His show initiated tion in recent years than the talk show, particularly what is known today as daytime talk show or tabloid the television talk show. talk show. This format was consolidated by Oprah The very notion of talk show raises issues Winfrey from 1984 as a sort of modern update of concerning the boundaries between talk (prototypi- women’s service magazines in the late 19th century cally dialogical) and show (prototypically monolo- in that it often tackles women’s issues and targets gical), between public and private, between mainly an audience of housewives. American talk collective and personal experience, between exper- shows such as Oprah Winfrey, Ricki Lake, and tise and experience, between interpersonal and Montel Williams have been gradually exported to mass communication, between information and en- the U.K., to several European countries, and to most tertainment, between discrete and overlapping iden- countries in South America. As a result of an increas- tities (‘me,’ ‘you,’ ‘us,’ ‘them’). According to Munson ing decentralization of the media, a transition from (1993), the term ‘talk show’ combines two different, debate programs to talk shows occurred in Europe in often contradictory, rhetorical paradigms by associat- the 1980s. ing interpersonal conversation (belonging to the pre-modern oral tradition) with the mass-mediated Defining Talk Shows spectacle (emerging in modernity). As a result, a pub- There are three main reasons why it is a very chal- lic-colloquial language (Leech, 1966) has developed, lenging task to define talk shows: they represent rap- which is modeled in varying ways upon the practices idly changing hybrid media phenomena, they display of conversational speech, through a process of ‘con- intertextuality through overlaps with other media- versationalization’ of public discourse (Fairclough, tized forms of talk, and they endlessly reconstruct 1995). themselves by violating and transgressing their own discursive conventions. The talk show displays a hy- Brief Historical Survey brid broadcast discourse in which patterns of com- municative and social behavior can be associated The talk show is a modern Anglo-Saxon institution with more than one discourse type, through overlaps that may be seen to echo certain pre-modern socio- with other mediatized forms of talk, such as inter- cultural practices of purposeful conversation. views, debates, sitcoms, game shows, and quiz shows. According to Burke (1993: 114–115) 16th century To capture its distinctive features it is essential to Italy had the academy, a discussion group for intel- explore the sociocultural environment and the con- lectuals, with fixed membership and fixed days for textual factors that generated it and that continue meetings. The 17thAuthor's century saw the emergence ofPersonal its to shape it. The latter areCopy principally the television French counterpart, the salon, a semi-formal social show format, setting, time frame, and goal; the show occasion organized by a hostess, normally once a host’s personal profile, agenda, and general orienta- week, for a mixture of ladies and men of letters. In tion; the participants’ backgrounds, goals, and their England, the equivalent social institutions flourished relations. in the 18th century in the form of the more informal In talk shows the interpersonal talk is geared to coffee-house, the assembly, and the club. public debate using partly conversational, partly The origin of talk shows was tracked down by institutional discursive conventions and strategies, Munson as early as the 1930s when interactive talk which involves blurring the boundaries between radio started to emerge in the United States and lis- traditional dichotomies, such as public vs. private, teners were invited to phone in. Two particular collective vs. personal experience, expertise vs. ex- formats developed in the 1960s, namely all-talk and perience. This is why the talk show discourse was Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics (2006), vol. 12, pp. 489–494 490 Talk Shows labeled quasi-conversational by Gregori-Signes features that single out talk shows as a broadcaster- (2000b), and semi-institutional by Ilie (1999, 2001). controlled, host-monitored, participant-shaped, and Talk shows display a certain gradation of discursive audience-evaluated speech event. The institutional features in terms of institutionalization, with conver- prerequisites of the talk show underpin its situational sational features at the informal end of the speech and discursive constraints. The situational con- continuum, and institutional features at the formal straints concern talk-related restrictions, such as end. Depending on the personality of the show host, time restrictions and agenda restrictions, speaker- the nature of the topic, the general background and selection restrictions and turn-taking restrictions. views of the participants, as well as the type of audi- The discursive constraints are reflected in talk-framing ence, talk show participants combine spontaneous patterns, such as the predetermined topic schedule, and purposeful talk, non-institutional and institu- conventionalized beginnings and closings, as well as tional roles, non-controlled and host-controlled talk, recurrent breaks. The semi-institutional aspect of talk interlocutor-oriented, message-oriented, and multiple shows is manifested in less predictable topic and audience-oriented talk (Ilie, 2001). subtopic shifts, interruptions, unprompted partici- pant interventions, audience-oriented repetitions and Characteristic Features of Talk Shows audience-oriented questions. The hybrid nature of the talk show can profitably Characteristically, talk shows bring together, through be examined by adopting a comparative perspective the mediation of a host, a guest panel (experts and lay since they exhibit both conversational features (be- participants), a studio audience and occasionally an longing to non-institutional discourse, such as regular audience of ‘callers.’ The following are some of the conversation) and institutional features (belonging key features of talk shows: to institutional discourse, such as news interviews and public debates), as indicated in Table 1. The 1. As audience-oriented mediatized events, talk recurrence and distribution of the two sets of features shows target simultaneously a multiple audience vary according to the particular framing of each talk made up of the directly addressed audience of show, including the personalities and life-roles of the interlocutors, the on-looking studio audience, show guests, the charisma and authority of the show and the overhearing audience of TV-viewers. host, and the expectations raised by the particular 2. Both experts and lay people are often present as character of the show in question. show guests. Much of the program’s focus has to In strictly