Practices of Delivering Dispreferred Responses in English Talk Show Interaction
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1102.07Keywords:
dispreferred responses, talk show, conversation analysisAbstract
English talk shows have attracted a large group of audience with their humorous and relaxing features and these programmes are not only entertaining but also information-oriented, so the smooth progression of host-guest interaction is very important for producers, interactants, and the audience. However, the fact is that talk show interactants do not always construct their turns with collaborative efforts and the presence of dispreferred responses is not rare. With the data collected from ten episodes of Conan, the practices of delaying the occurrences of dispreferred responses and the practices of blurring them are generalized. The exploration of some possible causes of delivering dispreferred responses can lead to the conclusion that instead of being made arbitrarily, dispreferred responses could be delivered for lack of relevant knowledge, out of the consideration of modesty, and so on. Therefore, dispreferred responses are not definitely destructive to smooth communication and social solidarity since various devices can be used to mitigate the force of dispreferred responses and minimize potential threats to the face of interlocutors.
References
Atkinson, J. M. & Heritage, J. (1984). Structures of social action: Studies in conversation analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bilmes, J. (1988). The concept of preference in conversation analysis. Language in Society, 17(2), 161-181.
Drew, P. (2004). Conversation analysis. In K. L. Fitch & R. E. Sanders (Eds.), Handbook of language and social interaction (pp. 71-102). London: Psychology Press.
Englert, C. (2010). Questions and responses in Dutch conversations. Journal of Pragmatics, 42(10), 2666-2684.
Heritage, J. (1984). Garfinkel and ethnomethodology. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Hutchby, I. & Wooffitt, R. (1998). Conversation analysis. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Molenaar, N. J. & Smit, J. H. (1996). Asking and answering yes/no-questions in survey interviews: A conversational approach. Quality & Quantity, 30(2), 115-136.
Park, Y. (1998). A discourse analysis of contrastive connectives in English, Korean, and Japanese conversation: With special reference to the context of dispreferred responses. In A. H. Jucker & Y. Ziv. (Eds.), Discourse markers: Descriptions and theory (pp. 277-300). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Pomerantz, A. (1978). Compliment responses: Notes on the co-operation of multiple constraints. In J. Schenkein (Ed.), Studies in the organization of conversational interaction (pp. 79-112). New York, NY: Academic Press.
Pomerantz, A. (1984). Agreeing and disagreeing with assessments: Some features of preferred/dispreferred turn shape. In J. M. Atkinson, & J. C. Heritage (Eds.), Structures of social action: Studies in conversation analysis (pp. 57-101). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pomerantz, A. & Heritage, J. (2013). Preference. In J. Sidnell & T. Stivers (Eds.), The handbook of conversation analysis (pp. 210-228). Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Rees-Miller, J. (2000). Power, severity, and context in disagreement. Journal of Pragmatics, 32(8), 1087-1111.
Schegloff, E. A. (1990). On the organization of sequences as a source of “coherence” in talk-in-interaction. In R. Freedle (Ed.). Conversational organization and its development (pp. 51-77). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Schegloff, E. A. (2007). Sequence organization in interaction: A primer in conversation analysis (Vol. 1). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tanaka, H. (2005). Grammar and the “timing” of social action: Word order and preference organization in Japanese. Language in Society, 34(3), 389-430.
Tanaka, H. (2008). Delaying dispreferred responses in English: From a Japanese perspective. Language in Society, 37(4), 487-513.
Waring, H. Z. (2012). Doing disaffiliation with now-prefaced utterances. Language & Communication, 32(3), 265-275.
Yu, G. & Wu, Y. (2015). Managing awkward, sensitive, or delicate topics in (Chinese) radio medical consultations. Discourse Processes, 52(3), 201-225.
