Conversation Analysis of British and American Entertainment TV Talk-Shows: A Comparative Study

Abstract

This study endeavors to present the contrastive analysis of the conversational process of TV entertainment talk shows between two native English countries. The analysis focuses on the way of using conversational aspects such as turn-taking, response tokens and topic organization by native English speakers and the purposes to be achieved through these conversational aspects during the interaction on the TV talk shows. The data are taken from two talk shows one from UK and one from USA; one full episode of The Graham Norton Show (UK) and one full episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (USA). Mixed-methods approach is applied to find the difference regarding the use and purpose of using these conversational aspects by native English speakers including the host and guest(s) of both of the shows. Turn-taking and response tokens are analyzed quantitatively to differentiate between the conversational processes in terms of frequency in the use of these aspects in the shows understudy by dividing the episode into its beginning, middle and ending sections. In the qualitative analysis section topic organization, turn-taking and response token are analyzed to find out various purposes behind the use of these conversational aspects in both of the shows understudy. The findings reveal that in both of the shows the same conversational aspects were used to achieve same purposes but in a different manner in order to make the conversation a successful one. The study concludes that the findings can provide the learners and teachers of English as target language with a guideline to enhance their communicative skills as well as to maintain the flow of their conversation in English language.