Interaction Management in Nigerian Television Talk Shows

Abstract

Although there is a growing number of works on discourse analysis in Nigeria which covers classroom interactions, courtroom discourse, medical communication and media discourse, the language of television (TV) talk shows has not been fully explored. This study therefore, examined turn management in this genre. It identified the turn distribution strategies in Nigerian television talk shows and the contributions of these strategies to the management of the talks. Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson's Conversation Analysis served as our theoretical framework. Three Nigerian TV talk shows, namely, "Patito's Gang", "New Dawn with Funmi Iyanda" and "Inside Out" were selected for this study. Each selected talk show comprised four sampled episodes. "Patito's Gang" from a private television station; "New Dawn with Funmi Iyanda" from a national television station and "Inside Out" from a private television station were purposively selected because they were handled by freelance presenters who were free from undue interference. Collection of data spanned four years: [2004][2005][2006][2007][2008]. And the analysis was both quantitative and qualitative. Generally, three turn distribution strategies were identified: Current-Speaker-Selects-Next-Speaker, Next-Speaker-Self-Selects-as-Next and Current-Speaker-Continues (where there is no pre-selection or self-selection). Current speaker selected next speaker by direct questioning, gaze and gestures. Next speaker self-selected as next through interruptions, overlaps, discourse markers, pauses and falling intonation. Where there was no pre-selection or self-selection at Transition Relevance Places, the current speaker continued after a pause of about half a second or more. These strategies enabled effective interaction management amongst the participants as turn allocation was not restricted but moderated by the hosts.

Code-Switching in Spoken Indian English: A Case Study of Sociopolitical Talk

“…One resource in observing rich code-switching phenomena would be electronic media such as films (Si 2010) or TV talk shows that contain high instances of authentic code-switching sequences that are representative of conversational norms in current day Indian societies. As a product of the twentieth century broadcasting (Timberg and Erler 2010), the tv talk show is a genre that discusses at length various informational, political, or entertainment-oriented topics (Oyeleye and Olutayo 2012), which are decided by the talk show hosts or their broadcasting company. Depending on the orientation of the show, tv talk shows invite a panel of experts, one or multiple celebrities, or other types of guests for a conversation, debate, or confessional/therapeutic interactions.…”

The Role of Gender in TV Talk Show Discourse in Bangladesh: A Conversational Analysis of Hosts’ Interaction Management

“…The tv talk show is an invention of the twentieth-century electronic media broadcasting (Timberg & Erler, 2010). This is a television platform that stages conversational interactions of one or a panel of guests and the host on serious as well as entertainment issues (Oyeleye & Olutayo, 2012). Wilson (2008) distinguished tv talk shows into three distinct categories: daytime talk shows, late night talk shows, and tabloid talk shows.…”

“…She argued that talk show hosts strategically deployed a role-related discursive style to manage interactions. Oyeleye and Olutayo (2012) focused on the issue of turn-taking that occurs during hosts-guests' interactions in tv talk shows. They studied how the hosts and guests manage turns in their interactions.…”

“…Conversation analysis approach analyzes talk in actions and interactions and examines the different functional devices used in conversational interactions (Wilkinson & Kitzinger, 2017). How discursive practices of social interactions are organized and managed is a primary concern of conversation analysis (Oyeleye & Olutayo, 2012). Conversation analysis identifies some basic characteristics and recurrent patterns of oral interactions, turn-taking being a dominant one (Schegloff, 2007).…”

Determinants of Turn-Taking in Nigerian Television Talk Shows

“…The language of television discourse in Nigeria has not enjoyed enough attention from researchers as other genres such as courtroom discourse (Onadeko, 1999) doctor/patient interaction (Odebunmi, 2003), and the print media (Chiluwa, 2005;Taiwo, 2008), political discourse (Oyeleye & Osisanwo, 2013). Olutayo (2010) and Oyeleye & Olutayo (2012) did an extensive work on the linguistic analysis of Nigerian television talk shows. This research is a continuation of these previous works on Nigerian television discourse.…”