Ｓｔｕｄｙ ｏｎ Ｔｕｒｎ－ｔａｋｉｎｇ Ｓｔｒａｔｅｇｉｅｓ ｉｎ Ｅｎｇｌｉｓｈ ＴＶ Ｎｅｗｓ

Abstract: the news interview is a quite different conversational discourse， its special turn-taking organization not only establishes the basic conversation pattern for the news interview program， but also restricts the interviewer and interviewees’ utterance. Through the analysis， the research founds that， due to the institutional power， the interviewer and interviewees may employ the different strategies.

Key Words: TV news interview; turn-taking strategies; institutional power; interviewer; interviewee

1. Introduction

Sacks， Jefferson， and Schegloff (1974) studied turn-taking strategies in everyday conversation and proposed turn-taking model. The turn-taking model includes turn yielding， turn holding， turn claiming and feedback. According to Diamond (1996:114)， power can be divided into two kinds: institutional power and contextual power. Institutional power includes legitimate， coercive， reward and expert power， and contextual power consists of information power， expert power and referent power. TV news interview program belongs to an institutional interview talk. This thesis elaborates on the differences between the interviewer and interviewees in their turn-taking strategies in English TV news interview program， and the possible causes for the differences. The source of data for this study is the transcripts of Dialogue， a popular English TV news interview program broadcasted by CCTV-9.

2. Difference in turn control strategies between interviewer and interviewee

2.1 Difference in turn yielding methods between interviewer and interviewee

Table 2-1: The interviewer and the interviewees’ total turns and the numbers of different turn yielding methods

According to Diagram 2-1，the ratio of the interviewer’s nomination turns their total turns is 616/847=0.7272; the ratio of the interviewees’ nomination turns to their total turns is 14/923=0.0152; the ratio of the interviewer’s self-selection turns to their total turns is 174/847=0.2054; the ratio of the interviewees’ self-selection turns to their total turns is 18/923=0.0195; the ratio of the interviewer’s complete self-selection turns to their total turns is 57/847=0.0673; the ratio of the interviewees’ complete self-selection turns to their total turns is 891/923=0.9859. There is difference in the distribution of turn-yielding methods between the interviewer and the interviewees.

Among the three turn yielding methods， nomination is the most powerful and institutionalized one. Compared with nomination， self-selection exhibits relatively less power. Complete self-selection， however， shows the least power of the speaker who yields a turn. Interviewer shares the highest power and is at the top of the power hierarchy. Interviewees enjoy less power and are in the middle of power hierarchy. In order to fulfill their institutional roles， interviewer employs nominations to yield a turn much more frequently than interviewees do， and the difference between the two ratios is huge. As far as self-selection is concerned interviewer still uses more self-selections than interviewees do. However， interviewees use much more complete self-selections than the interviewer does， which shows that interviewees enjoy less institutional power than interviewer.

2.2 Difference in turn claiming methods between interviewer and interviewee

Table 2-2: The interviewer’s and the interviewees’ total turns and the numbers of different turn-claiming methods.

According to Diagram 2-2，the ratio of the interviewer’s insertion turns to their total turns is 722/847=0.8524; The ratio of the interviewees’ insertion turns to their total turns is 886/923=0.9599; the ratio of the interviewer’s interruption turns to their total turns is 31/847=0.0366; the ratio of the interviewees’ interruption turns to their total turns is 9/923=0.0098; the ratio of the interviewer’s overlap turns to their total turns is 94/847=0.1109; the ratio of the interviewees’ overlap turns to their total turns is 28/923=0.0303. There is difference in the distribution of turn-claiming methods between the interviewer and the interviewees.

Turn-claiming methods employed by both interviewer and interviewees， which are insertion， overlap and interruption have been discussed. Among the three turn-claiming methods， insertion is the most polite form with the least power. Interruption is the rudest form with the strongest power. Interviewer uses insertion to evaluate or comment on interviewees’ talk， or raise questions to control the direction of the conversation， while interviewees just insert utterance to follow interviewees’ topics or answer their questions. Most overlaps in TV news program result from the wrong prediction of right ending of former speaker’s utterance. Both interviewer and interviewees use this turn-claiming method， but proportions of both sides are little. Interviewer interrupts interviewees to control the topic development and allocate turns， while interviewees interrupt each other to present their different ideas while interviewer is more powerful in controlling the turns and the development of topics than interviewee.

3. Conclusion

There are huge differences between the amount of turn-control strategies employed by the interviewer and interviewees. As far as turn-yielding methods are concerned， there are huge differences between the interviewer and interviewees. The interviewer uses much more nominations than the interviewees. Nomination is done by various means， either by calling the name or using pronouns etc. The interviewer uses comparatively more self-selections than the interviewees， and the ratio difference is huge， which also manifests that both the interviewer and interviewees are well adapting themselves to their institutional powers because self-selection is a relatively more powerful method to give the turn. However， the interviewer employs much less complete self-selections than the interviewees and the ratio difference is huge， which indicates that the interviewees are in a comparatively powerless status as complete self-selection is the most powerless way to yield a turn. Signals of bidding for a turn are more frequently used by the interviewees， which show their weak power and strong intentions to claim the floor. In this way both the interviewer and interviewees well performed the roles distributed by the TV news interview program.

Most of the time， both the interviewer and interviewees use insertions to claim a turn. There are no huge differences between the two ratios. It seems that they share almost the same power in claiming a turn， but in fact， both the interviewer and interviewees employ insertions to well adapt to their own institutional powers because the politeness manifested in insertions is a ritual one to the interviewer but a real one to the interviewees in such an institutional discourse. The interviewer uses comparatively more overlaps and interruptions than the interviewees. Though interruptions are not expected in conversation， especially in institutional discourse and are regarded as a rude form， it is necessary for the interviewer to employ interruptions to fulfill his role as monitors of the program and to achieve the institutional goals of the program in appropriate times.

The analysis shows that the interviewer and interviewees enjoy different powers in the TV news interview program and roles as well as their corresponding powers are most important aspects for both the interviewer and interviewees to adjust their behaviors. The ratio differences of turn control strategies employed by the interviewer and interviewees prove that they have realized their institutional powers.

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