Syntactic and Pragmatic Analysis of Comment Clauses in Selected British and American TV Talk Shows

Abstract

Abstract:

Comment clauses are those clauses which express the opinion of the speaker regarding the way of speaking of others or transfer the opinion of the speaker on the main clause content.

The study aims  to analyze and describe comment clauses syntactically and pragmatically in the British TV talk show "The Jonathan Ross Show" and the American TV talk show "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert". Also, it aims to show the syntactic and pragmatic  similarities and differences between these two TV talk shows in using comment causes and which of these shows has a tendency to use comment clauses more. The study is limited to analyze five episodes of the British TV talk show and five episodes of the American TV talk show. The episodes of these two TV talk shows are from the 21^st century.

It is hypothesized that the first syntactic type of the comment clauses ‘like the matrix clause of a main clause’ is the most frequent type in both British and American TV talk shows. Also, It is hypothesized that ‘you-oriented’ type in the orientation criteria is more frequent in the British TV talk show than the American TV talk show. To achieve the aims of the study, the researcher has analyzed the episodes of both TV talk shows according to four criteria of comment clauses, and these are syntactic type (Quirk et al. s' model, 1985),  pragmatic functions (Povolná's model, 2010 and Stenström's model,1994), position of a turn, and orientation (Povolná's model, 2010). In conclusion, Comment clauses have been used more in the American TV talk show than the British TV talk show. The most common comment clauses are 'you know' and 'I mean' in both British and American TV talk shows. According to the syntactic type, the first syntactic type ‘like the matrix clause of a main clause’ is the most common type in both British and American TV talk shows. Concerning the pragmatic functions, there are differences in the pragmatic functions between the British and American TV talk shows. Regarding the position of a turn, the medial position is the most common position in both British and American TV talk shows. As for the orientation, 'you-oriented'  is the most frequent type in both British and American TV talk shows. The aforementioned results have showed that there are syntactic and pragmatic similarities and differences between the British TV Show and the American TV talk show in using comment clauses. In addition, the differences between the British and the American TV talk shows in using the comment clauses are due to the cultural and social distinctions between these two cultures.