Chapter 5 Conclusion
5.1. Summary of The Major Findings
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Chapter 5 Conclusion
This chapter concludes the thesis based on the general findings of the previous chapter. And, based on the result of the present study, this chapter offers suggestion for future sociopragmatic studies on political talk shows.
5.1. Summary of The Major Findings
This section depicts the findings of this thesis. Section 5.1.1 depicts this research‘s study questions, hypotheses of speech acts in the political talk shows and the corresponding findings. Section 5.1.2 presents the findings about the use of condemnation in specific.
5.1.1. Speech Acts in General
To answer the study questions and verify the hypotheses of this study, findings of the illocutionary acts in political shows can be divided into three parts: pragmatic strategies (directness and indirectness of speech acts), speech act categories, and the influence of political ideologies.
1. Strategies of directness and indirectness of speech acts
Research question A: How strategies of directness and indirectness are applied in political talk shows?
Hypothesis A: In political talk shows, indirect speech acts are more frequently used than direct speech act in order to avoid impoliteness which may cause lawsuits.
Finding A: The statistical results of this study show that indirect speech act is performed significantly more frequently than indirect speech act in political talk shows. Hypothesis A is thus verified.
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2. Choices of speech act categories and illocutionary purposes
Research question B: What illocutionary purposes are sought in political talk shows?
Hypothesis B-1: In political talk shows, the priority order of the types of illocutionary acts is: expressive > assertive > directive > commissive > declarative. To be specific, based on the commentary nature of political talk shows, expressive is more frequently used than the other four types of illocutionary act. Also, since offering factual information for commentary is necessary, assertive is the second important category of speech act.
Finding B-1: It is found in the study that, in general, Expressive is the most often used category, followed by Assertive, and Directive the least. The same order of frequency is found in the use of indirect speech act categories. However, in direct speech act categories, the order of frequency is: Assertive > Expressive >
Directive. In all, hypothesis B-1 is verified only in indirect speech act categories, not in direct ones.
Hypothesis B-2: Due to the commentary nature of political talk shows, the major illocutionary act used is condemnation. Moreover, in order to build the background knowledge for the commentary, informing is bound to be performed in political talk shows, and that makes informing the second important illocutionary act.
Finding B-2: In general, condemnation is prone to be the speech act used the most and followed by informing. That is, hypothesis B-2 is verified in this study. What should be noticed is that hypothesis B-2 cannot be established once the factor of directness and indirectness strategies is involved. In fact, the frequency of the three major illocutionary purposes in each political talk show varies, as displayed below.
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i. Illocutionary purposes that are directly expressed:
DaHua: Informing > Condemnation > Suggestion QuanMin: Informing > Suggestion > Condemnation ii. Illocutionary purposes that are indirectly expressed:
DaHua: Condemnation > Praising > informing QuanMin: Condemnation > Informing > Suggestion
Such results indicate that DaHua, being against the ruling party in political inclination, avoid giving supportive speech (i.e. suggestion) to the government in direct speech act, while QuanMin is prone to do so. In indirect speech act, DaHua focuses more on praising the volunteers and giving information against the government in order to emphasize the President‘s incompetence, while QuanMin resorts the disaster itself and gives more information about the current situation and proposes resolution to the government.
3. Influences of political ideologies
Research question C: How political ideology affects choices of strategies of directness and indirectness applied in political talk shows?
Hypothesis C-1: Political inclination will determine choices between direct and indirect speech acts. The talk shows inclining to the ruling party (i.e. pan-blue clique) tend to use indirect speech acts more to reduce the threats to the government‘s face, while the opposition political party (i.e. pan-green clique) uses more direct speech acts in order to show their intensive opposition to the government and condemnation to the governmental policies.
Finding C-1: The data of this study shows that QuanMin uses direct speech act more often than DaHua, and DaHua uses indirect speech act more often than QuanMin does. In other words, Hypothesis C-1 is not verified. This phenomenon may be
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regarded as that the concern of avoiding lawsuits and maintaining pseudo- impartiality overrides the need to express one‘s political-ideological inclination;
or, more likely, that condemnation can be achieved through indirect speech acts, but lawsuits and impartiality cannot be avoided through direct speech acts.
Hypothesis C-2: To weaken comments against the government, the show of the pan-blue clique uses assertives more frequently, especially informing, to lead the audience to focus on experiential facts. On the contrary, the show of pan-green clique, in order to convey comments against the government, uses expressives more frequently, especially condemnation, to describe their role to supervise and to evaluate the government‘s performance.
Finding C-2: Moreover, the results show that, in terms of Expressives, DaHua uses them more than QuanMin does, and in terms of Assertives and Directives, QuanMin theses two types more than DaHua does. That is, the findings conform to hypothesis C-2. In addition, QuanMin uses Assertives (mostly informing) more often than DaHua does both directly and indirectly, and DaHua uses both direct and indirect Expressives (mostly condemnation) more often than QuanMin does.
In addition, Directives (mostly suggestion) is an illocutionary purpose that QuanMin uses more often than DaHua does. That is, Hypothesis C-2 is also verified in both direct and indirect speech act category. In all, political ideology affects the way that speakers apply pragmatic strategies (directness and indirectness), speech act categories, and illocutionary purposes.
5.1.2. Condemnation in Specific
Condemnation is the major illocutionary act performed in political talk shows.
This section presents findings related to this type of speech act from the aspects of
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pragmatic strategies (directness and indirectness), the degree of indirectness, and the secondary speech act that delivers condemnation.
1. Indirect condemnation is used overwhelmingly more than direct one in both DaHua and QuanMin. This may result from speakers‘ avoidance of impoliteness which may cause lawsuits or the intention to maintain the pseudo-impartiality of the talk show.
2. Multi-layered condemnations are used more often than two-layered ones in both DaHua and QuanMin. In other words, indirect condemnations with longer inferential process are preferred in political talk shows. This result echoes with the above finding that speakers are prone to use indirectness to avoid lawsuits and maintain impartiality. Moreover, DaHua uses both types of indirect condemnation more than QuanMin does. This phenomenon reveals DaHua‘s political inclination as the opposition to the ruling party.
3. The two political talk shows share similar ways of choosing the secondary speech acts to express condemnation, namely Assertives and Directives. It shows that speakers tend to use fact-oriented speech or to act like they bear the government‘s interest in mind when they condemns the ruling party. Still, DaHua uses each type of secondary speech act more than QuanMin does.