Speech Acts Categories in the Talk Shows

國

立 政 治 大 學

‧

N a tio na

l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y

(a type of SA that is mostly expressed indirectly¹⁴). As to the minor difference between the frequency of indirect speech act and direct speech act in QuanMin, it is because QuanMin puts its efforts on giving information (the type of direct SA often expressed directly) as well as condemning the government. In all, political ideology affects the pragmatic strategies applied in the talk shows: DaHua, holding the opposition political party‘s stance, tends to perform more indirect speech acts, while QuanMin, as the supporter of the ruling party, performs more direct speech act.

4.1.2. Speech Acts Categories in the Talk Shows

This section represents the distribution of illocutionary acts by Searle‘s categorization (1979): assertive, expressive, directive, commissive, and declarative.

Due to the purpose of commentary and the necessity of filling background information in political talk shows, this thesis hypothesizes that the frequency order of illocutionary categories is: expressive > assertive > directive > commissive >

declarative (see hypothesis B-1 on page 4 of this thesis), and that political inclination would result in different choice of speech act categories (see hypothesis C-2 on page 5 of this thesis).

4.1.2.1. Speech Acts Categories

This section depicts the distribution of the three speech act categories: assertive, expressive, directive, commissive, and declarative. Table 14 demonstrates how the speech act categories are used in DaHua and QuanMin, and Table 15 compares the distribution of speech acts categories between the two shows.

14 Details represented in Table 24 and Table 25

‧

Table 14. Comparison of speech act categories in the two individual talk shows

Table 14 exhibits that, in terms of illocutionary act categories in political talk show, Expressive is the most often used category, followed by Assertive, and Directive the least. Comparing this distribution with hypothesis B-1, it is found that, except for the fact that Declarative and Commissive are not applied to the genre of political talk show, the frequency of speech act categories is consistent with hypothesis B-1. Expressive, the category expressing the psychological status of the speaker, takes up the largest part of speech act categories because of the commentary nature in political talk show; Assertive, the category giving factual information, ranks second due to the recurring reports of background information about news events;

Directive, the category asking the hearers to do something, is the least common category due to the limit of one-way communication. Though the pattern of using the three types of illocutionary acts (namely Assertive, Expressive, and Directive) appears to be the same in the two political talk shows, the use of each type of illocutionary act reveals distributional differences, as represented in Table 15.

Table 15. Cross-show comparison of speech act categories

Names of

‧

立 政 治 大 學

‧

N a tio na

l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y

In Table 15, it is revealed that, on the part of Expressive, DaHua uses it 1.75 times more often than QuanMin does (63.69% vs. 36.31%); as to Assertive, QuanMin conversely performs it 3.81 times more than DaHua does (79.20% vs. 20.80%); in terms of Directive, QuanMin overwhelmingly uses it 7.53 times more often than DaHua does (88.28% vs. 11.72%). Such distribution of speech act categories is strongly related to political inclinations. DaHua, holding the opposite political stance from the ruling party, focuses solely on criticizing the government's post-catastrophe management and hence uses more Expressive than QuanMin does. On the contrary, QuanMin, standing on the same side with the ruling party, focuses more on giving information about natural catastrophe so as to absolve the government from malpractice, and consequently performs more Assertive than DaHua does. This result is consistent with hypothesis C-2. Also, to show its support to the government, QuanMin gives much suggestion to the catastrophic event and therefore performs many Directives. However, such frequent usage does not appear in DaHua because the act means believing in the ruling party, which is against DaHua‘s political stance.

In all, political ideology affects the speech act categories performed in the talk shows:

Expressive is more preferable for the opposition party (DaHua) while Assertive and Directive are much more preferred for people holding a stance of supporting the ruling party (QuanMin).

4.1.2.2. Speech Acts Categories and Pragmatic Strategies

To discuss further on the use of speech acts in political talk shows, the following paragraphs examine the interaction between pragmatic strategies (directness and indirectness) and illocutionary act categories. Table 16 displays the use of direct and indirect speech act categories in DaHua and QuanMin, and Table 17 compares the distribution of direct and indirect speech act categories between the two shows.

‧

Table 16. Comparison of direct and indirect speech act category in the two individual talk shows

Similar to the patterns found in Table 12 and Table 14, it is noticed in Table 16 that the frequency gap of illocutionary act categories in direct/indirect expression exhibits some distributional differences between the two shows. First, DaHua uses direct Assertive nearly 10% more than direct Expressive (50.30% vs. 40.61%), yet the gap increases to 38.73% in QuanMin (55.78% vs. 17.05%). Second, indirect Expressive is 98.95% more than indirect Assertive in DaHua (99.39% vs. 0.44%) while only 60.5% in QuanMin (78.14% vs. 17.64%). Third, direct Directive is minor in DaHua (9.09%) but it takes up nearly one-third of the direct speech act in QuanMin (27.17%). In all, in terms of direct speech act, QuanMin performs more direct Assertive and direct Directive, and DaHua expresses more indirect Expressive; in terms of indirect speech act, the two shows share the same pattern of using speech act categories. In other words, hypothesis B-1 is only verified in indirect speech act.

Names of

‧

立 政 治 大 學

‧

N a tio na

l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y

Table 17. Cross-show comparison of categories of direct and indirect speech acts

In Table 17, the distributional divergence between the two is even clearer.

Hypothesis C-2 is verified in both direct and indirect speech act category. Overall, the tendency of using direct Assertive and direct Directive over indirect ones in QuanMin is the consequence of concerning hearers‘ comprehension toward factual information.

As to the high frequency of using indirect Expressive over direct one in DaHua, it is for the purpose of impartial report as well as the illocutionary force. In terms of the nature of Expressive—expressing subjective judgment, indirect expression conceals the political inclination of the show and maintains impartial report in a sense; as for the force of Expressive, indirectness helps to accumulate the illocutionary force of illocutionary acts and intensifies DaHua‘s condemnation to the government.