Pragmatic Analysis of Radio Programs

8/6/2019 Pragmatic Analysis of Radio Programs

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1. INTRODUCTIONThe aim of this study is to delineate some pragmatic characteristics present in two types

of radio broadcasts with a view to providing formulizable information about theinteractions that occur in them. Ultimately, this information would serve as a means forthe classroom teacher to help students in understanding those programs.

A development in the teaching of English itself that informed the current study hasbeen the value attributed to the use of authentic teaching materials (see Besse, 1981). Inthis context radio (and television) broadcasts have been seen to provide excellent examplesof such material (Dirven and Oakeshott-Taylor, 1985). However, the characteristics ofthese programs' didactic utility have not been delineated: "... although one can readilyassume that radio and television broadcasts are extensively used for classroom work,relatively little research has been carried out on their use" (Dirven and Oakeshott-Taylor,1985: 11).

One step in the evaluation of the usefulness of radio programs would be theircategorization. One could do so by attending to their "formal" features (phonology,morphology, syntax) and/or by reviewing features related to their pragmaticcharacteristics. Pragmatics is defined by Leech (1983) as "studying the use of language asdistinct from, but complementary to, the language itself seen as a formal system". (pagex).

This paper seeks to use developments in conversation analysis and discourse analysis(surveyed in Levinson, 1983) to distinguish between and profile two types of radio

broadcasts according to some of their pragmatic features.Sociolinguistic research has attempted to make the implicit explicit. In so doing it has

given the language teacher (and, eventually, it is hoped, his/her students) more fomulizableinformation about the language system.

It is this kind of information about the language that is to be used to investigate theradio programs in this study.

2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

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Labov (1972) investigated stylistic choice based on setting and concluded that theselection of styles a speaker uses can be related to extremes of a spectrum which he called"casual" and "reading aloud" talk. It was the "attention" paid to speech was important indetermining the characteristics of that speech.

Blom and Gumperz (1972) set out to show the importance of other factors incode-switching. Especially of relevance here are their ideas of "situational"code-switching which depend on the kind of speech event taking place.

Goffman's (1981) work on radio talk itself relates such media activities to both settingand roles. He found that radio speakers regularly adjusted their "footing" in response tosituations and change of roles (Goffman's "production format") during radio programs.Goffman also introduces his own gamut of "production modes", namely memorization,reading aloud and fresh talk. These do seem to relate back to Labov's (1972) "attention to

speech" factor and also relate to Goffman's own "production format" (page 229), viz. theradio speaker as the author, animator or principal.

In his article of 1984, Allan Bell presented his ideas on a speaker's choice of speechstyle. Building on and sometimes challenging the findings of other scholars (e.g., Blomand Gumperz, 1972), Bell asserts that the overriding factor for style choice ("intraspeakervariation" related to "initiative style") is neither the setting nor the topic per se, but ratherthe speaker's perception of his or her intended addressee. Bell seems to be in disagreementwith Goffman - indeed with many other sociolinguists - in his conclusion that

"Non-audience factors like topic and setting derive their effect by association withaddressee types." His main point is illustrated by his study of speech patterns of radiospeakers on various New Zealand stations. A major dichotomy noted in Bell's paper is hisdistinction between speakers that are present and those that are absent but influential. It isthe latter group that he refers to as "referees". This influence is an important one workingin radio broadcasts.

As far back as 1965 American media researchers had noticed the Janus-faced nature ofradio and television talk. Joyce O. Hertzler (1965) noted that there was an "audience

factor" that controlled the message. At the same time however, the radio audience waswithout the normal "rights" of a "real conversational" exchange.

The work of Sacks et. al. (1974), Schegloff (1972, 1980) reveals another way ofdealing with the issue of conversational roles through the characteristics that attach tovarious kinds of interactions. The dichotomy presented by researchers of turn-takingincludes that between speech systems that are "locally managed" (that is, in which eachturn is decided on a current versus next speaker basis) and those which are a form of"ritualization", or "ceremony" in which, that is, turns are "pre-allocated". Their conclusion

associates these two types of system with other characteristics of conversation: "if therange of turn-taking systems is arrayed on a continuum, ranging from full pre-allocation ofturns to single allocation at a time, then any system may be found to maximize, minimize,

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or not be organizationally relevant to a range of functions..."(Sacks et. al., 1974: 730).Heritage (1985) and more recently after him, Greatbatch (1988) see news interviews as

examples of "ritualized speech acts". Just as in proceedings such as courtroom trials inwhich the participants' rights are rigidly abridged by a protocol, radio talk participants aresubject to prescribed rules and roles. By examining these rules we might be able to

decipher the speakers' interactional alignments therefore begin to formalize the kinds ofradio talk that occur.

The above dimensions are summarized in the following set of continua:

casual -------- reading (Labov)free talk -------- memorization (Goffman)speaker=author---- speaker=animator (Goffman)conversation ----- ritualization (Sacks et. al.)

local management-- preallocation (Sacks et. al.)actual questions-- perceived questions (Greatbatch)receipt signals----reformulations (Heritage)addressee -------- referee (Bell)

This paper is an attempt to profile some of the features in radio talk that serve as cluesto the placement of radio programs within these parameters.

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3. DATA DESCRIPTION

3.1 Original Purpose and Characteristics.

The pedagogic problem this paper deals with arose in the course of selecting a numberof radio "magazine" programs for use in the classroom. Most were recorded from theNational Public Radio Broadcasting network in the United States over the entire course of1988, or within a week in March 1990. There are some exceptions to the above , however:notably the inclusion of some recordings from Voice of America broadcasts in Europe.

The programs were first extracted from their original context. This was done for theusual problems of economy. This selection was carried out keeping in mind the purposesthe programs were originally intended to serve.

Since the programs were to be used for classes in other countries, only programs whichdid not contain either very local USA or very specific non-USA references were included.And because they were intended to be used over a number of years, programs that wereless topical and of more long-term relevance were preserved.

As a result of the above conditions the following general characteristics of the data are

evident:1. There are probably fewer introductions of the actual "reporter" (speaker "A" in the

transcripts) of the "documentary" type program (Category II) by program presenters ("P"in the transcripts) in these edited programs than in the original programs because the Pspeaker could have been edited out.

2. "News interviews" in the sense Heritage (1985) uses the term (i.e. those in which areporter questions a major public figure in the news) are missing. They were consideredtoo limited in application over time.

3. The cultural bias of the programs was towards United States and its national ratherthan its international or regional concerns. There are indications (Clayman, 1986; Pufahl,1992) that cultural bias could affect the control of topics in news programs and, ultimately,many turn characteristics.

3.2.Limitations on knowledge about the dataIt is not within the scope of this paper to discuss the characteristics of either

noncommercial or commercial radio stations in the United States. Many excellent

references on the subject exist (for example, Sterling and Kittross, 1990).What might be pointed out, however, are the lacunae in knowledge about the programs

in this study. Indeed, these lacunae exist in most studies dealing with the mass media, if

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The presence or absence of speakers at the time of the program's actual production is aneven more intuitive matter, since in radio broadcasts the perception of the presence of aspeaker can depend on a combination of explicit clues, pragmatic features and the soundcharacteristics of the broadcast. I will be using the first and last of these identifiers tomake my decisions on the presence or absence of the speakers during the program and try

to then note some of the pragmatic features that correspond to this characteristic of radiobroadcasts.

Not surprisingly the preparedness of the speakers is perhaps the most difficultcharacteristic to discern about radio broadcasts. This ambiguity may be a necessarycondition for the illusion of continuous talk (Goffman, 1981). Or perhaps thepreparedness of the speakers is not an "all or nothing" matter. The quality of preparednesscan be seen to range from complete scripting to very loose agreement on the contents. Theambiguous nature of this continuum in radio talk has been dealt with elsewhere (Vagle,

1991). The clinal quality of pre-allocation versus locally managed systems was alreadypresent in Sacks et al.'s (1974) delineation of the polar types of conversation versus"ceremonial" talk. It is in this characteristic of radio broadcasts, the major one in thisstudy, that the "ritualization" of the conversation (or speaker contribution in the case ofnon-present speaker interaction) can be noted in quite a few turn-taking features.

On the basis of the above features the programs were initially and roughly divided intofour different groups.

1) Prepared studio speaker only (-multispeaker, +present, +prepared)

2) Prepared studio speaker and one or more recorded speakers (+multispeaker, -present,+prepared)

3) Prepared studio speaker with one prepared studio guest (+multispeaker, +present,+prepared)

4) Unprepared studio speaker and one or more unprepared guests(+multispeaker, +present, -prepared)

3.3.2 Final Categories Chosen

It was decided for the purposes of this study to profile only the second and third ofthese groups.

Since turn-taking features were to be used in analyzing the data the single preparedstudio speaker (Group 1) was considered inappropriate.

The multiple unprepared speaker programs (Group 4), on the other hand, presentedfeatures that, although distinguishable from real conversations, strongly reflectedGoffman's (1981) "fresh talk" containing certain features of Heritage's (1985)"newsinterviews", This class of program, as regarded didactic purposes, represented the closest

approximation to normal conversation and, to a certain degree, proved less impervious tocategorization along lines already suggested by previous researchers

It was decided, therefore, that the groups number 2 and 3 were those that: a) had been

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relatively ignored in the literature heretofore; b) were more likely to yield to an analysisbased primarily on turn-taking and other conversation analysis techniques; and c) wouldprovide more features specific to radio talk.

The two groups have been renamed for clarity, group 2 becoming:Category II in which the multiple speakers are not at the time of broadcast all present

(i.e., they are represented in recordings);and group 3 will be considered:Category II in which the multiple parties are physically present during the final speech

event and who are prepared for the interaction.

3.3.3 Final Selection of DataThe problems of dealing with media-related materials is perhaps that there is simply

too much data and it is very accessible. Fortunately for the purposes of this paper, the data

is limited by the actual contents of the edited tapes. Nonetheless, a choice had to be made.The strategy of data selection used in this study is the one referred to in Schiffrin

(1987: 69) as "distributional accountability", that is, a number of particular features areexamined over a range of examples. The actual programs from each of the two categorieswere chosen because of a) their order of occurrence on the original tapes (that is, the firstwere given priority); b) their completeness and c) their understandability. The lattercharacteristic was particularly relevant in the case of Voice of America programs whichwere recorded from shortwave radio.

In order to not overlook insights that could emerge from Shiffrin's other, "sequentiallyaccountable", approach in which an entire conversation is presented and analysed, it wasdecided to analyze one complete program from each group, a kind of "example" programin which some, if not all, of the characteristics are illustrated.

As a result of the above decisions, for each of the two categories examined, tenprograms are presented.

Nine of these programs are presented in Appendices in a "limited" transcription form inwhich only the elements referred to in the paper are preserved. This procedure aims at

preserving such elements as speaker boundary areas (where one speaker stops speakingand the other begins), silence markings between speakers, topic introduction, etc.

In addition, one of the ten programs for each category will be transcribed fully. A keyfor the transcription will be included in the Appendix.

4. APPROACH

4.1 Features Investigated

The features of the above recordings that I will be investigating are the following:

4.1.1 Characteristics of turns:

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The major work in this area is associated with the conversation analysts, the mainresearch techniques being developed in a series of papers by Schegloff (1972, 1977, 1980,1987), Jefferson (1974, 1978) and Sacks et. al. (1974). Their findings have beenadmirably summarized in Levinson (1983).

a. sequence of turns;b. number of turns per speaker;c. length of turns in seconds;

d. significant silences between participants' turns and within participants' turns andoverlapping speech

e. presence and characteristics of adjacency pairs;f. repair (self or other initiated, and self and other repairThe first three of these categories carry the usual caveat that calculating the time when

the participants actually "have the floor" can be a matter of the investigator;s judgement.This characteristic in radio talk follows a much more "linear" pattern (see Sacks et. al.,1974) than perhaps locally managed systems and therefore can prove easier to assess.

There have been proposed a number of systems for defining silences in conversation.In this study I will be using the terms "gaps" and "pauses".

In this paper I will be using the terms much in line with their use in Sacks et. al.(1974). Gaps are those silences that occur between speaker turns at Transition RelevantPlaces and pauses are those silences which can be attributed to a particular speaker's turn.

I have also divided gaps further into long and short gaps, those that range in length from0.1-0.7 seconds and of a duration of more than 0.7 seconds. The infrequency of lapses (afeature of radio talk itself) precludes the use of that variety of silence. Equally, the use ofthe term, "interruptions", as defined by Schegloff (1978) will not be employed herebecause of the infrequency of that phenomenon's occurrence.

4.1.2 Other FeaturesBesides the above, several other characteristics will be investigated a) if they are

prominent; or b)if they provide any further clues to what the above characteristics of turnsreveal. They are:

- Voice qualities, intonational & stress cues.- Use of deictics: name, epithet use; pronoun use- Non-context sounds and input (music, soundtrack excerpts etc.) used as background,

lead in or illustration.- Occurrence of non-propositional and propositional language (includes implicature

and politeness features).- Receipt signals and formulations

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Not all of the above characteristics will be present or relevant in both categories ofrecording.

5. ANALYSIS OF CATEGORY I

5.1 IntroductionThis category of recording would sometimes be called a "documentary". It consists of

a speaker A, also known as the "reporter", who narrates the recorded material itself andwho may him/her-self be introduced by another speaker (P), the program emcee orso-called "anchorperson". As mentioned above (2.1), an analysis of the role of the latterwould be limited especially since the original editing sometimes cut out this speaker's partand started with the "report" proper.

The other participants in the transcripts were assigned the letters B, C, etc., and arecalled here collectively "IE", - Greatbatch's (1988) "interviewee". These do not, asmentioned above, intervene live in the program in the studio and may or may not haveknown at the time that their contributions were recorded, nor have known what purposethey would be used for. This lack of information was mentioned above (2.2).

The letter "M" is reserved in the transcripts for any intervention by a non-A non-IEsource, most usually a piece of music, background sounds or aural extracts from anothermedia.

The rather unusual characteristic of the non-presence of speakers during a speech eventmight raise doubts about the applicability of techniques for so-called "conversation"analysis to this kind of radio program. However, at least three opposing arguments tocounter these uncertainties may be advanced:

1) Turn-taking itself is "obviously a prominent type of social organization, one whoseinstances are implicated in a wide range of other activities" (Sacks & al., 1974), not justlive conversation. The investigation of turn taking harks back to sociological andanthropological studies of the 50's.

2) In radio talk, as has been noted above, the A speaker (if not the IE speakers as well),at least, is addressing a non-present audience and hence there is a kind of conversationgoing on.

3) Many of the recordings presented during these programs leave it clear that at least atone time the A speaker (or an appointed surrogate) would have been present during theinteraction with the recorded speaker - and quite probably have interacted with the IEspeaker.

5.2 General Characteristics of Category I (see Appendix for data)

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The following characteristics of the programs in Category I were noted:

1. The A speaker opens and closes the program per se.2. The most general pattern of turn taking is (P)-A-B-A-C-A-D...x-A, "x" being the

variable number of interventions of IE that intercalate A's turn

3. Massed occurrences of IE speakers are illustrative in nature. In this characteristic,they resemble M interventions.

4. A speakers always have more turns than IE speakers and the proportion of IE'sturns to A's turns is not related to the number of IE speakers.

5. The average time of A speaker turns is longer than the average time for IE turns.6. Gaps are regular in their occurrence and length.7. Pauses are more common in IE turns than in A turns.8. Overlaps do not occur, except with M material.

9. The unit type at which turn changes occur are sentential constructions.10. There are fixed "introduction" and "sign off" adjacency pairs for speakers.11. A speakers (and sometimes P speakers) control topicalizations. This is done by

"pre-formulating" what B is going to say in his/her next turn.12. The only kinds of repair that occur regularly are self-initiated, self-repair within IE

speakers' turns.13. A speakers' turns are not repairable.14. A's talk is overwhelmingly propositional.

5.2.1 Sequence of turns.

As can be noted in the data, the most general pattern of turn taking is(P)-A-B,C,D...x-A, "x" being the variable number of interventions of IE that intercalateA's turn. That A is assigned the tasks of opening and closing news interviews has already been pointed out by Heritage for news interviews (1985) and in greater detail byGreatbatch (1988). That this pattern holds in programs in which IE is not present mayindicate a similar ritualization is taking place.

One exception to the opening P-A pattern can be seen in the recording, UnderageSchool Bus Drivers. In this program two IE speakers start off the program after P. Thismay be deduced from the sound qualities of the recording microphone, and by the kind ofinteraction that is taking place: an exchange between two of the IE speakers. Thisexchange is being used for illustrative purposes and hence the IE speakers are not directlyaddressing the topic introduced by the A speaker (as is normally the case). These are notactually direct interventions of IE's as speakers to the audience or A, but recordings ofIE-IE interaction (a high-school student and mother). It must be noted that the sound of

unidentified voices, after P's introduction of A as the reporter is, according to the data, a"marked" form and can therefore lead to misunderstanding and illocutionary uptake. Notsurprisingly, then, A immediately following upon this insert "repairs" the "misplaced turn"

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by introducing the last speaker (B) even before introducing the topic, as would be theusual case.

Another irregularity in the data as concerns the A-B-A-C... pattern occurs in the program, The Spanish Armada Revisited. Once again, as in the above recording, thevoices are grouped together and are not individually identified. They are interventions that

serve to illustrate the varying opinions of the participants (representing the group ingeneral perhaps). Their content is non-propositional.

Other cases in which the A speaker's turn does not occur between that of the other"contributors'" is when illustrative sound (M) occurs. This happens in most of therecordings in this category. This would seem to support the hypothesis that "massed" IEor M turns are illustrative in nature: they are meant to "depict aurally" rather than presentnew information to the listening audience.

5.2.2 Number of turns.If speaker A frames each of the contributions of the IE speakers it is predictable that

the former's number of turns will at least equal the sum of all of the IE speakers' numberof turns. So it is in our sample. The A speakers' total number of turns in all 10 programsis 61 while those of the IE speakers number only 51.

The sequence of turns (see above) also seems to imply that the IE speakers' number ofturns would be related to the number of interventions of the A speaker rather than allottedaccording to the number of IE speakers. In other words, the total number of turns for IE

speakers would not be consistently proportional to the number of IE speakers. In fact, thisis the case. While in programs with 2 IE speakers, they may have four turns total (2 each),in programs with 7 IE speakers, their total number of turns may be 12 or even 7 (less than2 each).5.2.3 Length of Turns.

This characteristic is best handled on an A speaker versus IE speaker basis since thevariation in the length of turn among the latter is considerable.

The average time for all turns in the sample is 23.3 seconds. The average time for A

speakers's turns in the sample is 27.0 seconds. For IE speakers it is 19.0 seconds. Thismeans that the A speakers' average turn length is 42% more than that of IE speakers.

One note can be made about this finding. In calculations of IE speakers average timeper turn even the "illustrative" examples (explained above in 5.2.1) were included andsince these are always shorter than other contributions, they may have skewed the lengthof IE turns. However, it would still seem that even excluding these truncated interventionsA speakers' turns are almost always longer than IE speakers turns.

5.2.4 Silences and overlaps.In this category of broadcast, where a speaker is controlling the introduction of

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"interlocutors'" contributions, "long gaps" are necessarily obviated due to the efficiency ofediting techniques. Goffman (1981) mentions that this fluency, in mono-speaker presentations at least, is a necessary quality of radio talk: it maintains an important"illusion" of radio talk: the listeners' perception of uninterrupted, fluent talk.

Gaps do, necessarily, exist between speakers even in this kind of program. They would

be necessary if only to separate the various speakers. What is noticeable is that the gaps inthis category of recordings are not only regular in their occurrence (at sentential unittypes), but also perceptively consistent in their duration (about .2-.4 seconds). Even whenthe gap is longer than usual, it is difficult to attribute it to A. This may be because theaudience assumes that A is not wholly the "author" - using Goffman's (1981) terms - ofthe program, that is, does not have control of all the editing that takes place.

Pauses on the other hand occur in these recordings and not surprisingly within the IEspeakers' turns they are more common. The A speakers' turns are for the most part devoid

of pauses, except at points where they wish to "step outside" of the topic and close theprogram by reintroducing themselves in the sign off.

Overlapping in this category would seem to be necessarily absent since the A speakerhas total control over choice of next speaker and the relinquishing of the floor. However,pauses within and gaps between turns are sometimes filled in with the music or sounds thatset the scene or prepare the listener with background "information".

As mentioned, the contributions of IE speakers occur at what Sacks et. al. (1974) call asentential TRP "unit-type". There was one exception to this in the data and it occurs in the

recording, Japanese Half Immersion. The speaker is Japanese and enters the program at aclausal unit type.

A: There are no study materials available for teaching Japanese to such youngEnglish-speaking students, so the teacher develops her own resources for communicatingwith the students, she says, are eager to learn by doing.

(.4)C: (as a) children they just observe so: much. They learn very quick.

(.4)A: What seems to work best in getting across this very different language to thee:American children. What technique have you found is most successful.

(.4)C: Using a lot of visual charts and (.6) uhm pi:ctures () and then also to teach songs,motions or gestures, and so lot of movement he you just can't depend on the bu:ks.

Music occurs at the beginning of reports, or more specifically as an indicator of topic

change before P's introduction of A. Unfortunately, the limitations due to the originalpurpose and use of the recordings (see 2.1) do not permit generalizations on this point.

Between turns, M is used to place the listener in the environment. This can be done by

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including voices (as in Underage School bus Drivers, Japanese Half Immersion), sounds(Rebirth of Grist Mills, The Spanish Armada Revisited) or sounds from other media(Texas Tourism Campaign).

A common technique is using music to signal the end of a report and the "return" to thestudio.

(Texas Barrelhouse Blues)A: =City Council declared it, "Grey Ghost Day". Said the Ghost, "It makes you gladyou're thought of and not thrown away." (1.4)M: (begins)A: In Austin, I'm John Burnett reporting.

(ends with music)

(Rebirth of Grist Mills)A: Of course, small grist mills will never produce ... the time or the trouble to make.(music added to water sound) For National Public Radio this is John Rudolph.M: (fades out)

(No Smoking On Airlines)A: The tobacco industry calls the new law an intrusion on individual rights ... and the lawis expected to expire in 1990. In Los Angeles this is Wendy Kaufman reporting.

M: ------ (music begins at A's "1990")5.2.5 Adjacency Pairs.

If included in the tape, the P speaker begins the program per se by presenting its topicfirst and then proceeding to introduce the A speaker. The introduction is accomplished bygiving the full name of the reporter and saying that he/she "reports", "has our report". TheP speaker may include the origin of the broadcast (the station) and often includes the

location.The A speaker does not directly address the P speaker, but may directly address the

radio audience in a "rhetorical" fashion, often with an imperative:

(Rice-a-Roni versus Lipton)A: Imagine the shock that greeted...

(Rebirth of Grist Mills)

A: Pull off the highway into the little hamlet of East Union Maine.(The Spanish Armada Revisited)A: Ask any school kid who was the hero of the defeat of the Spanish Armada and you'll

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get the same answer.

The A speaker after this usually proceeds to reassert the topic and further "set thescene" by describing the circumstances related to the topic of the program.

The A speaker subsequently introduces various (recorded) IE speakers. This sequence

resembles the P-A exchange in that usually the name and the position and organization ofthe IE speaker is included in the introduction. However, rather then "report" or "has ourreport" a performative verb ("says" is the most common , a commitment word ("believes","according to", "complaint", "a strong advocate of...), or a description of an inner stateevinced by the contribution ("are/is/were aware", "worries", "disappointment", "isreminded of", "couldn't accept the fact", "shock") often accompanies the introduction of arecorded IE speaker.

When an IE speaker appears the second time the A speaker introduces him/her usually

by name and may, especially if the IE speaker's second turn comes after another speaker's,repeat the IE's qualifications/position/or role in the program.

The IE speaker's contribution after the introductions is related to the "action" justindicated by the A speaker. His/her contributions are consequently related to the topic thatA has introduced. This relevance may be as much due to editing techniques as to theactual attention to the topic originally paid by the IE contributor.

In his analysis of "news interviews" Greatbatch (1988) notes that "IRs [interviewers]and IEs systematically confine themselves to producing turns that are at least minimally

recognizable as questions and answers, respectively." This would not seem to be true ofCategory I programs.

Instead, it appears that A's role in the program is to advance the topic for the audience by "pre-formulating" the IE's contributions. This "formulation" of the speaker'scontribution was noted by Heritage (1985) in news interviews. The term, "formulating" inthis sense, originally appeared in Garfinkel and Sacks (1970), and according to Heritage it"involves summarizing, glossing or developing the gist of an informant's earlierstatements" (page 100). The main difference between the formulations in the radio

programs under study is that here the earlier statements of the informant were made andpreserved on a recording tape instead of being elicited at the time of the conversation withthe audience. As a result instead of projecting the speaker's "topicalization over a furtherturn" (Heritage, page 102), in Category I programs A's pre-formulations extend A's owntopicalization over IE's turn and sometimes for the whole program.

The reporter ( A speaker) signs off the program by self-identification and may includethe place of origin in the sign-off. The A speaker does not summarize the topic of theprogram at the end.

(Rebirth of Grist Mills)A: Of course, small grist mills will never produce ... the time or the trouble to make.

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(music added to water sound) For National Public Radio this is John Rudolph.

(No Smoking On Airlines)A: ... individual rights ... and the law is expected to expire in 1990. In Los Angeles thisis Wendy Kaufman reporting.

(Rice-a-Roni versus Lipton)A: ... artificially-flavored packaged rice is a growth industry. For National Public Radio,I'm Cathy McAnally.

5.2.6 Repair Characteristics

Except for the above mentioned departure from the ritual of introductions, there do notseem to be any examples of repair occurring between speakers, although once again this

would be conceivable if the A speaker were able to correct a misconception of the IEspeaker (though normally as editor he/she would not include such erroneous material). Itmay even happen that the A speaker may play one opinion off the other by juxtaposingtwo opinions, as in the recording Underage School bus Drivers.

Certainly, then, repair is overwhelmingly in the hands of the A speaker. This upsetsthe normal order of repair preference (Levinson, 1983: 341) and obviates the possibilitiesof politeness strategies such as the Next Turn Repair Initiator.

In one recording under consideration (Japanese Half-Immersion) there is an occurrence

of direct A and IE speaker interaction. Not surprisingly it occurs when a nonnativespeaker of English (a Japanese woman) is trying with difficulty to explain the approachshe takes in teaching U.S. schoolchildren Japanese. As mentioned above, hercontributions disrupt the normal convention of turns in these Category I programs in thather turns are constructed with clausal rather than sentential unit types. In this sense, A'sdirect intervention may be seen as a kind of repair, filling in for the non-present audiencethe background information missing in IE's clausal contributions.

5.3 Example Recording Analysis

TAPE : Hepatitis Virus Discovered{3/A/3/#241}

If by turn-taking one only refers to what Schegloff (1977) call "local managementsystems" then, strictly speaking, there are no turns per se from the speakers point of view

in this category of program. "Local" interaction between two parties might be seen tooccur only if for the two parties we mean the author of the program and the audience. It islike all radio talk one sided in that the latter does not at the time of being addressed have

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any of the "rights" of a normal addressee. Nor do the IE speakers.One could, however, look at the various speakers on the program as "interlocutors".

Certainly, there is an alternation of speakers going on. Perhaps, as in other programs, anexchange did occur although later it was edited by the author of the program. Howeverfrom the audience's point of view there is a kind of exchange going on in this conversation

and certain turn-taking features are present, or noticeably absent. The four major featuresthat Schegloff (1977: 84-85) uses to define adjacency pairs could therefore apply here.

Strikingly, overlapping speech is completely absent from the recording. The TransitionRelevant Places (at sentential unit types) are clearly marked by the author of the programand hence so are the silences where intervention can occur. This means that gaps (asmentioned above) also are minimal. In fact, in this example between the speaker and hisrecorded material there is approximately a gap of 0.5 seconds at the two moments whenthe A speaker "introduces" the company spokesman (called henceforth the "B speaker")

and when A retakes the floor after B. I would agree with Goffman (1981) and considerthis a fairly accurate simulation of ideal "fresh talk".

The opening and introductory turn of A consists in a review of diseases in general,hepatitis specifically, particular types of hepatitis and the events of "today" that relate tothis topic. The company Chiron is mentioned in this connection and thereafter comes theintroduction of the B speaker. The sequence is as follows:

A speaker says first and second name of B speaker.A speaker identifies B speaker by noun in apposition or relative clause.

A speaker uses performative verb in present tense to lead into the B speaker's"contribution".

A: Ed Penhoet the president of Chiron announced the advance.(.2)

B: The major impact (.) is on the hundred and fifty thousand cases (.) of non-A non-B...

Curiously enough, in this example, the B speaker does not perform the action ofannouncing, but rather expands by speaking about the discovery's significance.

In the present example there is a second intervention of the B speaker. This isintroduced once again with a performative verb and followed by an expansion. Missing,however, is the identification of the speaker by position and the first name address isomitted.

A: Penhoet says preliminary studies suggest that the test will find the virus in roughly

eighty percent of blood samples from people who are diagnosed with non-A non-Bhepatitis.

(.4)

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B: We can't be sure at this point that (.2) the agent that we...

This is a common technique in interacting with recorded speakers and presenting theircontributions for the second time to the audience. However, it might be supposed that ifthere is no second introduction, the listener may assume that any subsequent IE speaker is

"by default" the first speaking a second time.In the recording there are no examples of other repair. However, within the B speaker's

turn there is something akin to self-repair going on. B speaker does not actually correcthimself but does "fish" for words, make false starts and hesitate using the neutral sound Ihave transcribed as "uhm" three times. On the significance of the hesitation markers like"hmm" or "uhm" several studies have been written (Butterworth, 1975; Goldman-Eisler,1968; Brown and Yule, 1983: 160-164). Levinson (1983:page 326) warns againstinterpreting such pauses blithely. Without venturing to assert the validity of any

interpretation, I would like to point out that such hesitation in recorded speech may leadthe listener to ascribe "inferior performance" to the speaker, especially if the contrast withthe virtually flawless performance of the A speaker is noticed. This is because "uhm" isoften a "planning marker".

Speaking in public often means that such supportive signals from interlocutors knownas backchannelling are missing. Such backchannelling could exist in the form of applauseor booing, but these would not be appropriate responses during a press conference. Aninexperienced speaker who is given the floor for any period longer than usual in

conversation - as is the case with public speaking - and deprived of these reactions mayresort to hesitation markers at what would be TRP's in normal speech. Of course, any backchannelling on the part of the A speaker would have any but the normalinterpretation.

Both speakers in the recording have turns that would be abnormally long in normalconversation.

In B speaker's voice but there are indications of strain and the hesitation points havealready been pointed out above. It is difficult to tell from the recording whether the

"announcement style" of this speaker is due to the amplification system present at the timeof the recording or to the more general characteristics of reading speech.

Absent in this program in this category are pronouns with which the speakers refer toeach other or themselves directly, namely, "I" and "you". Present, on the other hand, arethe more "exclusive" (excluding the people being addressed) pronouns such as "we" and"our (here appearing 6 times) used by B and referring to the company ; "they" (twice usedby A to refer to Chiron company) "them" and "their" (each used once by A to refer tovictims of hepatitis). By far the most frequently occurring pronoun is "it" (in possessive

and contracted forms) which occurs 16 times only two times being used as a "dummy"subject. Other times it refers to (a form of) hepatitis, a blood test or the Chironcorporation.

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Temporal deictics that occur include ago (1), still (2), today (2) and yet (1). This is notsurprising since this is a news report.

Missing are spatial deictics such as "here" and "there". "This" appears 4 times in thetext and refers twice to time ("all this time", "at this point"), once to a form of hepatitis andonce to identify the A speaker at the end.

The last use of "this" resembles that on the telephone and is quite common in the mediafor self-identification of station or program spokespeople.

6. ANALYSIS OF CATEGORY II

6.1 Introduction

This category of recording would sometimes be called an interview. It consists of twoparticipants: speaker A, the reporter for the radio station and speaker B, the person who isbeing interviewed. The term "interview" is, however, not used in this analysis because it istoo broad a term and, as will be seen below, this kind of program contains characteristicsthat distinguish it from other kinds of so-called "interviews".

Sometimes in the recordings, as in those of Category I, there is a P, or presenter, andM, a contribution from another source.

6.2 General Characteristics of Category II (see Appendix for data)

The following characteristics of the programs in Category II were noted:

1. The A speaker opens and closes the program per se.2. The most general pattern of turn taking is (P)-A-B-A-B...-A the ellipsis indicating

the continuing alternation of A and B speakers' turns.3. The usual number of turns for a A speaker is one more than the number of B turns.4. The presence of M may alter 2 and 3 above.5. The average time of B speaker turns is longer than the average time for A turns.6. Gaps are not regular in either their occurrence or length, although short gaps are

more common than long ones7. Pauses may occur in either speaker's turn.8. Overlapping is not common, but it does occur especially with M overlapping A

and/or B speakers.9. The unit type at which turn changes occur are not exclusively sentential

constructions, though this unit type predominates.

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10. There are fixed "introduction" and "sign off" adjacency pairs for speakers.11. Most of the exchanges are A speaker asking a "real" or "perceived" yes/no question

and B speaker treating the question as an "occasioning", or an opportunity to expand uponthe topic, rather than just a request for a yes/no answer.

12. A repeats the topic and B's name and qualifications at the end of the program.

13. Inter-speaker repair is more often other-initiated, other-repaired by B than theother way around.

14. Receipt signals occur in both speaker turns.15. A both reformulates and "pre-formulates" B's contributions.

16. A speakers control topicalizations*ref?, but B speakers may change topics withintheir turns.

17. Pronoun references to the non-present audience occur in the form of first-personplural ("we" or "us").

6.2.1 Sequence of turns.

The sequence of turns in this category of broadcast follows the "bookend" pattern:A,B,A,B....A. The program may be introduced by P whose main task is to present thetopic and both principals in the interview. But A generally speaks before B, in factintroducing B to the audience before beginning the interview proper. There is a case in thesample where this does not occur (AIDS Spread), but it is compensated for with a couple

of relatively unusual features, such as P mentioning in the introduction that, in fact, a"conversation" did take place.

Integral to three programs in the sample (Doris Duke, Ads for Pepsi in the SovietUnion and Cop Rock) are non-A, non-B elements. Often these are clips or music fromanother media. These (always labelled "M" in the transcripts) usually alter the basicscheme of turn-sequencing and, as explained below, the number of turns per speaker aswell. Apparently, either one of the participants in the interview has the right to speak aftersuch an illustrative insertion.

6.2.2 Number of turns.

Except for the cases mentioned above, the usual number of turns for an A speaker isone more than that of a B speaker. This is logical given the usual pattern outlined above.Care must be taken , however, in this category of recording in deciding what is to beconsidered a "turn". It has been put in the unscientific term of "holding the floor". Who

holds the floor is a notoriously difficult judgement for linguists to make in normalconversations. It was relatively simple to make in the Category I.

In this category, however, there is at least one occasion when the floor is unowned

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(AIDS Spread). Here there is considerable overlap as well as the B speaker tries to repairthe A-speaker's use of terminology (asterisks mark the salient parts):

A: Are sexually-transmitted diseases and the HIV virus confined primarily to what mightbe described as deviant subcultures?

(1.0)B: Well, ah, we like to call them high-risk subcultures .he=

* A: .hehehe* B: =uhh, who, who, ee, yah:=* A: depends who's doing the the

B:=the deviant though has a, has a, has a: ah value connotation()

A: I guess, I guess what ...

As mentioned in 6.2.1, after an M intervention either speaker has a right to the nextturn and this can alter the number of turns per speaker ratio.

6.2.3 Length of Turns.In this type of program, in direct contrast to those of Category I, B speakers have on

the average much longer turns than A. The average length of a turn for A in the sample

was 9.6 seconds and for B 19.77 seconds. Even taking these figures with a due statisticalscepticism, the approximately 100% difference between the two kinds of speakers is quiteremarkably contrastive to that in Category I.

Moreover, B speakers' total amount of talking time is greater than A speakers' despitetwo facts:

1) A almost always has an extra turn;2) A's first turn is relatively long since he/she provides the necessary background

information for the audience; and

3)as we shall see below, A's questions are predominantly yes/no and would seem atfirst glance to require less elaboration than in fact they generate.

6.2.4 Silences and overlaps.

As might be expected from a category including only "prepared" speakers, long gaps

are not prominent in the these recordings.

(Ad for Pepsi in the USSR:)

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A: ... and he says, they're pretty rudimentary.(.8)

B: They're not nearly as sophisticated...

In NY Shakespeare Festival long gaps occur before and after recitings of lines from theplays.

A: ... it's Macbeth:'s speech on learning of the death of Lady Macbeth.(1.2)

B: She should have died hereafter...

B: Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow...signifying nothing(1.1)

A: Has the m-meaning of that speech...

It is not possible to say with any certainty under what conditions these long gaps aremost likely to occur except to acknowledge that many of the conditions for theiroccurrence in this type of radio program are the same as those in "real" conversation.

Overlapping, another indicator of local management systems, are not as common here

as in normal conversation. It occurs most frequently in coincidence with a phenomenonassociated with long gaps (and mentioned above): unexpected phrasings, that initiate arepair sequence (see example, AIDS Spread, above).

It should be mentioned here, too, that M interventions often occur with overlap, even -on one occasion - as an A speaker is indicating her non-awareness of the music (The DorisDuke Story) that is being played. This would mean, incidentally, that the A speaker isdeliberately attempting to mislead the audience as to the preparedness of the program,since supposedly the music could not have been found and cued up at the moment of its

mention. (An alternative explanation would be that B would have prepared the recordingwith the sound technician's help without the knowledge of A - a highly unlikely situation ifB is not a member of the radio staff, but just a "guest".) This is another way thatGoffman's (1981) "illusion" of spontaneous speech is maintained.

The disproportionate nature of the turn lengths mentioned above would seem toindicate that either transition relevant place pauses during B's turns in these programs donot occur as often as in normal conversation or that speaker A opts not to self-select whenthey do occur. The former can be taken to be logically untenable with dialogues of this

length. The regular occurrence of in-turn pauses that occur argue for the alternativehypothesis, viz., that A more often abstains from self-selecting.

Inevitable in any discussion of radio talk (see Vagle, op. cit.), but essential as concerns

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overlaps and silences in such talk is a mention of the role of post-editing of the speechevent. However, it is a subject which this paper cannot deal with at any length.

6.2.5 Adjacency Pairs.

In the introductions to these programs it seems that the same format as that for categoryI is used. The only difference is that there is less use of a presenter (P) to introduce the Aspeaker. The A speaker often is the presenter and often then introduces the IE speaker. Infact, the usual sequence is :

A: Introduces topicIntroduces speaker (in ways similar to those in Category I above)

[Greets in-studio IE speaker or "summons" (Schegloff, 1972) telephonically-linkedspeaker and then greets same.

B: Responds to greeting.]

The occurrence of the exchange in brackets is, it appears, optional as the A speaker actssimultaneously as the general moderator of the program and as the conversant with B.

The in-conversation nature of adjacent utterances was mentioned briefly above. The

common use by A of yes/no questions is evident as is the phenomenon noticed byGreatbatch (1988) in news interviews of "perceived" questions. Often these take the anon-interrogative form.

(The Breakfast Book)

A: So it's the rolled oat that is lump-proof.

B: Well, it is absolutely.

(Doris Duke)A: I'm not familiar with her.B: Yeah. It seems now for people of limited experience...

(Shakespeare Festival)

A: You've had to cancel, uh, three productions and a fourth is on hold.B: That's correct.

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(Bald is Beautiful)

A: Well you don't really have to come out of the closet if you're bald. I mean, there's

no closet.B: Well, there's no closet....

The endings of this category's programs differ from those of Category I in that the Aspeaker ends the report with an identification of his/her guest and the guests "credentials",usually including the topic of the broadcast in the first place. This is noticeably absent inthe first category of program in which the listener who is late in tuning into the programwould be hard put to understand the topic, getting only the identification of the A speaker

as a sign-off.6.2.5 Repair Characteristics

B speakers in these prepared broadcasts are more likely to correct their interlocutors.Apart from the example from AIDS Spread cited above (6.2.2), this kind of other-initiatedother-repair appears in the following:

(Odessa High School Football)

A: You're, you'reassigned as a player

B: You're assigned a player...

(The Doris Duke Story)A: And is it, it's the only album she ever made or?B: It's

the only album that was ever released.

5.2.6 Other Characteristics

Unlike Heritage's (1985) and Greatbatch's (1988) "news interviews", these kinds ofprograms do contain both - using Heritage's terms - "receipt signals" and reformulations(common to normal conversation).

There are three kinds of receipt signals."Newsmarks" are ritualized signals of disbelief indicating that the prior turn's talk is

news and encouraging continued talk by that turn's author (Jefferson, 1981):

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(NY Shakespeare Festival)B:=it's not my favorite play Macbeth. I never liked the play.

(.)A:Really?

"Assessments" actually give an evaluation of the prior turn's contents (Pomerantz,1984):

(Odessa High School Football)A: You write at one point about one of the players

taking IV (yeah) having an IV hookup at half time=B: =Awful=

A: =with lactose=B: =Awful

Missing from the data, however, are the "change of state" of information or knowledgereceipt signals: "oh" (Heritage, 1985).

This finding about Category II broadcasts contrasts with Heritage's findings about thenews interview genre that was the subject of his paper: "It is possible to search throughhours of hm, oh, newsmark, or affiliative statement." (page 98). At the same time, the

general proceedings are in line with interviews, in that "the interaction is conducted almostexclusively through chains of questions and answers", even if the questions are only"minimally recognizable (Greatbatch, 1988: 404).

However, reformulations of a previous turn, characteristic of news interviews occur inthese types of programs as well. These are the A speakers recapitulation of a former turn.

(Ad for Pepsi in the Soviet Union)B: Ah: there are a number of international companies...who would do it in the future.

(.3)*A: And these presumably are all companies that would s-s-s ah obviously sell to theSoviets.

(The Breakfast Book)B: ...to me it also has very limited ingredients ...*A: Basic farm ingredients, not things you have to go to four gourmet shops in order togather, huh?

Perhaps more common, however, are the kind of formulations of a B speaker's turn by

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A k b f th f h d th t i f ti


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an A speaker even before the former has expressed that information:

(Paper versus Plastic Bags)*A: You know the plastic, uh, bag industry has said that it hopes to have every other bagbe plastic within two years.

(Doris Duke)A: I'm not familiar with her at all.

.{Later in the conversation, during which no mention of the singer's age has been made:}

.*A: What happened to her? Where is she? She's forty three years old now.

(Shakespeare Festival)

*A:You've had to cancel three productions and a fourth one is on hold.(.3)

B: Uh, that's correct.

(Pepsi Ad in the USSR)A: Ed, uh, tell me something: how big of an operation are you?B: We're a very small operation*A: | three or four people

B: Right.

In these examples the A speaker gives indications of knowing the answer to his/herquestion before asking it. They are questions or requests laden with propositional content.These are not examples of reformulations, since the information cited was never given bythe IE speaker during the recorded interview. Rather they seem to be examples of"occasioning" (Jefferson, 1978), utterances which are meant to give rise, or occasion, otherutterances. The real intended recipient of the information is the radio audience since we

might assume the A speaker - in many cases at least - knew the information before askingthe question.

One final point can be made about the characteristics of speakers in Category IIprograms. It regards the use of pronouns. A more direct way of inviting the IE speaker toaddress the radio audience is achieved through the use of imperatives with a first personplural indirect object, such as (The Breakfast Book): Give us an example..."; (Doris Duke)"Pick a song for us...". This form is an explicit reference to an audience listening to theconversation and an indication of deference that is paid to that audience. In all fairness, it

must be mentioned that other forms of personal pronoun (especially the self-referring "I"and the particular reference to the B speaker as "you") are much more common.

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6.3 Example Recording Analysis

TAPE : The Breakfast Book{1/A/3/79}

The A speaker in this program is also the show presenter and therefore there is noseparate P speaker. The name of the "guest", B speaker, is introduced abruptly followedby a commitment word ("believes") and the main topic of the conversation: breakfast. Thereason for the book's having been written follows along with the detail of the publisher'sname, the latter having no direct bearing on the topic itself. Both the book and thepublisher are given prominence by intonational and stress cues.

Afterwards comes the first audible breath, accompanied naturally by a micropause,

before the B speaker is directly addressed. The "you" pronoun is used in coincidence withthe B speaker's first name and there is a request for clarification in the form of a wh-question followed by two uninverted yes/no questions.

A: you say it's the last innocent meal, Marian, which means what? It's not trendy?It's not chic?

A pause of .5 seconds follows at this TRP and B speaker "takes the floor" offered herby A speaker and answers the yes/ no question and goes on to reformulate the meaning of"innocent", "old fashioned" as "timeless" and her reasons (using the first person singularpronoun) for writing a breakfast book, contrasting that meal with brunch.

A does not take the floor during B's turn during which many TRP's and obvious breathstops occur. Instead, she interrupts to give a receipt signal at a non-TRP point

B: There's so many very good brunch books out,

but that's=

A: yeah

B: =such a different meal.h=

A takes the opportunity of a TRP and a breath stop to take up the new topic - thecontrast of breakfast with brunch - and reformulate the basic proposition of "Brunch is a

different meal" as the equivalent in a yes/no question that would make no sense if it werenot meant to be an "occasioning" (see above discussion).

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A: =Breakfast is not the same as brunch is it?


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A: =Breakfast is not the same as brunch, is it?

B takes the floor to assert the proposition again and to go on to answer a perhapsperceived question: "What is the difference?" She contrasts the two meals emphasizingthrough breathing and intonational devices the salient differences. All the time she uses

the set of first person singular pronouns and adjectives, "me" and "my".B apparently signals the end of her turn then: "And that's just about it." A opts not totake the floor and just acknowledges the prior turn's information with a "newsmark":"Uh-hmm".

B speaker once again attempts to relinquish the floor by framing her own remarks:

B: That's the way I thinkof breakfast.h=

after which A takes the breath stop TRP to reformulate what B has just said and give thefloor back to B with a yes/no question:

A: =Basic farm ingredients,not things (th)at you have to go to four gourmet shopsin order to gather, huh?

B answers affirmatively (the most common kind of answer to A's questions in allprograms) going on to explain the concept of "simple" and including a first person plural"we" which may include those in the studio and the listening audience. This may be anexample of Heritage's (1985: 106-108) "cooperative re-cycle".

B: .h uh, that's exactly right, Susan. Simple, but simple can be so very goodan(d)

* I think we forget it sometimes=

A speaker then proceeds without a gap between turns with a direct request to B usingthe pronoun "us" supposedly to represent herself and the listening audience.B answers the request using the "I" pronoun to represent herself and then referring to a

non-present radio audience as "a lot of people". She gives instructions on how to cookusing a subjectless gerund and then the normal English imperative form, the infinitiveform of the verb without "to". She reverts back at the end of her instructions (which is thelongest turn of the entire program) to the "I" pronoun to explain the process. Throughoutthe turn are breath stops, but it is not until the recapitulative "It really transforms what

we're accustomed to eating" that the A speaker enters with a receipt signal, "Ah!" B's turnends with the next sentential utterance.A enters after the gap of .3 seconds to ask a question directed at "you". The form is of

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a yes/no question which is what B is probably expecting but she misprojects because in


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a yes/no question which is what B is probably expecting, but she misprojects because, infact, A is asking an "or" question. As a result, there is overlapping:A: Are you cooking the oatmeal the night before?B: .h*A: or you just, po-, pouring the boiling water.

*B: Well, if you, if you

The next B turn continues instructions to an ambiguous "you" and is marked withreceipt signals from A.

A begins her next turn with a yes/no question about "lumps" and proceeds to explainthe meaning of her question ending up with a reformulated yes/no question that hardlyresembles her first :

A: Have you any lump theory Marian Cunningham?I (re)member at summer camp the mean jokes peopleused to tell about lumps.hin the oatmeal. Do they make oatmeal really horrible,or is it just that it looks awful?

(.5)(laughing)

B: .hhhIt, it, it, I think there is a a "new-day" look

It could be argued that here there is a divergence and that the gap of .5 completed withthe laughter could indicate a loss of footing (and when the speaker is alone "requires" sucha "bracket laugh" - Goffman, 1981: 317-319) on the part of A who continues laughing intoB's next turn and then reformulates incorrectly B's turn as "So it's the rolled oat that islump-proof". There follows an evaluative .7 second gap after which B's turn reveals a

confusion on the topic or point being made:

B: Well, it is.Absolutely.Lumps should not exist.

A follows with an assessment of "Fantastic" and proceeds to ask a wh- question whichis followed by the longest gap in the conversation - one second.

Speaker B answers the question with a personal pronoun. A does not thank B directly,

but ends the program by reiterating the name of B, her book and the publishinginformation (the release date of the book differs from the information given in theintroduction).

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The most common personal pronoun form is the first person "I" (9 occurrences)


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The most common personal pronoun form is the first person I (9 occurrences)accompanied at times by the possessive "my" (2) and the object form, "me" (2). Notsurprisingly, these are all used by the B speaker. More surprisingly perhaps, even the "we"(4 occurrences) pronoun is the exclusive property in this broadcast of the B speaker and itsignals a sort of solidarity with the listener or perhaps only with the A speaker. Less

ambiguously, the "us" pronoun is used by the A speaker to indicate "I" and "the listeningaudience", A speaker being the spokesperson for that group.The use of the pronoun "you" on 7 occasions (one of which is repetition due to

hesitation) can be attributed to A 5 times and B 2 times (one of which is the repeated use).B uses the pronoun as a possible impersonal form whereas A on at least threeunambiguous occasions uses the pronoun to refer to the B speaker. On one occasion thedirect reference is unclear and on another the "you" pronoun can rather confidently beattributed impersonal qualities. There is also a use of "your" by A to ask B for her favorite

way to cook oatmeal.Quite evident throughout the conversation is the use of yes/no questions as"occasionings". B never gives a one-answer response to the questions, preferring to usethem as a platform on which to build the propositional information she wishes to impart.Background information is given by both participants.

7.0 DISCUSSION

7.1 ProcedureIn this section I will reexamine the characteristics of the two categories of recording in

order to relate them to the dimensions presented in the above section (2) on theory.

casual -------- reading (Labov)

free talk -------- memorization (Goffman)speaker=author---- speaker=animator (Goffman)conversation ----- ritualized (Sacks et. al.)local management-- preallocation (Sacks et. al.)actual ques. ----- perceived questions (Greatbatch)receipt signals----reformulations (Heritage)addressee -------- referee (Bell)

7.2 Discussion of Category I

One of the essential features of Category I programs is the variation in the styles of

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their speakers. There is a marked difference between the variation in style allowed in A


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p yspeakers' speech and that appearing in IE speakers' speech. The A speakers' speech devoidof repairable material seems characteristic of a reading style or at least a very carefulrather than casual style of the Labov (1972) dimensions. The IE speakers, on the otherhand, show a complete range of styles, from the casual to the almost reading. Because the

IE speakers' styles are often closer to Goffman's (1981) "free talk" they also have less needto maintain footing as they are usually acting as authors, animators and principals at thesame time. A speakers' maintain their footing as animators through the use of editing andcareful preparation.

The entire program is ritualized in Sacks et. al. (1974) terms with each of the turnsbeing pre-allocated partially by the system (the "documentary" genre) and partially by thearrangement of the program's author. It is not clear who the latter might be, although theaudience may attribute authorship to the A speaker. Several clues reveal the pre-allocation

of the turns in these programs: their fixed sequence, their relative length, the sententialTRP's, the lack of long gaps, and the presence of regular adjacency pairs.The orientation of the two kinds of speakers in these programs is divergent.

A speakers are always oriented toward an radio audience members, facing themfrontally and even at times addressing them directly. This is evinced by the lack of directinteraction with what their recorded interlocutors say, their pronoun use and their evidentuse of IE speakers at times as illustrations.

IE speakers are not so clearly addressing the radio audience. Their speech reflects

characteristics of the conditions under which they were first produced: hesitations, gaps,repairable material, short turns, etc. Though the IE speakers may indeed be addressing anaudience they are not always addressing the referees A is speaking to.

A major role of the A speaker is to fill in information about the topic for the radioaudience. This may include introducing the topic or filling in the gaps left by the IEspeaker's testimony. This role can be understood by deleting the A speakers' parts in the programs. The IE speakers' contributions seem much more like halves of telephoneconversations, while those of the A speakers could often stand as narratives on their own.

This may also be because the A speakers are necessarily addressing the radio audiencewhile their guests, the IE speakers, may not have originally been doing so.

7.3 Discussion of Category II

This category of program shows a greater "convergence" of styles between itsparticipants than does Category I.

Most of the speech present in these programs is "careful" speech by both A and Bspeaker in deference to the non-present audience. The two speakers are not usuallyreading. The presence of a number of "free talk" characteristics including receipt signals

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appropriate here. Instead, in this section I would like to briefly hint at the directions thath fi di i h l d i i h h i i l i h l


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the findings might lead us in using such authentic material in the classroom.

8.1 Category IThis group of recordings presents many features that distinguish it from "real"

conversation, which teachers often consider a primary situation for students. The radicaldifference between the styles of the IE speakers and that of the A speakers may presentmajor problems if students are working in the register of a classroom. On the otherhand, the cleanly propositional nature of A's turns and their regular occurrence may beused to aid the second-language learner. A's orientation full-face to the audience helps toreduce the overhearer effect that many learners labor under when listening to radiobroadcasts in another language.

One objection to the charge that these kinds of programs diverge very much from

"normal" speech might be made by referring to the recent findings of researchers ofso-called "constructed dialogues" present in much speech (Tannen, 1989 page 26; Yule &Mathis, 1992). Apparently, many common features of Category I recordings occur innormal speech, both the A and IE roles, however, being taken by the same speaker.

Tasks related to these programs would benefit from building listener confidence byconcentrating on A speakers' turns and viewing IE speakers mainly as contributors to thepropositions advanced by the A speaker.

8.2 Category IIThe characteristic of the question-answer interactions that perhaps bear somerelationship to classroom activity and that raises the issue of audience design once again isthat of the questions' true motivation. In classroom research these are referred to asdisplay questions, i.e. questions whose answer is known, but that are invited from astudent by a teacher for the purpose of checking the student's command of the subject orlesson previously taught. In these radio broadcasts the difference may be that the answerer(the IE speaker) is not being tested , but rather invited to display his/her knowledge of the

subject. This is quite evident by heavily-laden yes-no questions and in someself-contradictory comments made by the A speakers.The pre-allocated characteristics of these programs may be used to great effect in

teaching. Clear openings and endings as well as explicit topic nominations in this categoryof recording serve in aiding the learner of English to comprehend rather long turns. Theobvious roles of each of the participants may also be of use to the language teacher andlearner.

9.0 CONCLUSION

Radio programs exhibit characteristics in their organization and in the roles played by

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their participants that distinguish them from other kinds of speech events. Two categoriesf d li t d d i d i thi Th l d di t


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of programs were delineated and examined in this paper. They were analyzed according toa number of turn-taking and other pragmatic parameters they exhibited.

It was found that in Category I recordings a presenter uses interventions by recordedspeakers to illustrate the topic he/she is presenting. Turn characteristics reflected the

prominence of the presenter. Attempts are made to maintain the illusion of a normalconversation and the presenter's orientation is wholly toward the radio audience.Category II recordings, in which a presenter talks to a live guest about a topic, were

found to reverse the importance of the participants and change their roles. The presenter(A speaker) is restricted by many turn features to the role of information gatherer with ahalf-turned orientation towards the non-present radio audience. The guest (B speaker),through a number of turn-taking and pragmatic features, reveals his/her predominant rolein the broadcast.

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Pragmatic Analysis of Radio Programs

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