Two Categories of Radio Programs A Profile Based on Pragmatic Features

1. INTRODUCTION

The 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 the

interactions that occur in them. Ultimately, this information would serve as a means for

the classroom teacher to help students in understanding those programs.

A development in the teaching of English itself that informed the current study has

been the value attributed to the use of authentic teaching materials (see Besse, 1981). In

this context radio (and television) broadcasts have been seen to provide excellent

examples of such material (Dirven and Oakeshott-Taylor, 1985). However, the

characteristics of these programs' didactic utility have not been delineated: "... although

one can readily assume 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 their

categorization. One could do so by attending to their "formal" features (phonology,

morphology, syntax) and/or by reviewing features related to their pragmatic

characteristics. Pragmatics is defined by Leech (1983) as "studying the use of language

as distinct from, but complementary to, the language itself seen as a formal system".

(page x).

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

fomulizable information about the language system.

It is this kind of information about the language that is to be used to investigate the

radio programs in this study.

2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

Labov (1972) investigated stylistic choice based on setting and concluded that the

selection 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 in determining the characteristics of that speech.

Blom and Gumperz (1972) set out to show the importance of other factors in code-

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 setting

and roles. He found that radio speakers regularly adjusted their "footing" in response to

situations 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. the

radio speaker as the author, animator or principal.

In his article of 1984, Allan Bell presented his ideas on a speaker's choice of

speech style. Building on and sometimes challenging the findings of other scholars (e.g.,

Blom and Gumperz,1972), Bell asserts that the overriding factor for style choice ("intra-

speaker variation" related to "initiative style") is neither the setting nor the topic per se, but

rather the speaker's perception of his or her intended addressee. Bell seems to be in

disagreement with Goffman - indeed with many other sociolinguists - in his conclusion that

"Non-audience factors like topic and setting derive their effect by association with

addressee types." His main point is illustrated by his study of speech patterns of radio

speakers on various New Zealand stations. A major dichotomy noted in Bell's paper is his

distinction between speakers that are present and those that are absent but influential. It

is the latter group that he refers to as "referees". This influence is an important one

working in radio broadcasts.

As far back as 1965 American media researchers had noticed the Janus-faced

nature of radio 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 was without the normal "rights" of a "real conversational" exchange.

The work of Sacks et al. (1974), Schegloff (1972, 1980) reveals another way of

dealing with the issue of conversational roles through the characteristics that attach to

various kinds of interactions. The dichotomy presented by researchers of turn-taking

includes that between speech systems that are "locally managed” (that is, in which each

turn 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 the

range of turn-taking systems is arrayed on a continuum, ranging from full pre-allocation of

turns to single allocation at a time, then any system may be found to maximize, minimize,

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

in which the participants' rights are rigidly abridged by a protocol, radio talk participants

are subject 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 of

radio 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

clues to the placement of radio programs within these parameters.

3. DATA DESCRIPTION

3.1 Original Purpose and Characteristics.

The pedagogic problem this paper deals with arose in the course of selecting a

number of radio "magazine" programs for use in the classroom. Most were recorded from

the National Public Radio Broadcasting network in the United States over the entire

course of 1988, 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 the

usual problems of economy. This selection was carried out keeping in mind the purposes

the programs were originally intended to serve.

Since the programs were to be used for classes in other countries, only programs

which did 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 were less 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

P speaker could have been edited out.

2. "News interviews" in the sense Heritage (1985) uses the term (i.e. those in which

a reporter questions a major public figure in the news) are missing. They were considered

too limited in application over time.

3. The cultural bias of the programs was towards United States and its national

rather than 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 data

It is not within the scope of this paper to discuss the characteristics of either non-

commercial 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 one is to judge by the critical studies on the subject (Fairclough, 1989; Meinhof,

1990). Such information is often confidential and known only to the marketing and

editorial staff of the stations involved.

Among the unavailable data of this type is the stations' (or program participants')

perception of their target audience. This limitation can only partially be overcome by

adopting the inferential techniques of most analysts of the media.

In this paper I will not be able to deal directly with unknown economically-determined

influences upon the program participants. These can be surmised with greater or lesser

certainty, but when products are presented in the media, whether they are people, ideas

consumer objects, the motivation of the participants can never be taken for granted. A

publisher or author may expect certain questions to be asked when "pushing" a book. The

interviewer may either coalesce with or frustrate these expectations. In either case,

certain characteristics of audience design and participant roles are bound to be distorted.

Especially frustrating in the investigation of media talk (perhaps more so in radio

than in television) is the lack of information regarding the editing that occurred, if when

and where the talk was edited.

3.3 Selection of the data.

3.3.1 Initial Categorization

In initially classifying the programs in the total sample an attempt was made to note

certain general characteristics that immediately distinguished between them. Among

these general characteristics were: the number of participants; the mutual presence or

absence of participants; the preparedness of participants for the interaction.

The number of participants in most radio programs is usually not difficult for a native

speaker to postulate. I have in this paper resorted to the usual native-speaker intuitions

in assessing this parameter. I recognize that these intuitions for certain kinds of radio

programs (especially in my Category I) may be subject to further scrutiny. In fact, this is

one of the parameters not explicitly stated by the producers of radio programs (see above)

and which distinguishes them from other kinds of pre-allocation systems, such as debates

or courtroom proceedings, where the number of participants is explicitly pre-allocated

(Atkinson & Drew, 1979).

Unfortunately, there have, to my knowledge, as yet been no complete studies on the

effect of only this variable in conversational pragmatics (Sacks et. al., 1974 do briefly

consider the effect of the number of speakers on turn-taking). The initial distinction of the

recordings was made on the basis of whether they are single or multiple (two or more)

speakers. Later selection was made when the phenomenon in question (e.g. sequence

of turns) were affected by this factor.

The presence or absence of speakers at the time of the program's actual production

is an even more intuitive matter, since in radio broadcasts the perception of the presence

of a speaker can depend on a combination of explicit clues, pragmatic features and the

sound characteristics of the broadcast. I will be using the first and last of these identifiers

to make 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 radio broadcasts.

Not surprisingly the preparedness of the speakers is perhaps the most difficult

characteristic to discern about radio broadcasts. This ambiguity may be a necessary

condition for the illusion of continuous talk (Goffman, 1981). Or perhaps the preparedness

of the speakers is not an "all or nothing" matter. The quality of preparedness can be seen

to range from complete scripting to very loose agreement on the contents. The

ambiguous 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 already

present 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 this

study, that the "ritualization" of the conversation (or speaker contribution in the case

of non-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

into four different groups.

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

2) Prepared studio speaker and one or more recorded speakers (+multi-speaker, -

present, +prepared)

3) Prepared studio speaker with one prepared studio guest (+multi-speaker,

+present, +prepared)

4) Unprepared studio speaker and one or more unprepared guests (+multi-

speaker, +present, -prepared)

3.3.2 Final Categories Chosen

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

these groups.

Since turn-taking features were to be used in analyzing the data the single prepared

studio speaker (Group 1) was considered inappropriate.

The multiple unprepared speaker programs (Group 4), on the other hand, presented

features that, although distinguishable from real conversations, strongly reflected

Goffman's (1981) "fresh talk" containing certain features of Heritage's (1985)"news

interviews", This class of program, as regarded didactic purposes, represented the

closest approximation to normal conversation and, to a certain degree, proved less

impervious to categorization along lines already suggested by previous researchers

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

been relatively ignored in the literature heretofore; b) were more likely to yield to an

analysis based primarily on turn-taking and other conversation analysis techniques; and c)

would provide 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 Data

The problems of dealing with media-related materials are 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 is

examined over a range of examples. The actual programs from each of the two

categories were chosen because of a) their order of occurrence on the original tapes (that

is, the first were given priority); b) their completeness and c) their understandability. The

latter characteristic was particularly relevant in the case of Voice of America programs

which were recorded from shortwave radio.

In order to not overlook insights that could emerge from Shiffrin's other, "sequentially

accountable", approach in which an entire conversation is presented and analysed, it

was decided to analyze one complete program from each group, a kind of "example"

program in which some, if not all, of the characteristics are illustrated.

As a result of the above decisions, for each of the two categories examined, ten

programs are presented.

Nine of these programs are presented in Appendices in a "limited" transcription form

in which 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 speaking

and 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 key

for 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

The major work in this area is associated with the conversation analysts, the main

research 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 been

admirably 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 and

overlapping speech

e. presence and characteristics of adjacency pairs;

f. repair (self or other initiated, and self and other repair

The 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 Relevant

Places 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

from 0.1-0.7 seconds and of a duration of more than 0.7 seconds. The infrequency of

lapses (a feature of radio talk itself) precludes the use of that variety of silence. Equally,

the use of the term, "interruptions", as defined by Schegloff (1978) will not be employed

here because of the infrequency of that phenomenon's occurrence.

4.1.2 Other Features

Besides 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 turns

reveal. 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

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

recording.

5. ANALYSIS OF CATEGORY I

5.1 Introduction

This 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 and

who may him/her-self be introduced by another speaker (P), the program emcee or so-

called "anchorperson". As mentioned above (2.1), an analysis of the role of the latter

would be limited especially since the original editing sometimes cut out this speaker's part

and started with the "report" proper.

The other participants in the transcripts were assigned the letters B, C, etc., and are

called here collectively "IE", - Greatbatch's (1988) "interviewee". These do not, as

mentioned above, intervene live in the program in the studio and may or may not have

known at the time that their contributions were recorded, nor have known what purpose

they 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-IE

source, most usually a piece of music, background sounds or aural extracts from another

media.

The rather unusual characteristic of the non-presence of speakers during a speech

event might raise doubts about the applicability of techniques for so-called "conversation"

analysis to this kind of radio program. However, at least three opposing arguments to

counter these uncertainties may be advanced:

1) Turn-taking itself is "obviously a prominent type of social organization, one whose

instances are implicated in a wide range of other activities" (Sacks & al., 1974), not just

live conversation. The investigation of turn taking harks back to sociological and

anthropological 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

conversation going on.

3) Many of the recordings presented during these programs leave it clear that at

least at one time the A speaker (or an appointed surrogate) would have been present

during the interaction with the recorded speaker - and quite probably have interacted with

the IE speaker.

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

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's

turns 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 intercalate A'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 by Greatbatch

(1988). That this pattern holds in programs in which IE is not present may indicate a

similar ritualization is taking place.

One exception to the opening P-A pattern can be seen in the recording, Underage

School Bus Drivers. In this program two IE speakers start off the program after P. This

may be deduced from the sound qualities of the recording microphone, and by the kind of

interaction that is taking place: an exchange between two of the IE speakers. This

exchange is being used for illustrative purposes and hence the IE speakers are not

directly addressing the topic introduced by the A speaker (as is normally the case). These

are not actually direct interventions of IE's as speakers to the audience or A, but

recordings of IE-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. Not surprisingly, then, A immediately following upon this insert "repairs" the

"misplaced turn" by introducing the last speaker (B) even before introducing the topic, as

would be the usual 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, the

voices are grouped together and are not individually identified. They are interventions that

serve to illustrate the varying opinions of the participants (representing the group in

general 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 the

recordings in this category. This would seem to support the hypothesis that "massed" IE

or M turns are illustrative in nature: they are meant to "depict aurally" rather than present

new 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' number of

turns.

So it is in our sample. The A speakers' total number of turns in all 10 programs is 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 of turns would be related to the number of interventions of the A speaker rather

than allotted according 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, this is 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 than 2 each).

5.2.3 Length of Turns.

This characteristic is best handled on an A speaker versus IE speaker basis since the

variation 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.

This means 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

time per turn even the "illustrative" examples (explained above in 5.2.1) were included and

since these are always shorter than other contributions, they may have skewed the length

of IE turns.

However, it would still seem that even excluding these truncated interventions A

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

"interlocutors'" contributions, "long gaps" are necessarily obviated due to the efficiency

of editing 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 in this category of recordings are not only regular in their occurrence (at

sentential unit types), but also perceptively consistent in their duration (about .2-.4

seconds). Even when the gap is longer than usual, it is difficult to attribute it to A. This

may be because the audience assumes that A is not wholly the "author" - using

Goffman's (1981) terms - of the 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

IE speakers' 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

the program by reintroducing themselves in the sign off.

Overlapping in this category would seem to be necessarily absent since the A

speaker has 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 that set the scene or prepare the listener with background "information".

As mentioned, the contributions of IE speakers occur at what Sacks et. al. (1974)

call a sentential 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 a clausal unit type.

A: There are no study materials available for teaching Japanese to such young English-

speaking students, so the teacher develops her own resources for communicating with 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 original

purpose 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 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

the studio.

(Texas Barrelhouse Blues)

A: =City Council declared it, "Grey Ghost Day". Said the Ghost, "It makes you glad

you'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

law is 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

topic first and then proceeding to introduce the A speaker. The introduction is

accomplished by giving the full name of the reporter and saying that he/she "reports", "has

our report". The P 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 get the same answer.

The A speaker after this usually proceeds to reassert the topic and further "set the

scene" 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 of the IE speaker is included in the introduction. However, rather than

"report" or "has our report" 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 state evinced by the contribution ("are/is/were aware", "worries",

"disappointment", "is reminded of", "couldn't accept the fact", "shock") often accompanies

the introduction of a recorded 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" just

indicated by the A speaker. His/her contributions are consequently related to the topic

that A has introduced. This relevance may be as much due to editing techniques as to the

actual 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 of

Category 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's

contribution was noted by Heritage (1985) in news interviews. The term, "formulating" in

this sense, originally appeared in Garfinkel and Sacks (1970), and according to Heritage it

"involves summarizing, glossing or developing the gist of an informant's earlier

statements" (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 and

preserved on a recording tape instead of being elicited at the time of the conversation with

the audience. As a result instead of projecting the speaker's "topicalization over a further

turn" (Heritage, page 102), in Category I programs A's pre-formulations extend A's own

topicalization over IE's turn and sometimes for the whole program.

The reporter ( A speaker) signs off the program by self-identification and may

include the place of origin in the sign-off. The A speaker does not summarize the topic of

the program at the end.

(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.

(No Smoking On Airlines)

A: ... individual rights ... and the law is expected to expire in 1990. In Los Angeles this

is 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

not seem 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 IE

speaker (though normally as editor he/she would not include such erroneous material). It

may even happen that the A speaker may play one opinion off the other by juxtaposing

two opinions, as in the recording Underage School bus Drivers.

Certainly, then, repair is overwhelmingly in the hands of the A speaker. This upsets

the normal order of repair preference (Levinson, 1983: 341) and obviates the possibilities

of 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 non-

native speaker of English (a Japanese woman) is trying with difficulty to explain the

approach she takes in teaching U.S. schoolchildren Japanese. As mentioned above, her

contributions disrupt the normal convention of turns in these Category I programs in that

her turns are constructed with clausal rather than sentential unit types. In this sense, A's

direct intervention may be seen as a kind of repair, filling in for the non-present audience

the 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 management

systems" 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 to

occur only if for the two parties we mean the author of the program and the audience. It is

like all radio talk one sided in that the latter does not at the time of being addressed have

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,

an exchange did occur although later it was edited by the author of the program. However

from 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 features

that Schegloff (1977: 84-85) uses to define adjacency pairs could therefore apply here.

Strikingly, overlapping speech is completely absent from the recording. The

Transition Relevant Places (at sentential unit types) are clearly marked by the author of

the program and hence so are the silences where intervention can occur. This means that

gaps (as mentioned above) also are minimal. In fact, in this example between the

speaker and his recorded material there is approximately a gap of 0.5 seconds at the two

moments when the 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 consider this 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 to

this topic. The company Chiron is mentioned in this connection and thereafter comes the

introduction 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 of

announcing, but rather expands by speaking about the discovery's significance.

In the present example there is a second intervention of the B speaker. This is

introduced 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 is

omitted.

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-B

hepatitis.

(.4)

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

their contributions for the second time to the audience. However, it might be supposed

that if there 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

correct himself but does "fish" for words, make false starts and hesitate using the neutral

sound I have 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 against interpreting 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

lead the listener to ascribe "inferior performance" to the speaker, especially if the contrast

with the virtually flawless performance of the A speaker is noticed. This is because "uhm"

is often a "planning marker".

Speaking in public often means that such supportive signals from interlocutors

known as back channelling are missing. Such back channelling could exist in the form of

applause or booing, but these would not be appropriate responses during a press

conference. An inexperienced 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 may resort to hesitation markers at what would be TRP's in normal speech. Of

course, any back channelling on the part of the A speaker would have any but the normal

interpretation.

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

conversation.

In B speaker's voice but there are indications of strain and the hesitation points have

already 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 time

of 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 to each other or themselves directly, namely, "I" and "you". Present, on the other

hand, are the 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 used by A to refer to Chiron company) "them" and "their" (each used once by A to

refer to victims 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 Chiron

corporation.

Temporal deictics that occur include ago (1), still (2), today (2) and yet (1). This is

not surprising since this is a news report.

Missing are spatial deictics such as "here" and "there". "This" appears 4 times in the

text and refers twice to time ("all this time", "at this point"), once to a form of hepatitis and

once to identify the A speaker at the end.

The last use of "this" resembles that on the telephone and is quite common in the

media for 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 two

participants: speaker A, the reporter for the radio station and speaker B, the person who is

being interviewed. The term "interview" is, however, not used in this analysis because it is

too broad a term and, as will be seen below, this kind of program contains characteristics

that 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,

and M, 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 an 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 ones

7. 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.

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 upon the 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 the

other 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 within

their turns.

17. Pronoun references to the non-present audience occur in the form of first-

person plural ("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 the

topic and both principals in the interview. But A generally speaks before B, in fact

introducing B to the audience before beginning the interview proper. There is a case in

the sample 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 Soviet

Union and Cop Rock) are non-A, non-B elements. Often these are clips or music from

another media.

These (always labelled "M" in the transcripts) usually alter the basic scheme of turn-

sequencing and, as explained below, the number of turns per speaker as well.

Apparently, either one of the participants in the interview has the right to speak after such

an illustrative insertion.

6.2.2 Number of turns.

Except for the cases mentioned above, the usual number of turns for an A speaker

is one 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

be considered 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 normal conversations. It was

relatively simple to make in the Category Me.

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

(AIDS Spread). Here there is considerable overlap as well as the B speaker tries to repair

the A-speaker's use of terminology (asterisks mark the salient parts):

A: Are sexually-transmitted diseases and the HIV virus confined primarily to what

might be 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 next

turn 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

statistical scepticism, the approximately 100% difference between the two kinds of

speakers is quite remarkably contrastive to that in Category I.

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

despite two 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 at

first 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 these recordings.

(Ad for Pepsi in the USSR:)

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

the plays.

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 are

most likely to occur except to acknowledge that many of the conditions for their

occurrence 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

phenomenon associated with long gaps (and mentioned above): unexpected phrasings,

that initiate a repair 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

Doris Duke Story) that is being played. This would mean, incidentally, that the A speaker

is deliberately 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 recording

with the sound technician's help without the knowledge of A - a highly unlikely situation if B

is not a member of the radio staff, but just a "guest".) This is another way that Goffman's

(1981) "illusion" of spontaneous speech is maintained.

The disproportionate nature of the turn lengths mentioned above would seem to

indicate that either transition relevant place pauses during B's turns in these programs do

not occur as often as in normal conversation or that speaker A opts not to self-select when

they 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 alternative hypothesis, viz.,

that A more often abstains from self-selecting.

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

concerns overlaps and silences in such talk is a mention of the role of post-editing of the

speech event.

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

category I is used. The only difference is that there is less use of a presenter (P) to

introduce the A speaker. The A speaker often is the presenter and often then introduces

the IE speaker. In fact, the usual sequence is :

A: Introduces topic

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

[Greets in-studio IE speaker or "summons" (Schegloff, 1972) telephonically-linked

speaker and then greets same.

B: Responds to greeting.]

The occurrence of the exchange in brackets is, it appears, optional as the A speaker

acts simultaneously 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 by

Greatbatch (1988) in news interviews of "perceived" questions. Often these take a non-

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.

(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 A

speaker 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 in the first category of program in which the listener who is late in tuning

into the program would 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-initiated other-repair appears in the following:

(Odessa High School Football)

A: You're, you're

assigned 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 of

programs 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):

(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

knowledge receipt signals: "oh" (Heritage, 1985).

This finding about Category II broadcasts contrasts with Heritage's findings about

the news interview genre that was the subject of his paper: "It is possible to search

through hours 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

almost exclusively 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

in these 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 the

Soviets.

(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 to

gather, huh?

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

by 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

bag be 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/her

question 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 by the 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,

other utterances. 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 asking the question.

One final point can be made about the characteristics of speakers in Category II

programs.

It regards the use of pronouns. A more direct way of inviting the IE speaker to address

the radio audience is achieved through the use of imperatives with a first person plural

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 the

conversation 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.

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 no

separate P speaker. The name of the "guest", B speaker, is introduced abruptly followed

by a commitment word ("believes") and the main topic of the conversation: breakfast. The

reason for the book's having been written follows along with the detail of the publisher's

name, the latter having no direct bearing on the topic itself. Both the book and the

publisher 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 with

the 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

her by 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 singular pronoun) 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

breath stops 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 - the

contrast 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 were

not meant to be an "occasioning" (see above discussion).

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 perhaps

perceived question: "What is the difference?" She contrasts the two meals emphasizing

through 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 to

take 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 think of breakfast

.h=

after which A takes the breath stop TRP to reformulate what B has just said and give

the floor back to B with a yes/no question:

A: =Basic farm ingredients,

not things (th)at you have to go to four gourmet shops

in order to gather, huh?

B answers affirmatively (the most common kind of answer to A's questions in all

programs) 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 an

example of Heritage's (1985: 106-108) "cooperative re-cycle".

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

good

an(d)

* I think we forget it sometimes=

A speaker then proceeds without a gap between turns with a direct request to B

using the 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

cook using a subjectless gerund and then the normal English imperative form, the infinitive

form of the verb without "to". She reverts back at the end of her instructions (which is the

longest turn of the entire program) to the "I" pronoun to explain the process. Throughout

the 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 turn

ends with the next sentential utterance.

A enters after the gap of .3 seconds to ask a question directed at "you". The form is

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

in fact, 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 with

receipt signals from A.

A begins her next turn with a yes/no question about "lumps" and proceeds to explain

the meaning of her question ending up with a reformulated yes/no question that hardly

resembles her first :

A: Have you any lump theory Marian Cunningham?

I (re)member at summer camp the mean jokes people

used to tell about lumps

.h

in the oatmeal. Do they make oatmeal really horrible,

or is it just that it looks awful?

(.5)

(laughing)

B: .hhh

It, 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

with the laughter could indicate a loss of footing (and when the speaker is alone "requires"

such a "bracket laugh" - Goffman, 1981: 317-319) on the part of A who continues laughing

into B's next turn and then reformulates incorrectly B's turn as "So it's the rolled oat that is

lump-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

which is 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 publishing

information (the release date of the book differs from the information given in the

introduction).

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). Not

surprisingly, 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 it signals 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 listening

audience", 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 three

unambiguous occasions uses the pronoun to refer to the B speaker. On one occasion the

direct reference is unclear and on another the "you" pronoun can rather confidently be

attributed 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 use them 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 Procedure

In this section I will re-examine 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

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

speakers' speech and that appearing in IE speakers' speech. The A speakers' speech

devoid of repairable material seems characteristic of a reading style or at least a very

careful rather than casual style of the Labov (1972) dimensions. The IE speakers, on the

other hand, 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 need to maintain footing as they are usually acting as authors, animators and

principals at the same time. A speakers' maintain their footing as animators through the

use of editing and careful preparation.

The entire program is ritualized in Sacks et. al. (1974) terms with each of the turns

being pre-allocated partially by the system (the "documentary" genre) and partially by the

arrangement of the program's author. It is not clear who the latter might be, although the

audience 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

sentential TRP'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 them

frontally and even at times addressing them directly. This is evinced by the lack of direct

interaction with what their recorded interlocutors say, their pronoun use and their evident

use 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 an audience 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 radio

audience.

This may include introducing the topic or filling in the gaps left by the IE speaker'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 telephone conversations, 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 audience while 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 its

participants than does Category I.

Most of the speech present in these programs is "careful" speech by both A and B

speaker in deference to the non-present audience. The two speakers are not usually

reading. The presence of a number of "free talk" characteristics including receipt signals

and overlapping re-enforce this conviction. But they do not seem to be engaged in

Goffman's (1981) extreme of "free talk", either. They are restricted by the topic of the

program which takes precedence over other elements. This is evident by the attention

paid to the topic by A at the beginning and end of the program. During the program, B's

"opportunities" to stray from the topic are restricted by the yes/no nature of A's questions

which are chances for B to elaborate on the topic only. A also controls the topic by using

reformulations of B's turns and when necessary "pre-formulations" to keep B "on track".

In this category we have a differentiation of A's roles of animator/principal/author.

The role of principal seems to be allocated to the audience. The use of pronouns and

evident display questions (not to mention the pre-allocation of all of A's comments to the

question category) relegate A to an animator role.

These observations leave little doubt that there is a ritualized, pre-allocation system

working in this category of recordings. The fixed characteristics of the turns and the

presence of reformulations argue for this. The roles of A and B speakers are well-

specified by the event that is taking place: A is the interviewer who extracts information

from B who is the information giver. The analogy of a witness at court is very appropriate

here, for a number of reasons, the most salient of which being that the lawyer (A, in these

kinds of programs) is pre-allocated the role of inquisitor and B is tagged as the answer-

giver and never asks initiative questions

A's role here seems to be secondary, and except for the controlling positions of A's

turns - at the beginning and the end of the interviews - it would seem to argue, in fact, that

B is the major participant in the conversation.

Occasionally, however, A may step out of his/her role by producing receipt signals,

such as newsmarks and assessments, but never "oh" change of state markers. B may

repair A's turns, but in the data here there are no instances of the contrary taking place.

In general the radio audience retains its role as eavesdropper in Bell's (1984) terms,

but such direct reference to "us" which includes the A speaker may explicitly bring the

audience further into the foreground and hence into a ratified but not known group. This

could be what Bell refers to when he defines the referee as being a reference group which

is "absent but influential on the speaker's attitudes" (page 161). It also indicates that the

speaker may consider him/herself a part of the referee group and therefore be an example

of ingroup design (page 188). Of course, Bell's study was on phonetic features of the non-

interacting speakers in his study, but we might note it here in its possible effect on the

questioning pattern of the A speaker in a more complex multi-speaker situation.

8.0 SOME IMPLICATIONS FOR THE CLASSROOM

The purpose of this paper has been to investigate features of two types of radio

programs with the hope that the results may be of use in the English-language classroom.

However, an extensive survey of the didactic implications of these findings would not be

appropriate here.

Instead, in this section I would like to briefly hint at the directions that the findings might

lead us in using such authentic material in the classroom.

8.1 Category I

This group of recordings presents many features that distinguish it from "real"

conversation, which teachers often consider a primary situation for students. The radical

difference between the styles of the IE speakers and that of the A speakers may present

major problems if students are working in the register of a classroom. On the other

hand, the cleanly propositional nature of A's turns and their regular occurrence may be

used to aid the second-language learner. A's orientation full-face to the audience helps to

reduce the overhearer effect that many learners labor under when listening to radio

broadcasts 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 of so-

called "constructed dialogues" present in much speech (Tannen, 1989 page 26; Yule &

Mathis, 1992).

Apparently, many common features of Category I recordings occur in normal 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 by

concentrating on A speakers' turns and viewing IE speakers mainly as contributors to

the propositions advanced by the A speaker.

8.2 Category II

The characteristic of the question-answer interactions that perhaps bear some

relationship to classroom activity and that raises the issue of audience design once again

is that of the questions' true motivation. In classroom research these are referred to as

display questions, i.e. questions whose answer is known, but that are invited from a

student by a teacher for the purpose of checking the student's command of the subject or

lesson 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

some self-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 category of

recording serve in aiding the learner of English to comprehend rather long turns. The

obvious roles of each of the participants may also be of use to the language teacher and

learner.

9.0 CONCLUSION

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

by their participants that distinguish them from other kinds of speech events. Two

categories of programs were delineated and examined in this paper. They were analyzed

according to a number of turn-taking and other pragmatic parameters they exhibited.

It was found that in Category I recordings a presenter uses interventions by recorded

speakers 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 normal

conversation 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 a

half-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 role

in the broadcast.