An analysis of turn taking organization strategies of the host phoebe trần in 8 ielts show – season 1 on VTV7

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATINAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES


CHU THỊ HẢI

AN ANALYSIS OF TURN-TAKING ORGANIZATION STRATEGIES OF
THE HOST PHOEBE TRẦN IN 8 IELTS SHOW – SEASON 1 ON VTV7
(PHÂN TÍCH CÁC CHIẾN LƯỢC TẠO LƯỢT LỜI CỦA NGƯỜI
DẪN CHƯƠNG TRÌNH 8 IELTS MÙA 1- PHOEBE TRẦN TRÊN KÊNH VTV7)

MA THESIS – TYPE 1

Field

: English Linguistics

Code

: 8220201.01

HANOI – 2018


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATINAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES


CHU THỊ HẢI

AN ANALYSIS OF TURN-TAKING ORGANIZATION STRATEGIES OF
THE HOST PHOEBE TRẦN IN 8 IELTS SHOW – SEASON 1 ON VTV7
(PHÂN TÍCH CÁC CHIẾN LƯỢC TẠO LƯỢT LỜI CỦA NGƯỜI
DẪN CHƯƠNG TRÌNH 8 IELTS MÙA 1- PHOEBE TRẦN TRÊN KÊNH VTV7)

MA THESIS – TYPE 1

Field

: English Linguistics

Code

: 8220201.01

Supervisor : Nguyen Thi Viet Nga, PhD

HANOI – 2018


DECLARATION
I hereby declare that this thesis entitled “An analysis of turn-taking
organization strategies of the host Phoebe Trần in 8 Ielts show – season 1 on VTV7”
was carried out by me for MA degree of English Linguistics under the guidance and
supervision of PhD. Nguyen Thi Viet Nga, Academy of Journalism and
Communication, Hanoi and University of Languages and International Studies’s
regulations.
The interpretations put forth are based on my reading and understanding of
the original texts and they are not published anywhere in the form of books,

monographs or articles. The other books, articles and websites, which I have made
use of are acknowledged at the respective place in thetext.
For the present thesis, which I am submitting to the ULIS, no degree or
diploma or distinction has been conferred on me before, either in this or in any other
University.

Place: Hanoi
Date: November 2018

Research Student


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
At the end of my thesis, I would like to thank all those who made this thesis
possible, as well as contributed in many ways to the success of this study.
Foremost, I would like to express my deepest appreciation to my supervisor
PhD. Viet Nga Thi Nguyen for the constant support of my research, for her
patience, motivation, enthusiasm, and immense knowledge. Her guidance helped
me in all the time of research and writing of this thesis. Besides my advisor, I would
like to thank my committee members of the foreign language faculty at University
of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for
giving me permission to commence this thesis in the first instance, as well as
encouraging me to go ahead with my thesis.
In addition, I also like to extend huge, warm thanks to my good friends,
colleagues for their valuable advice, constructive criticism, and their extensive
discussions during my thesis progress. Especially, I gratefully acknowledge the
staffs of Faculty of Postgraduate Studies for their helpful comments, unfailing
support and assistance
Last but not the least, I take this opportunity to sincerely acknowledge my
parents, siblings whose love, financial assistance, real inspiration enabled me to

complete this work.

i


ABSTRACT

This thesis elaborates on the phenomenon of turn-taking from Phoebe – the
charming host of “8 Ielts” educational television showand her turn control strategies
she adopts. The aim of the study is to describe the ways Phoebe uses utterance
exchange signals in each turn-taking.Following the turn-taking model proposed by
Anna Brita Stenstrom (1994), the hostess will certainly applies strategies to claim,
keep or yield the turn but not all mechanisms are used because their distinct
functions. The thesis also demonstrates dominant turn-control strategies from hosts
in the perspective of semi-institutional setting.
The researcher uses observational qualitative method since it analyzes the data
in the form of words descriptively, not in the form of percentage or numeral, bases
on turn taking strategies found in Phoebe’s utterances with guests and uses
conversation analysis as an approach because fit to the centre of attention of this
study that is analyzing phenomena of talk in interaction.
The result of the research shows that the three turn taking strategies including turntaking, turn-holdingand turn-yielding are correlated each other. And these strategies
are found in every conversation. Especially, taking over/ repetition/ prompting
strategies are operated most.
Practically, the present study helps readers have more understanding and
knowledge about the turn taking strategies and can applied it in their daily life in
order to get easy of conversation as social being. It is also hoped that the
investigation into turn allocation in talk show may benefit the talk show hosts in
achieving success in the program.

ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ......................................................................................... i
ABSTRACT ...............................................................................................................ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ........................................................................................ iii
LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................... iv
ABBREVIATIONS .................................................................................................. vi
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................ 1
1.1. Rationale of Study ............................................................................................... 1
1.2. Aims of the study and research questions ............................................................ 5
1.3. Significance ofStudy ............................................................................................ 6
1.4. Scope of the study ................................................................................................ 6
1.5. Organization of the study ..................................................................................... 7
CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................ 8
2.1. Theoretical framework ......................................................................................... 8
2.1.1. Conversation Analysis ...................................................................................... 8
2.1.2. Institutional conversation in the talk show ....................................................... 9
2.1.3. TurnTaking ..................................................................................................... 12
2.2. Previous Studies ................................................................................................. 25
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY ......................................................................... 28
3.1. Research design .................................................................................................. 28
3.2. Research instruments ......................................................................................... 28
3.3. Data analysis ...................................................................................................... 31
CHAPTER 4. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ................................................... 33
4.1. Findings .............................................................................................................. 33
4.1.1. Strategies for taking the turn ........................................................................... 34
4.1.2. Strategies for holding the turn ......................................................................... 42
4.1.3. Strategies for yielding the turn ........................................................................ 46

iii


4.2. Discussions ......................................................................................................... 49
4.2.1. The signal kinds of turn-taking strategies ....................................................... 49
4.2.2. The kinds of the preferred turn-taking shapes ................................................ 51
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION .............................................................................. 55
5.1. Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 56
5.2. Implications, limitations of the study and recommandations ........................... .57
REFERENCES ........................................................................................................ 59
APPENDIX

iv


LIST OF TABLES
Table 3.1: Conventions developed by Gail Jefferson and published in Sacks,
Schegloff and Jefferson (1974) ................................................................................. 29
Table 4.1: The resume of the data analysis ............................................................... 33
Table 4.2 : The signal of a clean start in starting up the turn .................................... 35
Table 4.3 : The signal of uptake in taking over the turn ........................................... 36
Table 4.4 : The signal of link in taking over the turn................................................ 37
Table 4.5 : The signal 1 of alert in interrupting the turn ........................................... 39
Table 4.6 : The signal 2 of alert in interrupting the turn ........................................... 39
Table 4.7 : The signal 1 of meta-comment in interrupting the turn .......................... 40
Table 4.8 : The signal 2 of meta-comment in interrupting the turn .......................... 41
Table 4.9 : The signal of filled pauses and verbal fillers in holding the turn ........... 42
Table 4.10 : The signal of silent pauses in holding the turn ..................................... 43
Table 4.11 : The signal of lexical repetition in holding the turn ............................... 43

Table 4.12 : The signal of new start in holding the turn ........................................... 45
Table 4.13 : The signal 1 of prompting in yielding the turn ..................................... 46
Table 4.14 : The signal 2 of prompting in yielding the turn ..................................... 47
Table 4.15 : The signal of appealing in yielding the turn ......................................... 47
Table 4.16: The signal of giving up in yielding the turn........................................... 49

v


ABBREVIATIONS
CA: Conversation Analysis
TCUs: Turn Constructional Units
TRP: Transition Relevance Place
T: Turn
TV: Television
ULIS: University of Languages and International Studies

vi


CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

1.1. Rationale of Study
Current communicatively foreign teaching and learning methodologies place
emphasis on providing learners with opportunity to listen and respond to the correct
topic as being part of good manners when interlocutors participate in any form of
conversation. The main use of this work is to experience appropriately more
representation of discourse patterns in order that the learners’ English proficiency is
improved practically. In fact, interactants wait for each other to finish their
respective utterances before taking the floor at each turn. However, the way of

handling turns only has the advantage of simplicity and no maintainability and
adaptation, even their overwhelmingly unnatural boundaries. The clearest
illustration of failure in giving turns to the next speaker is that somenonnative
speakers fall silent when they should take a turn. They do not know how to put his
thoughts and ideas into words or he simply does not have enough confidence to
speak in the presence of other people. Obviously, learners of a foreign language
may find it difficult to gather information, as well as to take their turns naturally and
properly in other tongues. This problem partly relates to turn management and the
use of techniques in turn management.
Theoretically, to smoothly participate in intercultural dialogues, the
conversants need to furnish themselves with sufficient knowledge of turn
acquisition/ allocation, turn-taking rules, and strategies present in the target
language. Understanding linguistically about turn and turn-taking under observation
of conversational analysis, “the talk of one party bounded by the talk of others
constitutes a turn, with turn-taking being the process through which the party doing
the talk of the moment is changed” (Goodwin 1981 : 2). Speaking more easily,a
turn is the time when a speaker is talking and turn-taking is the skill of knowing
when to start and finish a turn in a conversation. Similarly, when conversing with
other people to learn, exchange information, accomplish goals and tasks, or simply
1


to reaffirm emotional and social bonds, we change their roles of speaker and listener
to take speaking turns. It begins by the first speaker speak or he/ she tries to keep
his/ her turn or give a chance to the next speaker to take the turn. This activity’s
main function is to organize sequential information exchange between two or more
communicating groups and to ensure efficient transmission. Although turn-taking
action seems very important in construction of spoken discourse, it is not easy to be
acquired as situated, socially organized sets of practices in face-to-face interaction.
Furthermore, with exchange of a series of utterances in a talk, turn allocation

is about giving turns to the next speaker(s), while turn acquisition describes how
turns are received. In other words, turn acquisition determines the kind of action(s)
the next speaker(s) can or should take when it is his/her turn. Therefore, in order to
smoothly and successfully acquire a turn, a speaker should identify the signals
ending the current turn and inform himself or herself of the techniques commonly
applied to request a turn. The rules/ mechanisms or methods participants use for
allocating/ organizing their turns in turn-taking are called turn-taking strategies.
They shape the context in which turns operate and enable their orderly,
interactionally coordinated actions. From that, conversants extend the capabilities of
interaction with richer discourse planning and linguistic resources that can
communicate more naturally with people.
In reality, it seems that the Vietnamese speakers tend to apply the
Vietnamese conversation patterns when they speak English, which makes them fail
to get the floor and causes conversation breakdown. Besides, the Vietnamese tend
to interrupt more often in some situations and pause in long duration in others. In
other words, non-native speakers of English appeared to struggle and fail to
establish themselves their turns because of lack of familiarity with turn-taking
strategies which base on mechanism of exchange of speaking turn in interaction to
alternate bursts of information. From the reality interactants often ignore techniques
for turn-allocation, researcher suggests that the strategy for turn-taking signals the
participants adopt when they negotiate and exchange a turn should be investigated.
2


There are reasons why turn taking strategies are analyzed. A prerequisite
for this choice is that they can be used to look how the participants manage and
take to exchange of speaking turn in interaction. From smart cues in turn exchange
signals, the hearer knows the way in which language used in conversationon
certain context, purpose or person. This means the participants use the turn taking
strategies to adjust mechanism of speech exchange and achieve their conversational

goals in the set of everyday practices and the set of institutionally specific practices.
It bases on three typical turn-taking actions according to Stenstrom’s theory: taking
the floor, keeping or holding the floor and yielding the floor for constructing
contributions, responding to previous comments and transitioning to a different
speaker. They require practitioners to actively use a variety of linguistic and nonlinguistic cues.
With slight variations, Conversation Analysis researchers analyze actual
instances of talk, ranging from casual conversation between friends, acquaintances,
co-workers or strangers to talk in more formal settings such as classrooms, doctorpatient consultations, courtroom proceedings, radio/ television talk programs,
interviews, and so on. The latter falls within the domain of institutional talk. It is
explained as the talk within the task, in other words, how turns within the discourse
are topic-oriented and are used to exchange in the educationally/ socially
institutional context. This priority is given to discussions, small talks, casual
meetings because speaking agents can interact naturally with a person or a group to
realize the differences in the strategic use of turn-taking signals applied by the
Vietnamese for the Vietnamese, which are identical to those applied by the
Vietnamese for the native speakers or how facilitate communication.
Nowadays, talk show is becoming an everyday program for almost television
channels around the world because its behavior-changing oriented characteristic.
According

to

Morissan

(2005),

a talk

show or chat

show is

a television

programming genre in which one person (or group of people) discusses various
topics put forth by a talk show host. Usually, those invited are those who directly
3


experienced the events or topics discussed, or those who are experts on the issue
being discussed. Differently speaking, those guests who are learned or who have
great experience in relation to whatever issue is being discussed on the show for
that episode. The purpose of the talk show is to give useful information as well as
actual and entertaining the audiences. It usually discusses about political debates,
celebrity gossips and real life experiences from the guests. If it is not made the
efforts to make the program more interesting, the program will not attractive. An
important element of having a successive program is that a talk show moderator
needs know where, when and how to change the roles of speaker and listener to
maintain and get the program’s goalwell. Therefore, planning for selection of
utterances exchanges with different kinds of person in the previously prepared topic
will make it a very applicable dialogue.
Attention is directed to a simulation of two-person dialogue in which host
Phoebe Tran constantly displaying an eagerness to speak knows the way to keep in
the moment-to-moment management of a discussion such as keeping track of the
speakership state, the situation of the talk and when she runs the conversation
flowing, complexities of speech exchange in her relevant turn-taking are abstracted
away. The talk show which the researcher implies here is “8 Ielts” season 1 - the
first educational IELTS Show in Vietnam broadcast televised at 7.45 p.m. on
Saturdays on VTV7. This interactive program attracts a large number of fans who
love English, brings more experience on learning, practicing for “Ieltsers” as well as

for English speakers from both the non-native and the native. More impressively, it
is organized in very smooth fashion by “hot Vietnamese host” who knows how to
naturally direct the conversation up to some subject to inspire learning English for
millions of Vietnamese students, helps them develop communicative skill, improve
discursive competence, know the ways to speak English with their own style in
practical conversations. However, her difficulty is that she reaches appropriate
speakership transference where listeners could start to speak to take new turns of
talk. Essentially, learners are surrounded by an environment of language use that
4


helps them have more experience to take part in diverse contexts (both face-to-face
and online), especially possess the smooth interchange of speaking turns.
Fortunately, she talked to guests who are experienced in testing Ielts and proficient
in English (including the non-native and the native). She was created to controlling
her program while participants havea limited range when they talk in institutional
settings like a talkshow. This facilitates the appearance of culture-oriented
adjustment which is worthy discussing for non-native speakers if they want to have
self-regulation skill for communication all environments and have more
understanding about the turn taking ways to get easy of standard talk in different
contexts.
In this research, it is worth making an effort to solve difficulties in turntaking for Vietnamese speakers of English lies in the routine exchange of turns
which is a fundamental structural feature of conversational interaction. From
examining turn-taking strategies used by host Phoebe Tran in “8 Ielt”s talk show –
season 1, the present paper reviews current attempts to understand the mechanisms
by which turns are exchanged and highlights turn-taking practices in the form of
turn allocation. To achieve natural and efficient interaction, improving the system’s
reactive turn-taking behavior is not enough. It is also necessary to give the right
turn-taking signals to the user so that they can anticipate the end of system’s turns
and provide useful, and timely, backchannel feedback. Hopefully, as a medium for

instructing turn-taking rules and turn-taking functions in a multi-agent framework
which “8 Ielts” brings, each conversant is modeled and behaves separately from the
others. It is the turn-taking systematic embodied in each agent that will coordinate
the individual behaviors in an organized interaction.
1.2. Aims of the study and research questions
This paper is conducted to examine how signals or verbal turn-takings enhance
the quality of speech and conversation. Further expectation on turn-taking with an
emphasis on the functions of utterances can be conducted to reveal how learners use
language in different real-life situations. In addition, this study provides naturalistic
5


data that can be a steppingstone to the representation of turn management bounded
by the restricted contexts.
1. What are turn-taking strategies used by the host – Phoebe Trần?
 To identify the signals of turn-taking strategies which were used by the host
and describe their functions in each typical episode.
2. How is turn-taking managed by the host?
 To know the process of turn-taking and point out whether the kinds of the
preferred turn shapes for nonnative speakers of English from the moderator.
1.3. Significance of Study
Theoretically, the result of this study is expected to enrich the study of
Conversation Analysis, especially in turn-taking strategies because the researcher
finds it some benefits such as understanding how the non-natives applied turn
taking strategies especially in formal condition for instance in talk show,
knowing to choose the appropriate turn taking strategies, finding out the reasons
in using those strategies, and how to put the turntaking strategies in the right
time and in the right place.
Practically, this study is expected to be useful for English learners to
understand more about turn taking strategies. Then, hopefully they can apply the

strategies of turn taking in their daily conversation or in some interviews related to
the appropriate context. Besides, it will be constructive not only for English learners
or students but also for the lecturers or teachers who teach this field of the study.
Generally, this study shall be of interest to those who are concerned with or
have worked on Conversation Analysis, to the teachers and learners of English and
of Vietnamese, who desire to develop a systematic conversation rules supporting
in improving learners’ interactional skills in the target languages, and to those who
are struggling to improve their communication skills so as that they get involved in
smooth and successful face-to-face conversations.
1.4. Scope of the study
The scope of this paper is a conversation analysis on turn taking strategies,
6


namely the host’s turn taking strategies in talkshow “8 Ielts” – season 1 published
in 2016. With approximately 10-minute dialogues at the beginning of the program
from potential guests and from an enthusiastic Ielts expert at the end, her
utterances deal with how the subject organizes those conversations by paying
attention to relinquishing strategies, taking or holding ones in turn. The theory of
turn taking strategies used in this study proposed by Stenstrom and the data
transcription uses Gail Jefferson’s transcription symbol. Researcher used to
analyze the data descriptively, basing on turn taking strategies found in
conversations when she holds small talk with her professional guests about many
topics like hobbies, dreams and travel, so on. Data is collected from 19 first
episodes through records written in a transcript. Classifying the data is divided into
taking strategy, holding strategy, and yielding strategy to find out illustrations of
turn-taking strategies. The order of analysis data in turn is shown according to the
order of each episode. Each video is one extract relatively.
1.5. Organization of the study
This paper is divided into 5 chapters as below:

Chapter 1: Introduction: introducing the research topic, its rationale, aims,
significance, scope, and the organization of the research.
Chapter 2: Literature Review: discussing the theoretical background in the light
of which the research matters will be discussed, previous studies as well.
Chapter 3: Methodology: describing the methods applied to investigate the
research matters.
Chapter 4: Findings and discussion: presenting the outcome of the study and
providing answer to the research questions.
Chapter 5: Conclusion and implications: summarizing the overall study,
proposing some recommendations with regards to turn-taking in practice and
suggesting some forms of further studies on the field.

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CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1. Theoretical framework
This chapter is the revision of the related literature which contains a description
on theories and studies developed before. In this part, the researcher gives the
underlying theories that will be used to analyze the data.
2.1.1. Conversation Analysis
In this world, all people need language to converse with other people.
Communication between two or more people is called conversation. According to
Kato (1998) conversation is a form of interactive, spontaneous communication
between two or more people who are following rules of politeness and ceremonies.
Coulthard (1975) stated that the main goal of conversation is usually to take your
turn to speak. In a conversation, two or more people take turns talking about a topic.
Each person adds to the topic by responding to the meaning expressed by the
previous speaker. For making a successful conversation, the speaker and the hearer

should balance each other. Both have to know about the topic or thing that will be
discussed. Hence, it is very important to analyze people conversation in order to
know how people take their turns in their spoken interaction.
With the same viewpoint, conversation is a collaborative effort between all
speakers involved (Markee, 2000; Richards, 1990). Participants take turns talking,
and the control of a conversation is negotiated by the parties involved. According to
Richards (1980) conversation “is governed by turn-taking conventions which
determine who talks, when, and for how long” (p. 424).

For a successful

collaboration to ensue, it is important for speakers to know how and when to take,
hold onto, and relinquish their turns inconversation.
Before going to know more about turn taking features, it is better to know
which approach is used to analyze turn taking features. One of an approach to
analyze turn taking features is conversation analysis approach. Conversation
analysis (CA) is the systematic analysis of the talk produced in everyday situations
8


of human interaction: talk in interaction. (Hutchby and Wooffitt, 1998:13). From
that statement, we can conclude that CA is an analysis in talk that is produced by
human being when they have interaction with others. It means CA is an approach
that looks at the way in which people take and manage turns in spoken interactions.
The basic rule in conversation is that one person speaks at time, after which they
may nominate another speaker or another speaker may take up the turn without
being nominated (Sack et al, ascited in Partridge, 2006). CA attempts to understand
how it is organized and how interactants understand and display understanding of
each other as their talk unfolds. Litoseliti (2010) also stated that conversation
analysis is to understand how turn taking within a stretch of talk is negotiated

between participants, in order to produce some form of social action. It has more
focus on production and interpretation of talk in interaction that is oriented by the
participants themselves.
It focuses on talk in interaction between two or more participants that take the
turn. A turn begins when the first speaker speaks before the next speaker speaks. In
this case, the first speaker creates or maintains a turn for the next speaker. Then, the
next speaker must understand or make sense about the first speaker’s intent.
Therefore, conversation analysis is used to know how participants understand and
respond to one another in their turns at talk. Under the scope of conversation
analysis, this study was conducted to discuss the turn-taking mechanism in general
and the turn-taking strategies in particular in institutionally interactional
conversations.
2.1.2. Institutional conversation in the talk show
a. Institutional talk
Talk is a social activity, it consists of participants who consider of the context
in a conversation. The participants must be able to develop a feeling about what
they can (or cannot say) until they can reach the goal in their conversation. Usually,
in an interaction the participants do not only talk about the ordinary conversation,
but also talk about institutional interaction.
9


Ordinary conversation is the casual interaction in which the human routinely
engage on a daily basis (Hutchby & Woffitt, 1998). On the contrary, institutional
interaction happens in a workplace setting. In this case, the participants are oriented
to a particular task or goal. For example, call to emergency service or delivery of a
medical diagnosis. Moreover, it involves special and particular constraints on what
one or both of the participants will treat as allowable contributions to the business at
hand. (Levinson cited in Drew and Heritage, 1992).
In institutional talk, the participants speak in a particular order. In this case,

the participants speak to carry on the specific goal and orient to their institutional
identities for example: doctor and patient, teacher and student, host and guest.
Institutional interaction has a limitation context, the participants cannot freely
produce their utterances or carry on a personal relationship between the individual
like in ordinary conversation. For instance, in talk show, the host may have some
idea to make the guest connect to the host’s turn. It is designedto get the goal in the
program and it can be concerned with a limited range of topic in talkshow.
b. Talk show
Ilie supports the idea that “Talk show can be regarded as a particular kind of
face-to-face convesation” (Ilie 2001 : 214) because it shares real settings with its
sense of being live in different aspects. It is a radio or television program that
includes spontaneous conversation between the participants, including the host and
guest about some of events in different aspects: political, social, economical,
educational, etc. The host is considered as a maintainer for the program and the
guest gives a response from the host’s turn. In this case, the host has a power in talk
show because he or she can give are action at any moment about the subject matter.
Supported by Hutchby (2006) that host’s action is targeted to the audience which
can provide an audible reaction in return. The purpose of a talk show is to give
useful information as well as to entertain.
According to Scannell(1991:1), talkshow is “intentionally communicative”.
Therefore, “[a]ll talk on radio and TV is public discourse, is meant to be accessible
10


to the audience for whom it is intended” (Scannell 1991: 1). Scannells insights on
present-day broadcasting may account for Ilie’s claim that talk shows bear traits of
previous public forms ofinteraction.
The talk show itself is a product of the twentieth century. The broadcasting
landscape in Britain moved from authoritarian to more populist and democratic in
the 1960s (Scannell 1991). The talk show went through a similar development. In

the 1980s, “the talk show attained new heights of sophistication, both in Britain and
the USA” (Tolson 1991: 181). This development has added largely to the popularity
of talk shows when Shattuc notes that the talk show was one of the most popular
genres on American TV in the 1990s (Shattuc 1997 in Tolson 2001:1). In Vietnam,
daily talk shows have begun to gain more popularity since 2000 and reached their
height of popularity with the rise of the education/entertainment-oriented talk show.
The different types of talk shows may be classified according to the time of
the day they are broadcast such as breakfast talk shows, daytime talk shows,
evening talk shows or late night talk shows. In addition, they can be classified
according to their content like issue-oriented talk show, trash talk show, celebrity
talk show or current affairs talk show. However, a combination is also possible as
the evening celebrity talk show. Consequently, it is difficult to pin down the
characteristics of a talk show as such. Nevertheless, it is possible to derive some of
basic features of a talk show by looking at its semi-institutional character.
Talk is not isolated; it is situated in a particular context. Talk shows are set in
the institutional setting of a television studio. However, talk shows are, unlike news
interviews or other talk in institutional settings, only semi-institutional. In order to
explain this, Hutchby and Wooffit correctly point out that Sacks and Schegloff, too,
analyzed talk in institutional settings in the 1960s. Sacks was analyzing phone calls
to the Suicide Prevention Centre and Schegloff studied phone calls including calls
to an emergency service and a police station (Schegloff 1968). Talk shows also
have characteristics of ordinary conversation and are, therefore, only semiinstitutional. The institutional context is apparent from the way participants orient to
11


it in their talk. CA looks for examples at what happens with the turn-taking system
in institutional settings.
2.1.3. Turn Taking
a. Basic Concepts of Turn-Taking
1. Turn: Everything the current speaker says before the next speaker takes over

(Stenström,1994)
2. Turn-taking: Turn taking means that the speaker gives a chance to the listener,
who will be the next speaker, to give a comment of what the speaker said and this is
repeating process in the conversation (Levinson, 1983: 292).
3. Turn-taking strategies: The ways participants change and manage their roles
when they become listener and speaker (Stenström,1994)
4. Utterance: the “unit” of talk just as the sentence is the grammatical unit; an
utterance can actually be just a growl, a word, a phrase, a clause (elliptic or not),or
one or more sentences spoken together without any pause.
5. TCUs (Turn Constructional Units): is a unit of conversation that completes a
communicative act. Four types of TCU are categorized including lexical, phrasal,
clausal, sentential TCUs.
6. TRP (Transition Relevance Place): refers to places within talk in which
participants can project where a turn might end.
For example:
A: [TCU so would you like to learn to be able to write letters to him?] [TRP]
B: [TCU I would] [TRP]
b. Characteristics of turn-taking
The features of a model of conversation given by Sacks et al. in 1974 mostly
belong to everyday causal conversations. They suggested a model of conversation
where these fundamental features observed relate to the following facts:

1. Speaker-change recurs, or at lastoccurs.
2. Overwhelmingly, one party talks at atime.
3. Occurrences of more than one speaker at a time are common, but brief.
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4. Transitions (from one turn to a next) with no gap and no overlap are
common. Together with transitions characterized by slight gap or slight

overlap, they make up the vast majority oftransitions.

5. Turn order is not fixed, butvaries.
6. Turn size is not fixed, butvaries.
7. Length of conversation is not specified inadvance.
8. What parties say is not specified inadvance.
9. Relative distribution of turns is not specified in advance.
10. Number of parties canvary.
11. Talk can be continuous ordiscontinuous.
12. Turn-allocation techniques are obviously used. A current speaker may
select a next speaker; or parties may self-select in starting to talk.

13. Various “turn-constructional units” are employed.For example, turns can be
projected “one word long”, or they can be sentential inlength.

14. Repair mechanisms exist for dealing with turn-taking errors and violations.
For instance, if two parties find themselves talking at the same time, one of
them will stop prematurely, thus repairing the trouble.
(Sacks, Schegloff, Jefferson,1974:701)
The most notable feature of the turn is its three-part structure: “one which
addresses the relation of a turn to a prior, one involved with what is occupying the
turn, and one which addresses the relation of the turn to a succeeding one” (Sacks,
Schegloff, Jefferson, 1974:722). For example:
A: Why the woman can’t work as a waitress?
B: Just. Because it’s a problem with the traditional perception that if you go to work
as a waitress. (0.5) It would be a problem to get married.
C: But there are many to work as waitresses.
B: It’s a problem here. Ok. I’m talking about the traditional perception of the society.
This extract is pretty clear about the characteristics of the turn at talking and
shows how the turns are connected with each other. There are three participants,

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which have built four turns at talking. The first turn of B is an illustration. The
first part of this turn, which starts with an overlap “because”, is related with the
previous turn and serves to B to take her turn. The part of the turn that comes next
has to do with the occurring turn until the pause (0.5). The part after the pause
serves to B just to keep her turn, but this will not be allowed by C. The speaker C
begins her turn giving the fact that proves the contrary of what the participant B
just said. The participant B, with an overlap, takes again her turn expanding it with
by providing further explanations why a woman in cannot work as awaitress.
Some of the facts above will be used widely later because they need linguistics to
be understood in detail.
c. Organization
Basic model of the turn-taking system consists of two components and sets of
rules (Sacks et al., 1974). In order to participate in a conversation, interlocutors
have to monitor a turn-in-process to establish when to come in with the turnconstructional component and who is being selected to speak next (the turnallocational component). Furthermore, in building up who speaks next and when,
participants should deploy the rules for turn-taking.
c1. Turn-constructional component and Turn-allocational component.
Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson’s (1974) model of turn taking focuses on two
components: the "turn-constructional component" based on the speaker’s choice of
turn taking unit-types, and the "turn-allocational component" based on how a
participant takes the next turn.
The first component regulates the units to construct a turn. They are
characterized by predictability of their closure as a unit. The end of the unit is the
place where speaker change can occur and the turn can pass to another speaker in
order to keep the progression of turns in motion. It can be clausal, phrasal or lexical
(Herman, p80). Here is an example of single-phrase turns (Sacks, Schegloff,
Jefferson, p702-703):
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A: I have the- I have one class in the evening.
B: On Mondays?
This is the transition point between the end of a turn and the beginning of other turn
of other speaker. TRP makes it easy for each participant to recognize when she/ he
will be able to start or end the turn in each turn constructional unit. For another
example:
A: Do you want the red jacket(.) [TRP] or the blue one [TRP] (Sacks, Schegloff,
Jefferson, p703)
This example shows that the speaker completes two TRPs in the turn. After the
speaker finishes the first TRP, no interactant takes the turn. Therefore, the speaker
continues speaking.
The second component refers to the way in which the change over of turns
between speakers is regulated and the dyadic form of conversation maintained.
Turn-allocation techniques are distributed into two groups: those in which next turn
is allocated by current speaker’s selecting next speaker and those in which next turn
is allocated by self-section. An example is:
Sara: Ben you want some (…)?
Ben: All right I’ll have a…, ((pause))
Sare: Bill you want some?
Bill: No
(Sacks, Schegloff, Jefferson, p703)
Here, Sara as a current speaker allocates the turn by the selection of next speaker
through calling “Ben” in line 1. In line 3, Sara allocates her turn by self-selection.
Thus, turn-allocation component regulates turn change among participants and
comprise a set of rules for the allocation of next speaker’s turn in order to get a
smooth transition.
This study focuses the turn allocation component which comprises techniques
that select the next speaker. There are two types of techniques: those where the

current speaker selects the next speaker, and those where the next speaker selects
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himself/ herself.Supportively, the “simplest systematics” model has important
implications for participant understanding. Sacks et al. (1974) observe that turns at
talk are constructed in ways that mark their connection to the turns that immediately
proceed and follow. This leads naturally, to the next important development,
sequence construction.
c.2. Rules for turn-taking
Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson published a simplest systematics for the
organisation of turn-taking for conversation (1974). They suggest a simple set of
rules which explain how turns come to be allocated at transition relevance places.
There is a set of rules that govern the turn-taking system, which is independent
of various social contexts: (a) when the current speaker selects the next speaker, the
next speaker has the right and, at the same time, is obliged to take the next turn; (b)
if the current speaker does not select the next speaker, any one of the participants
has the right to become the next speaker. This could be regarded as self-selection;
and (c) if neither the current speaker selects the next speaker nor any of the
participants become the next speaker, the current speaker may resume his/her turn.
-

Rule 1: Current speaker selects the next speaker

If the current speaker selects the next speaker in his or her turn at talk, then the
current speaker must stop speaking and the selected speaker must speak next.
The transition occurs at the first transition relevance place after the next speaker has
been selected. An example in which the next speaker is selected is given with the
use of their name. The following two-line extract is taken from a conversation
between two people John and Mary as an illustration:

John: [TCU where did you put it, Mary?] [TRP-Rule 1]
Mary:

[TCU it’s on the table]

John is the current speaker and he specifically selects the next speaker by appending
their name to the utterance in line 1 “where did you put it, Mary? It is relevant,
therefore, that John, as the current speaker, should stop speaking and Mary, the
selected speaker, should speak next. According to Rule 1, Mary should speak at the
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