Applying Discourse Analysis to a Tv Debate Clip - Case Study Example

APPLYING DIS ANALYSIS TO A TV “DEBATE” CLIP Table of Contents Introduction 3 John Stapleton’s Part 3 Caroline Flint’s Part 5 Chris Grayling’s Part 6 Analysis of the Clip 6 Part of Discourse Analysis 8 Languages used in the clips 10 Views & Observations 11 References 12 Bibliography 13 Introduction Discourse is a language over the sentence or over the clause. It is an unending extension of spoken language bigger than a sentence and consists of an understandable unit. An extended language, it apprehends to be a meaningful, united and intentional language, to be used. It is looked as a social practice discovered by social structures (Pustejovsky, J. 2006). Discourse Analysis comprises of qualitative methods that is adapted and augmented by social constructionists. Discourse analysis is used by few realistic psychologists, based on anti-scientific but not on anti research (Eamonfulcher. n.d.). Discourse or critical analysis is a non constructive reading and interpreting a problem or text. The goal of discourse analysis is to view the “problem” from a big stance and also to acquire an inclusive view of the “problem” and in relation to the “problem”. Discourse analysis provides an awareness regarding the unseen motives in others and also it allows solving the actual problems, by not providing definite answers (Palmquist, n.d.). John Stapleton’s Part The clip of a morning talk show of GMTV, anchored by John Stapleton discussed and debated regarding the issue of Labour administration original under estimation in the number of jobs in UK that went to the expatriates’ over the last few years. Stapleton started with the issues, confusing, “The Migrant Job Fiasco” posted in the front page of “Daily Mail”. Similarly in case of The Sun 20, “Migrants Labours haven’t a Clue”. According to the sources, British people are not getting any job but about half of the jobs in the year 1997 have gone to the foreign workers. It is said that about 2.7 million jobs were created in the year 1997 and 800,000 jobs to migrants, but it was revised to 1.1millions migrant jobs and the statistics of the official was assumed to be more than 1.5 millions. Caroline Flint’s Part According to Caroline Flint, MP and Labour Employment Minister, it was not a cover-up as about 100,000 foreign nationals came for new jobs in the year 1997, where found to be incorrect and revised the identified mistaken figures and about 1 million jobs which are upfront about. In 1.5 million, includes foreign nationals which also comprise those born and brought up abroad but are actually UK nationals. It is an important raising issue for people, and when it comes to the statistics, taking the same people of 1.5 million remains the same. Later, she also justifies by saying that the administration has the statistics by which they can estimates and introduce new schemes like identity cards for British nationals from the next year, counting peoples all over the UK and also those who come under work permit. About 29.19 million people are working in this country. They are not dealing with the employment during the year 1980-90, where about 3 million people were employed and very few people got benefits, than those of the first 20 years. Micro work is also included with other work. It would be dangerous to involve micro work with the young people. According to her speech, 660,000 vacancies in UK are available and numbers of the British citizens were employed. The job centres were to support people of current benefits providing them opportunities to work for British people so as to fill up the vacancies and micro industries had still to contribute for UK. Chris Grayling’s Part Chris Grayling, the Tory shadow department for work and pensions minister, says that due to the statistical mistake made by the administration, the foreign nationals in UK in the last few years created several problems like housing, public services, etc. If the administration do not revise the incorrect figures, then there will be doubt in figures, as e.g. temperate accommodation etc are not included in the statistics and hardly there would be 2.6 million people in UK. The hard reality was that of 1.2 million youths’ employment since, ten years ago. Youth age between 16 and 24 are provided no work. The focus should be on the young people into work, which would be influx of micro work. About 5 million of British people are the beneficiaries. Analysis of the Clip According to the clip, out of the three people, Caroline Flint was seen the most on the camera during the five minute slot. It would be John Stapleton, the moderator, who had control the flow of the conversation. Caroline Flint was the one who was trying to justify her views in this wonderful debate and the listeners were John Stapleton and Chris Grayling. Caroline Flint was interrupting when Chris Grayling was against the views of Caroline and also when John was surprised about the incorrect figures were showed instead of correct ones and they do not have proper statistics on how much foreign nationals were employed. Power dynamics literary means “power as a dynamic social process which affects the views, emotions and behaviour of the interest groups which involves inequalities to the realisation of wishes and interests” (Boonstra, 1998). Due to the incorrect figures on the part of the administration, the statistics was not clear as evidence. Caroline was trying to justify herself affecting the views, emotions and behaviour of the interest group. Inequalities prevail with respect to the figures as many foreign nationals were recruited in comparison to the British people. From the earlier views, it was noticed that in the year 1997, 2.7 million jobs were created and 800,000 were migrant jobs. It was revised later to 1.1 million migrant jobs in UK. Caroline says that among 1.5 million includes foreign nationals which includes born abroad, actually belongs to UK’s nationalities. Overcrowding of the expatriates’ was creating problem in relation to the jobs in UK. British citizens are not getting a job which is about 5 millions, standing on benefits. Age between 16 and 24 are not provided with any job. Caroline also says that 29.19 millions of people are working in UK. In accordance to the views and figures from both the parties, inequalities prevail in the figures of the administration, where more than half of the UK’s people are expatriate which consists of UK’s nationalities and a quarter of the population is not provided with any jobs and they are on the standing benefits of the UK’s government. Part of Discourse Analysis Textual or the structural definition of discourse states that discourse is specific part of language over the sentence and functionality defines discourse as a specific focus of the language to use. In structural approach, the problems faced such as a part of language which the people speak are not correct grammatical sentences, e.g. “The colour Purple” by Alice Wharton. Discourse analyses are more of text sentences than system sentences. In the functional approach, Roman Jakobson classifies language into six functions. They are, context as referential, contact as phatic, code as metalingustic, addressor as emotive, and addressee as conative and message as poetic. Recent approach to discourse analysis by M. Foucault and N. Fairclough viewed discourse as a social practice. Discourse is assigned as: Monitored or produced by the social actors. Created by the social structures With social association Valued socially and controlled Discourses are similar to monologues, in case of Anaphora and discourse structure and coherence and different in terms of turns and revelation, grounding and conversational implicature. In utterances and turns, Sack’s rule implied adjacency pairs, where question and answers or request and grant, etc. TRPs are generally at relevated boundaries, relevated boundaries detected are critically important. In the grounding part, listeners ground the speaker’s revelation (Silverman, 1998). In implicature part, according to Grice’s Maxims, there should be exactly informative as required, contribute the correct information that is true; relevancy in the information is required and avoid obscurity and ambiguity of the information (Blackwell, S. 2003). According to Austin, a revelation in a dialogue is termed as action. Any sentence in real speech comprise of Perlocutionary act are those act like result of feelings or thoughts, etc Illocutionary act are those act such as asking, promising or answering, etc Locutionary act are those act like revelation with specific meaning. Speech acts are classified into five types. They are Exercitives like appointing, ordering or advising Behabitives such as congratulating or apologizing etc. Verdictives like estimating or describing etc. Commissives such as betting or promising Expositives like insisting or arguing (Pustejovsky, 2006). Illocutionary acts have two sub classes i.e. constatives and performatives. Not only that there are other classes of speech acts. The speech act comprises of three parts. Firstly, the locutionary act, which is the actual words of the speaker speaking. Secondly, the illocutionary act, where the intention of the speaker is heard and thirdly, perlocutionary act, where the effect of the revelation on the hearer (Austin, J & Et. Al. 1975). Languages used in the clips Firstly, John Stapleton had started as speaker A, then Caroline Flint as Speaker B and then it goes on. According to conversational analysis of Sacks, if no speaker is selected, then any other speaker may take a turn. Locutionary act, illocutionary act and perlocutionary act were performed by each of them in the talk show at a short span of time. TRPs were at a position of announcement, which is critically important to note. Caroline used verdictives by estimating on how many foreign nationals and British people were working in UK. Not only that, she had used expositive by arguing that 1.5 million people includes foreign nationals with UK nationalities. She also says that 29.19 million people are working in UK. She holds opposite view of Chris Grayling and requests others not to misrepresent the statistics with the same people. Less behabitives acts was heard by Caroline in her speech, where she should apologize herself for the wrong figures on the part of the administration. Chris Grayling used exercitives in his speech, where due to the incorrect figures of expatriates’ working in UK, he advised that the youth aged between 16 and 24 should be employed and about 5 millions are standing on benefits. Chris also used expositives, while arguing with Caroline on the same case. Performative and constative words are also used. There was no adequate information on the expatriate’s working in UK. Only little estimation was given by both the guests. Very less relevant information was given from the part of Caroline and the figures were incorrect not perspicuous. Contribution was less as there was short span of time of the talk show. Views & Observations It was Caroline Flint, who was trying to justify the views on the number of labour that were employed from foreign countries and also from the Great Britain and subsequently, won the debate. Due to short span of time, it was not possible to state more views from both the guests. But proper figures and evidences were not available on the talk show by any of the guests. Chris was trying to emphasize on the part of lesser hiring of the British people in their own country, and advised hiring more of the youth belongs to the UK nationalities. Evidences that were produced were not updated and relevant. Caroline was trying to interrupt on Chris’s views which made him to contribute less. Before stating any view by an authority, proper or adequate information should be used as evidence and it should be essentially relevant. Contributions should be equal and truthful from both the guests. Perspicuous information or views should be stated. All these features should be utilized before stating in a talk show. References Austin, J & Et. Al. How To Do Things With Words. Harvard University Press, 1975. Blackwell, S. Implicatures in Discourse: The Case of Spanish NP anaphora. John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2003. Boonstra, J. Power Dynamics and Organizational Change. Psychology Press, 1998. Eamonfulcher, No Date. What is Discourse Analysis?. Home. [Online] Available At: http://www.eamonfulcher.com/discourse_analysis.html [Accessed 25 May, 2010] Palmquist, R. A., No Date. Discourse Analysis. University of Texas. [Online] Available At: http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~palmquis/courses/discourse.htm [Accessed 25 May, 2010] Pustejovsky, J. 2006. Language as Action. University of Brandeis. [Online] Available At: www.cs.brandeis.edu/~jamesp/classes/.../DiscourseAnalysis.ppt [Accessed 25 May, 2010] Silverman, D. Harvey Sacks: Social Science and Conversation Analysis. Oxford University Press US, 1998. Bibliography Foucault, M and Gordon, C. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972--‐1977. Harvester Press, 1980. Tolson, A. Television Talk Shows: Discourse, Performance, Spectacle. Routledge, 2001. Dyer, R. The Matter of Images: Essays on Representation. Routledge, 2002. Read More