Murti Ayu Wijayanti , 2201504014 (2007) SPEECH FUNCTIONS IN OPRAH WINFREY SHOW. Masters thesis, Universitas Negeri Semarang.

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Abstract

This thesis is based on a study focusing on the speech functions realized by Oprah as the host and her guests in Oprah Winfrey Show. The main purposes of the study were to explain the speech functions chosen by Oprah and her guest and describe the role enactment among them. The data were taken from two Oprah Winfrey shows. Those two shows were chosen according to the two different programs of Oprah Winfrey Show. One program was about entertainment with artists featuring Jon Stewart, and another was about ordinary people who experienced dramatic life featuring Polly Mitchell. The data were recorded from one of television stations in the form of video compact disc and were transcribed to get the written data. The written data were then identified in terms of turn and moves. The next step was analyzing the speech function of every move based on the chart provided by Eggins and Slade. The speech function choices were then interpreted synoptically to give the quantification of the discourse structure. The results of this study show that (1) Oprah plays her role as the initiator while her guests play their roles as the supporters, (2) the status difference between the guests affect the distribution of speech function choices, (3) both guests produce higher number of moves and clauses than Oprah indicating that they get more space to speak, (4) as the host, Oprah produces higher number of registering move (encouraging her guests to speak) which becomes the reason why Oprah is considered to be a great host who can reveal the fact from her guests without threatening them, (5) both guests produce higher number of responding moves than Oprah showing that they provide information rather than seek it, (6) compared to her guests, Oprah makes more tracking move (one of rejoinder moves) by clarifying, checking and confirming indicating that she has more power to get the clearer information. The suggestions that can be given are (1) understanding casual conversation is extremely useful for the students who study English as foreign language because without the ability to participate in casual conversation, the students will still remain excluded from social intimacy with English speakers, (2) as an example of casual conversation, talk show can be an interesting authentic material used in language learning to help the students practice English, (3) speech functions need to be introduced to the students so that they have more knowledge about the strategies to maintain successful conversation. (4) it is suggested that we need to consider the role relationship among the interactants, (5) there will be other researchers who conduct further studies on interpersonal relationship using the same subject.

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