A contrastive analysis on personal narratives in american and vietnamese TV talk shows

This study, therefore, aims to illuminate the similarities and differences between personal narratives in American TV talk shows and those in Vietnamese ones in terms of their generic st

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

*******************

LÊ THỊ KHÁNH LINH

A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS ON PERSONAL NARRATIVES IN

AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE TALK SHOWS

SO SÁNH ĐỐI CHIẾU ĐẶC ĐIỂM CHUYỆN KỂ VỀ CÁ NHÂN TRONG CÁC CHƯƠNG TRÌNH TRUYỀN HÌNH TALK SHOW

MỸ VÀ VIỆT NAM

M.A COMBINED PROGRAM THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201

HANOI – 2016

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

*******************

LÊ THỊ KHÁNH LINH

A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS ON PERSONAL NARRATIVES IN

AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE TALK SHOWS

SO SÁNH ĐỐI CHIẾU ĐẶC ĐIỂM CHUYỆN KỂ VỀ CÁ NHÂN TRONG CÁC CHƯƠNG TRÌNH TRUYỀN HÌNH TALK SHOW

MỸ VÀ VIỆT NAM

M.A COMBINED PROGRAM THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201

Supervisor: Đỗ Thị Thanh Hà, PhD

HANOI – 2016

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

This is to certify that the thesis entitled “A contrastive analysis on personal

narratives in American and Vietnamese TV talk shows” has been written by me and the

work in it has not previously been submitted for a degree In addition, I also certify that all information sources and literature have been indicated in the thesis

Hanoi, 2016

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express the deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Đỗ Thị Thanh Hà, for her invaluable encouragement and useful comments and advice during the whole process of this master thesis Without her immense help, this study could not have been completed

Also, I am thankful to all my lecturers as well as staff at Faculty of Post Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, VNU for their great support and suggestions

Finally, my special thanks go to my beloved family and friends for their love, care and support during my MA course, especially on the completion of this thesis

Hanoi, 2016

Lê Thị Khánh Linh

ABSTRACT

As narratives play a principal role in human life, much research has been conducted

to enrich the insight into this subject However, not many studies about oral narratives can

be found, especially in the realm of cross-linguistic research This study, therefore, aims to illuminate the similarities and differences between personal narratives in American TV talk shows and those in Vietnamese ones in terms of their generic structures and evaluative strategies The study is guided by three research questions regarding these features of narratives in the two languages To address these questions fully, two models of narrative structure and evaluation were adopted and developed Fifteen extracts from five American

TV talk shows and the other fifteen from five Vietnamese ones were collected as the thesis corpus and subsequently analyzed, through descriptive as well as contrastive methods, to seek the answers to the research questions The findings from the thesis illustrate how narrative structure and evaluation in American and Vietnamese talk shows resemble each other at the first glance, but significantly differ when it comes to interactional aspects and expression of personal identity These differences may be resulted from various factors, including communicating style, history of the shows in the two countries and cultural issues It is hoped that the theoretical contributions and practical applications of the thesis would be of help for linguists, teachers, learners and those who are concerned

TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF TABLES vi

LIST OF FIGURES AND CHARTS vii

Chapter I: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aims of the study 2

1.3 Scope of the study 2

1.4 Significance of the study 2

1.5 Outline of the thesis 3

Chapter II: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

2.1 Narratives 4

2.1.1 Locating narratives 4

2.1.2 Conversational Personal Narratives 8

2.1.3 Narrative structure 9

2.1.4 Narrative evaluation 13

2.2 TV talk shows 17

2.2.1 Defining TV talk shows 17

2.2.2 Semi – institutional feature 19

2.2.3 Narratives in TV talk shows 19

2.3 Related cultural concepts 20

2.4 Previous studies on Vietnamese narratives 22

2.5 Concluding remarks 23

Chapter III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 24

3.1 Research questions 24

3.2 Research methods 24

3.3 Data collection procedure 25

3.4 Data analysis 29

3.4.2 Narrative evaluation 30

Chapter IV: FINDINGS AND DISCUSION 33

A FEATURES OF PERSONAL NARRATIVES IN AMERICAN TALK SHOWS 33

4.1 Structure of personal narratives in American talk shows 33

4.2 Evaluative strategies in American personal narratives 46

B FEATURES OF PERSONAL NARRATIVES IN VIETNAMESE TALK SHOWS 54 4.3 Structure of personal narratives in Vietnamese talk shows 54

4.4 Evaluative strategies in Vietnamese personal narratives 64

C COMPARISON OF STRUCTURES AND EVALUATIVE STRATEGIES BETWEEN AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE PERSONAL NARRATIVES 73

4.5 Comparison of structures between American and Vietnamese narratives 73

4.6 Comparison of evaluation between American and Vietnamese narratives 77

4.7 Concluding remarks 80

Chapter V: CONCLUSIONS 81

5.1 Summary of the thesis 81

5.2 Summary of the findings 81

5.2.1 Narrative structure 82

5.2.2 Narrative evaluation 82

5.3 Practical implications 83

5.4 Suggestions for further study 84

REFERENCES 85 APPENDICES I

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: List of American TV talk shows 26

Table 2: List of Vietnamese TV talk shows 27

Table 3: Frequency of narrating components in American talk shows 33

Table 4: Techniques of narrative ongoing responses in American talk shows 42

Table 5: Distribution of evaluative strategies in personal narratives in American talk shows 47

Table 6: Frequency of narrating components in Vietnamese talk shows 54

Table 7: Techniques of narrative ongoing responses in Vietnamese talk shows 61

Table 8: Distribution of evaluative strategies in personal narratives in Vietnamese talk shows 65

Table 9: Ongoing responsive turns in American and Vietnamese narratives 75

LIST OF FIGURES AND CHARTS

Chart 1: Narrative components in Vietnamese and American TV talk shows 73 Chart 2: Proportion of ongoing appreciation devices in American and Vietnamese

narratives 76 Chart 3: Distribution of evaluative strategies in personal narratives in Vietnamese and

American talk shows 78

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Names of American hosts and guests

JKR: Joanne Katherine Rowling LK: Larry King

Names of Vietnamese hosts and guests

Chapter I: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale

Human beings are story tellers by nature; “narrative is present in every age, in

every place, in every society” and it is “international, transhistorical, transcultural; it is simply there, like life itself” (Barthes, 1977: 79) There is no denying that narratives,

through the long history of human race, have effectively functioned as a principal and constant means of human expression, of real or made up stories, of personal, institutional

or social matters Storytelling not only depicts accounts of events by reporting or recapitulating them but also conveys certain personal perspectives and attitudes towards what happened or what would happen Among various forms, narratives performed by language have typical features that vary from culture to culture, resulting in its diversity all over the world Linguists and people interested, therefore, are highly inspired to approach narratives from many directions at different levels

One of the common areas employing narratives is TV talk shows In recent years, this programming genre has proved its attraction through increasing audience ratings; and

it is narratives that contribute to the success of these shows Though stories can be of numberless issues, from individual experiences and family matters to social concerns, there exists two-way communication: stories are elicited and encouraged by hosts and shared by guests Directed to be broadcast, however, TV talk shows still portray people‟s spontaneous interaction and contain interesting linguistic properties to be explored Thus, considerable inroads in narratives appearing in talk shows are a necessity for broadening human knowledge and revealing the way to exploit it to the full

Nevertheless, it is the fact that while ample papers have been conducted into the discourse of narratives in press like news, short stories, or novels; very little has been done involving spoken version Insufficient consideration in how humans orally produce a story, like in TV talk shows, has left a gap to be filled That has driven me to carry out the present study to analyze and compare characteristics of narratives in Vietnamese and American TV talk shows, with the hope to provide conceptual understanding and helpful

implications in the use of the two languages Entitled “A contrastive analysis on personal

narratives in American and Vietnamese TV talk shows”, the paper is expected to be a

beneficial reference for those who are concerned like show hosts, translators, and especially language teachers and learners

1.2 Aims of the study

The fundamental purpose of the current thesis is to contribute to a comprehensive insight into linguistic features which characterize narratives, particularly those in TV talk shows To realize this, generic structure and evaluative elements of narratives in American and Vietnamese TV talk shows are to be taken into consideration The research then focuses on identifying, analyzing and justifying the similar and different points in narrative structure and evaluation in the two languages Additionally, for teachers and learners of English as well as concerned people, it aims at providing some helpful guides for better

understanding and further advancements in their intercultural communication

1.3 Scope of the study

There are a plenty of issues in the analysis of oral narratives like content, language, voice, spatial and temporal factors; there also exist numerous fields that exploit narratives such as education, health care, advertising and mass media Within the scope of this study, only personal narratives about life and career of celebrities in American and Vietnamese

TV talk shows are investigated In more details, the emphasis is on presenting and analyzing narrative structure – how parts of stories are ordered and expressed; and narrative evaluation – what evaluative devices are principally utilized to indicate participants‟ attitudes towards their stories Based on this paper, further studies would be extended and developed in suitable directions

In details, the study focuses on answering the following research questions:

1 What generic structure and evaluative strategies characterize personal narratives

in American talk shows?

2 What are generic structure and evaluative strategies employed in personal narratives in Vietnamese talk shows?

3 How are personal narratives in American and Vietnamese talk shows similar and different in terms of structure and evaluation?

1.4 Significance of the study

The accomplishment of the current study is believed to make significant theoretical and pedagogical contributions

First, interpretations of the findings will enrich our knowledge on narratives employed in TV talk shows, and ours on narrative language in general The shared and

distinct traits of narratives in Vietnamese and American shows also generate relevant explanations from cultural perspective

Second, with regard to teaching and learning English as a second language, the research would help teachers and learners grasp the similarities and differences in storytelling in their native and target languages Hence, negative pragmatic transfer can be avoided, and learners can have more native-like narrative style Furthermore, as TV talk shows are a great source of authentic materials, it is absolutely possible to recognize learners‟ improvements in their practical communicative skills

1.5 Outline of the thesis

As required, the paper will have such main parts as follows:

Chapter I: INTRODUCTION, presents statement of the problem and rationale

for the study, aims, scope, significance, and outline of the study

Chapter II: LITERATURE REVIEW, clarifies theoretical background and

related studies relevant for the research

Chapter III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY, elicits information related to

research questions, research methods, data collection, data procedure, coding scheme, and

data analysis

Chapter IV: FINDINGS AND DISSCUSION constitutes the core of the study

and will be separated into three subsections, correspondent to three research questions First, generic structure and evaluative strategies of the American narratives are investigated Subsequently, the Vietnamese narratives are analyzed, also in terms of structure and evaluation Finally, features of narratives in the two languages are compared

to highlight the similar and different characteristics, which are then justified by appropriate reasons

Chapter V: CONCLUSION, summarizes essential findings, provides some

linguistic and pedagogical implications, and gives suggestions for further studies

Besides, there should be REFERENCES and APPENDICES if any at the end of

the research

Chapter II: LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, an overview on related issues will be presented as the theoretical background for the current study In detail, we are about to address the concepts of narratives with special attention to narrative structure and evaluation Subsequently, how narratives work in TV talk shows is going to be studied to identify narrative importance and characteristics in this TV genre It is expected that the following literature review will clearly display what has been done and what has not been done in this field

Though a narrative is said to be “simply there, like life itself” (Barthes, 1977: 79), there

is a wide and complicated range of variation in how the concept of personal narrative is acquired The very first point to consider is a comparison of narratives and stories According

to Abbott (2002: 19), “narrative is the representation of events, consisting of story and

narrative discourse; story is an event or sequence of events (the action); and narrative discourse

is those events as represented” It is then up to the narrators to decide the order in which events are recounted and style of telling However, in this paper, the two terms narratives and stories are used interchangeably to refer to the representation of a series of events meaningfully connected in a temporal and causal way

From perspective of social history and anthropology, a very traditional work by Myerhoff (1978) regards narrative as the entire life story, an amalgam of autobiographical materials In a more restrictive way by other scholars, narrative refers to brief and topically specific stories in response to a single question These discrete stories are organized around characters, setting and plot to report what the narrator witnessed or experienced For instance, Labov and Waletzky (1967) collected stories from subjects about their “life threatening experiences” by means of an interview and analyzed narratives from structural analysis approach Their significant finding of a six-element narrative model has shed the light for numerous later papers

The concept of narrative as discrete stories gives way to a larger section of talk and interview exchanges - extended accounts of events, experiences framed though

interactional activities Considered as conversational stories, they are negotiable and

collaboratively developed between participants who can take the role of narrator or

recipient (Polanyi, 1985) Research on this kind of narratives pays close attention to two issues of how stories get told by narrators and how recipients respond to the storytelling Clearly, this view brings a broader and much more interactive concept of narrative in comparison with Labovian model Since personal stories in American and Vietnamese

TV talk shows are treated as data of my thesis, Polanyi‟s approach is adopted

Apparently, a narrative can be perceived as large as a dairy of a life journey or as specific as one of hundreds of stories in daily conversation Though there is no definite definition, the concepts of narratives share some common features The first one to be mentioned is sequence: something has to happen, and one action is followed by another

As defined by Abbott (2002), narrative is “the representation of an event or a series of events” and the plot is usually in chronological sequence Secondly, narratives are also characterized by particular linguistic devices that enable narrators to link single accounts

and make a point for their story Hence, a narrative not only reports what happened or would happen but also conveys numerous attitudes and meanings

2.1.1.2 Functions of Narratives

The presence of narration in our daily life is so natural that sometimes we do not notice its paramount importance In fact, the functions of narratives are manifold In the information society where people need to share experiences and establish relationships, narratives have become a principal means of communication regardless of nationality, language and culture Norrick (2000) clarifies that stories are told to express tellers‟ viewpoint, to catch up on each other‟s lives, to inform news and to entertain each other There is no doubt that narratives are an effective bridge to connect people as well as enhance their relationships

According to some scholars, narratives function as an indispensable tool to develop tellers‟ critical thinking and linguistic ability The key role of narratives in mental and linguistic development is noted by McCabe & Bliss (2003) Narratives, first and most important, are home for our experiences to be made sense of After several times of telling and retelling, a story will improve in coherence, which gives us the feeling that we really know what happened Narratives also enable us to represent ourselves For instance, the ways we tell about an experience to a parent and to a friend are quite different Furthermore, from pedagogical view, narratives effectively help to develop oral and writing skills as they are a memorable way of making the past present and the abstract concrete Throughout the life span, narratives appear in many cases from daily conversations to communication with people in medical or legal profession It can be said that narratives are integral to all walks of life and ages

2.1.1.3 Features of Narratives

There are features that define the nature of narratives; however, before any

characteristics are explored, a discussion of time is necessary It is commonly known that

time is constant, and everyday human beings experience a linear series of events Some of the events originate from the cyclic nature of environment like night and day, seasons, years; while the others are cultural constructs such as holidays, mealtime, and weddings In

a more personal sense, time is divided into certain amounts of time to carry out certain jobs Time exists in human life as an unchangeable denominator, for every activity and every individual This constant entity largely contributes to the essence of narratives: all

narratives “depict a temporal transition from one state of affairs to another” (Ochs, 1997: 189); and temporal attribute of narrative can be regarded as the “chronological dimension”, linguistically expressed by a sequence of temporally ordered clauses (Labov, 1972)

Nonetheless, the notion of time in narratives is not perceived in a straightforward way as it first seems since it is decided psychologically by narrators To illustrate, some events that last for years can be briefly summarized in a few narrative sentences, whereas some that take seconds may be described and retold meticulously in pages The two time streams cogently indicate the subjectivity of narration as well as strongly claim that narrative “is the principal way in which our species organizes its understanding of time” (Abbott, 2002: 3)

The above premise about time and events evokes defining characteristics of narratives, including event sequentiality and event selection First, “the narrative is a sequential composite” (Chatman, 1978: 20) Event sequencing refers to the way narrators order and tie single accounts to construct a complete story Clearly, events in narratives need not to follow the order they actually happened but can be combined and recombined

in a variety of ways The narrative must have a beginning, a middle, and an end, but unnecessarily in that order (Chandler, 2002) Bruner (1990) also suggests that inherent sequentiality is the fundamental feature of narration It is further explained by the fact that

a narrative is constructed from a certain sequence of events, mental states, happenings involving human beings as characters or actors He emphasizes “these are its constituents But these constituents do not, as it were, have a life or meaning of their own Their meaning is given by their place in the overall configuration of the sequence as a whole ” (Bruner, 1990: 43)

Narratives are also characterized by event selection When a story is told, only necessary accounts are mentioned despite the fact there are a lot of things happening in reality Choosing what should be narrated is closely associated with the point of the story – the message conveyed by the narrator (Chandler, 2002) This is to say that no matter what events are selected and how they are ordered, it is the narrators‟ point of view and intention which decide the content and organization of what they tell “A tale or anecdote, that is, a replaying, is not merely any reporting of a past event” but “a replaying, in brief, recounts a personal experience” (Goffman, 1974: 504) Therefore, with the same experience, different narrators will produce different stories

From structural approach, three properties are included: wholeness, self-regulation, and transformation A narrative is whole as it ties single and discrete events in its own logical organization Self-regulation refers to the ability of the structure to maintain and close itself Finally, transformation means events are selected and ordered based on narrators‟ purpose (Chatman, 1978)

Examining narratives, Ochs and Capps (2001) propose five dimensions: tellership,

tellability, embeddedness, linearity, and moral stance Tellership concerns the extent and

kind of involvement of conversational partners in the recounting of a narrated event It can involve a teller who recounts an event to a passive audience to a set of active tellers jointly developing a story A teller may be influenced by the thoughts and words of others

Tellability is the quality that makes a narrated event inherently worth telling, in particular,

its significance for the narrator The way narratives stem from surrounding discourse and

the larger cultural setting is called embeddedness These events typically have a point, make a comparison, or justify a concern Linearity deals with the extent to which narratives

depict events as transpiring in a single, closed, temporal, and causal path or in diverse,

open, and uncertain paths Moral stance means a disposition toward good and how one

ought to live in the world Based on standards of goodness, individuals judge themselves and others

2.1.2 Conversational Personal Narratives

Narrative analysis has drawn considerable attention and covered a wide range of linguistic approaches To date, much of the research has focused on written discourse such

as novels, short stories, as well as news and modern investigation follows this tradition Recently, oral narratives have become the subject matter of practical papers and contributed numerous applications in many aspects The theory on oral narratives was pioneered by Labov & Waletzky (1967) with monologic stories from interviews in which participants answered a single question about their dangerous experiences The corpus of storied form was also collected when participants were asked to retell a film, a picture story or a story previously read

However, it should be noticed that ordinary conversation is the natural home to narratives and stories told in conversation are fundamental means of transferring experience (Ochs, 1997) Compared to non-conversational stories, conversational

narratives share some features but much more interactive and negotiated They may be

“deeply contextualized, diffuse, and not easily detachable from the local conditions that occasion them or understandable outside of them” (Norrick, 2000: 127) Narratives, in general, are authored by both those who introduce them and recipients; and this is especially evident in conversational storytelling (Goodwin, 1984; Ochs et al., 1992) Different from interview – style narration where there is a single teller with a particular question, conversational storytelling is constructed by the participants‟ co-authorship Sometimes, identifying the primary teller is not easy in conversation as whoever takes part

in conversations can become co – narrators This reflects the dimension of tellership proposed by Ochs and Capps (2001) Furthermore, the presence of listener response during and at the end of the narratives creates a typical property that distinguishes conversational stories from non – conversational ones (Schegloff, 1997)

analyze spoken narratives, it is just appropriate for detached, autonomous and contained stories with very clearly identifiable parts

self-Regarding narratives in conversations, a model that covers the roles of both narrators and recipients should be employed As concluded by Sacks (1974), most conversional analysts would agree that stories are structured with three “serially ordered and adjacently

placed types of sequences”: Preface Sequence to establish the necessary conditions to tell a story; Telling Sequence to present the story which is shaped by coordination between storytellers and audiences; and Response Sequence to indicate the audiences‟ feedback

generates subsequent talk He and other linguists treat organization of storytelling as sequenced units based on the claim that “turn-taking is the basic form of organization for conversation” In an attempt to identify the coordination of participants to produce a story, Goodwin (1984) suggests the following interactional techniques:

Normally, conversational narratives can be launched with story prefaces and/ or story

solicits to signal the upcoming stories and align participants Story preface is performed by

the story teller as an announcement that the speaker has a story to tell Sacks (1974) says that the preface provides a chance for potential recipients to preempt the story delivery if they have already heard it It can also force “knowing recipients” to express their shared knowledge of the story events and make contributions to the story A preface sequence, therefore, can take a minimal length of two turns where there are an offer of a story by the teller (for example, “You want to hear a story?” or “I have something terrible to tell you.”) and an acceptance or rejection by the recipient It can be seen that the negotiation property

is demonstrated right at the beginning of conversational narratives A preface sequence also shapes the tellability of the story by displaying one or more of the components: (a) an offer or request to tell the story, (b) an initial characterization of the story (for instance, something terrible), (c) some reference to the time when the story events occurred, and (d) reference to the story source

Serving the function of initiating the story, yet story solicit comes from the recipient

At any point of interaction, even after the story preface, a member of the audience can solicit a story from the potential speaker Mandelbaum (1987) stresses the active role of recipients as “knowing participants” or as “unknowing participants” in the beginning, as

well as during the story delivery In this case, recipients align with narrators and present themselves as co-tellers to develop the story

The teller begins their own story with preliminary - the background information that

sets the scene for what is being told This part will provide necessary data for the recipient

to comprehend and enjoy the story Preliminaries can be in the form of the “who”,

“where”, “what” and “why” The main body of the narrative is story action that

recapitulates what happened or would happened through narrative clauses The “punch

line” of the story, termed by Goodwin (1984) as story climax, is the high point of the story

at which the problem is solved and the story is concluded Climax in Goodwin‟s narrative structure can be considered equivalent to resolution in Labovian model, not climax as the strongest part in complicating action However, preliminaries and story actions do not always move to story climax in a straightforward path but sometimes shift to a

parenthesis This is a situation when the teller breaks off the story-in-progress to insert

further information for better understanding of the story Goodwin (1984) states that parenthesis is a useful tool to explain any details that have already been stated or to supply information to particular descriptions of events and/ or people to make them more vivid

Story appreciation refers to the audience‟s response to the story This might be made

during story or at the end, consisting of questions, agreements, comments, laughter, or other signs of emotions Though narrators are the main speakers, there is no point of telling

a story without recipients According to Goodwin (1984), the verbal and non-verbal reactions of the recipients directly influence the unfolding of the main speakers‟ turns This ongoing reception refers to recipiency throughout the delivery of the story, and should be differentiated from the actions that constitute final reception at the end of the story Actively participating in the construction of the narration, the recipients can express

preferred or dispreferred response to a storyteller‟s turns Preferred methods for

responding to the given story concern showing alignment with the storytellers by exhibiting talk that corresponds to the story Alignment and affiliation are indicated through response tokens, agreement with the speakers, upgrades of agreement, stating the upshot of the storytelling sequence for the teller, and repetition Especially, such response

tokens as uh huh, or yeah with a slightly raised intonation are commonly utilized to claim

alignment and acknowledge the story as well as invite further information In contrast,

dispreffered methods including silence and dropping intonation of the response tokens

display disinterest and lack of desire to hear more (Sacks, 1974; Goodwin, 1984)

Upon the completion of a story, the recipients are expected to fulfill three relevant tasks:

(1) display understanding of the completion,

(2) show appreciation of the point of the story, and

(3) demonstrate the story‟s potential to generate subsequent talk

(Sacks, 1974; Jefferson, 1978) Consociate entry can enter this final reception when narrative consociates produce their own assessment of the story or supply an additional episode related to the given one (Lerner, 1992) If any story response is absent at the story completion, the teller may add various expansions to gain recipient responses (Jefferson, 1978)

Goodwin (1984: ) exemplifies the subsections of storytelling sequence through the following conversation At a picnic, Anna tells the story of what happened when she and her husband visited their friend Karen‟s house for the first time

14 Don: Uhh hih huh

As seen from the conversation, a story preface is expressed in line 1 and 2 when Ann releases some information about what could be told Her offer is accepted by Beth‟s story

solicit in line 3 (“What happened?”) Then Ann begins the story with a background at lines

04 – 05, that is Karen has a new house with unusual wallpaper At line 06, Ann is about to introduce a climax utterance with “Don says”, but she stops to offer more information

called parenthesis (“y‟know this is the first time we‟ve seen this house Fifty thousand

dollars in Cherry Hill Right?), and receives Beth‟s agreement and encouragement at line 9 (Uh huh?) At line 10, Ann returns to what Don says – something incredibly inappropriate

and hilarious, making the story interesting It is the climax of the story The story ends with Beth‟s and Don‟s laughter at line 13 and 14 as a story appreciation

2.1.4 Narrative evaluation

When retelling personal experiences, narratives serve two notable purposes, namely

referential - the teller gives information by referring to the experience and reporting what

happened or would happen, and evaluative - the teller communicates the meaning of the

narrative by establishing some point of personal involvement (Labov & Waletzky, 1967) Though evaluative elements are optional comments, made at any point in the story, they play a crucial role in explaining why the story is being told or why the events are worth telling A narrator can convey his feelings or attitudes towards to the narrative by emphasizing the relative importance of some narrative units compared to others Polanyi

(1981) suggests that since stories include a lot of words, many details and incidents of

various sorts and degrees of importance, tellers evaluate various aspects of their texts differentially using a variety of conventional “evaluation devices” to point out particularly

important material in the story which they are telling In a simpler and more affective way,

Grimes (1975) defines evaluations as a tool to bring the listener more closely into the narration and inform him feelings that goes beyond the bare cognitive structure of what happened or what deduction is to be made There are a wide range of ideas clarifying the virtue of evaluation, in which the most reputable may be Labovian expression To quote Labov in full:

Beginnings, middles, and ends of narratives have been analyzed in many accounts of folklore or narrative But there is one important aspect of narrative which has not been discussed — perhaps the most important element in addition to the basic narrative clause That is what we term the evaluation of the narrative: the means used by the narrator to indicate the

point of the narrative, its raison d‘être: why it was told, and what the narrator is getting at There are many ways to tell the same story, to make very different points, or to make no point at all Pointless stories are met (in English) with the withering rejoinder, ―So what?‖ Every good narrator is continually warding off this question; when his narrative is over, it should be unthinkable for a bystander to say, ―So what?‖ Instead, the appropriate remark would be, ―He did?‖ or similar means of registering the reportable character of the events of the narrative (Labov, 1972:366)

It could be seen that evaluation makes critical contribution to the production of narratives Without evaluation, a story cannot be complete and it has no point Furthermore, as there exist cultural disparities in narrative construction and criteria of

“good” narrative, speakers of different languages value evaluation at different degrees For instance, Minami (2008) finds that a good story in English is to inform the listener with not only referential accounts but also evaluative comments; whereas a good story in Japanese concentrates on what happened rather than how the teller experienced the event The researcher claims that actions, i.e plot-advancing, sequential foreground information, would most likely be necessary indicators of a good story told in Japanese

Narrative evaluation has become a topic of interest and inspired a number of linguistic projects One of the most influential frameworks on narrative evaluation is established by Labov and Waletzky (1967) In their paper, they regard evaluation as a separate section and identify a variety of means to reveal teller‟s evaluation, ranging from

semantically defined evaluation (including direct statement, and lexical intensifiers), formally defined evaluation (including suspension of the action), to culturally defined evaluation (including symbolic action and judgment of a third person)

Later, Labov (1972) recognizes that evaluation in fact is interspersed throughout the

narrative and differentiates two evaluative levels The first level involves external

evaluation with which the storyteller steps out of the story world and explicitly expresses

his feelings or attitudes towards it Nevertheless, it is not always a necessity to directly

state what the point of the narrative is The narrators, instead, can utilize embedded

evaluation, which helps them implicitly convey their personal comments Embedded

evaluation concerns sentiments as if they occurred at the time of the happening, rather than

at the time of the telling Internal evaluation in narratives is communicated through evaluative devices – syntactic and phonological features deliberately used by the narrator

to hold his hearer‟s attention, to indicate the point of the narrative, and to involve the hearer in the telling of it Four categories of internal evaluative devices are suggested by

Labov (1972), namely Intensifiers, Comparators, Correlatives and Explicatives along with

numerous subtypes

Though largely applied, the Labovian theory of evaluation presents some theoretical and practical problems According to some scholars, the identification of the evaluative devices is difficult because the lack of a one-to-one relationship between form and evaluative function One and the same clause may result in different effects, depending on where it appears in the course of the story delivery (Bamberg, 1987; Cortazzi, 1993) Another problem is related to the distinction between referential and evaluative function: clearly, every event in the narrative can be thought of as evaluative, used to show the point

of the story, instead of being simply the representation of a narrative event Therefore, the decision on whether one element is referential or evaluative is quite subjective (Culler, 1981) Most importantly, in case of the present paper, Labovian subtypes of internal evaluation are not really appropriate when applied to Vietnamese language For instance, equivalents for such language-specific syntactic elements as right and left participles cannot be traced in Vietnamese

The concept of evaluation is expanded by Tannen (1989) with the clearer demonstration on quotations and repetition She further emphasizes that the concept of evaluation is not only relevant to storytelling but also to any discourse because the speakers methodically employ language to indicate the point of the discourse The term

involvement strategies are used by Tannen to refer to “a systematic way(s) of using

language” to achieve “an internal, even emotional connection individuals feel which binds them to other people as well as to places, things, activities, ideas, memories, and words”

In an investigation into children‟s narratives, Peterson and McCabe (1983) affirm that communicative efficiency is not the mere purpose of natural human languages, and that they are constructed the way for speakers‟ attitudes and feelings to be conveyed Besides referential indicators of what, when, and where of a narrative, evaluative devices should be employed to engage listeners and prove why the story is worth telling In Peterson and McCabe‟s study, personal narratives of ninety-six children, aged 3,6 to 9,6

are investigated in an attempt to examine their developmental patterns of narratives The two researchers extend Labovian model into 21 types of evaluation, including onomatopoeia, stress, elongation, exclamation, repetition, compulsion words, similes and metaphors, gratuitous terms, attention – getters, words per se, exaggeration and fantasy, negatives, intentions or desires, hypotheses of inferences, results of high point action, causal explanations, objective judgment, subjective judgment, facts per se, description of internal emotional states, and tangential information These 21 subtypes are categorized as:

- Interactive elements such as attention-getters

- Prosodic devices such as onomatopoeia

- Rhetorical devices such as exclamations and metaphors

- Lexical devices such as gratuitous terms

- Irrealis modality such as expressions of hope and desire

- Causal elements such as motivations and event results

- Internal states: cognitive and affective states attributed to the protagonists

They conclude young narrators can perform all types of evaluative devices, making their stories very interesting The most significant finding, however, is that gender is unlikely to strongly affect the production of a narrative

The distinction in evaluative comment preference by children and adults are examined by Bamberg and Damrad-Frye (1991) via a set of five devices, which are the combination of Labovian framework and Peterson & McCabe‟s classification Overall, Bamberg and Damrad-Frye detect the developmental trends in the frequency of evaluative clauses and the variety in the functions of evaluative devices with increasing age The five include:

- Frame of mind: in relation to affective or cognitive states

- Character speech: direct or reported speech quoting from or attributing to characters

in the story

- Hedges: distancing the narrator from the proposition

- Negative qualifiers: such as not, im- or un-

- Causal connectors: such as because

In general, the wide range of studies on evaluation has established a considerable insight in how the story point is displayed Despite the variation in approaches and

classifications, the significant role of evaluative devices is highly appreciated in storytelling Further research in this story component, especially in the realm of cross – cultural research, is of practical importance

2.2 TV talk shows

Within the scope of the thesis, TV talk shows provide the data to be analyzed Some features that define the virtue of TV talk shows and the significance of narratives in this

TV genre are going to be discussed It is expected that this part would justify the relevance

of TV talk shows as the source of the corpus

2.2.1 Defining TV talk shows

In recent time, TV talk shows have become a popular means for the discussion of lay public opinion on various issues TV talk shows can serve simultaneously many functions, one of which is to provide helpful information on topics of interpersonal and psychological issues This TV genre is also produced to entertain audience as well as promote products advertized during the show (Penz, 1996) Clearly, the attraction and popularity of this TV program is no new phenomenon To answer the question what TV talk shows are, it is of necessity to distinguish TV talk shows from television talks, from which some fundamental elements of TV talk shows can be drawn

The appearance of television talk was recognized after fifty years of television practice and the preceding three decades of radio This kind of program originates from what sociologist Erving Goffman names “fresh talk” that appears to be spontaneous, regardless the fact that it can be previously planned or formatted Though it is unscripted, the talk is highly planned and unchangeably anchored by an announcer, host, or a team of hosts The range of TV talk, hence, is much broader than that of talk shows as it involves all kinds of talk on television: cooking shows, fashion shows, home shopping channels, station announcements Included in the territory of TV talk, TV talk shows are entirely structured around the act of conversation itself (Timberg & Erler, 2002)

According to Bruun (2001), there may be numberless TV talk shows hosted by many speakers and of various topics, yet they all share the three following elements: the TV studio, the studio host, the interview

The TV studio refers to the space of the program and the correspondence of time and place in TV talk shows is observed in the same way as in classical drama Timberg & Erler (2002) claim that in this genre, TV is neither a reporting medium nor a transmitting one Instead, the role of TV is to help viewers experience the simultaneity between the time of the program and its transmission In the case of TV talk shows, liveliness is an important attribute, and even on tape, they appear very much alive (Penz, 1996)

The second component in TV talk shows is the host, or a team of hosts, the “central dramaturgic element who functions as an intermediary between the program and the viewers” (Bruun, 2001) Timberg & Erler (2002) argue that TV talk shows are “host-centered” and “the first (unspoken rule of television) is the host‟s centrality to the show The primary rule of television talk is that the host is the master or mistress of ceremonies” The host‟s responsibilities include establishing the tone and direction, guiding and setting limits on the talk that is elicited from guests on the air Considered under marketing perspective, the host is the label, the trademark that sells the product – the talk show (Timberg & Erler, 2002) On one hand, the host designs the content of the show based on the program demands On the other hand, he or she can attach their personal conversational style in the show, which differs from the performance of the anchor person in a news broadcast who acts as an institutional representative, partly for the TV station, and partly for the phenomenon “news” (Bruun, 2001)

The interview constitutes the main ingredient of the talk show, in which most of the content is transmitted through conversation among people Unlike TV quiz show and game show where the focus is on the game controlled by a set of rules, TV talk shows aim at people and interactive communication among them As mentioned above, the first group of participants of the show is the host, or a team of hosts The second party involves the guest(s) who is invited on to the host‟s program Accompanied with them are the viewers – present but unseen and silent guests Though the show host is normally supposed to direct the question – asking, the guest also actively raises questions and make comments, which leads to the construction and reconstruction of relations between the host and the guest (Bruun, 2001)

2.2.2 Semi – institutional feature

TV talk shows have received increasing attention from not only mass media researchers but also linguists as they provide a rich source of authentic data A comprehensive project by Penz (1996) summarizes linguistic features and the distribution

of control via language in American TV talk shows In an attempt to explore the nature of

TV talk shows as a particular example of broadcast discourse, Ilie (2001) points out that patterns of communicative and social behavior in TV talk shows are connected with more than a discourse type Through comparison with casual conversation and institutional interaction, the researcher proposes that semi-institutional property is one of the distinguishing features of TV talk show discourses Put it in another way, the specific structure of interactive patterns in the shows is a hybrid of genuine daily conversation and interview: it is somehow formatted, and hence, less spontaneous than the former but less institutionalized than the latter

Language used in talk shows is the principal subject in a research by Honda (2010) which focuses on the responsive behavior of the host in a single Japanese talk show segment As confirmed by the researcher, while the guest is talking, the host does not simply listen in a passive way but actively facilitate the storytelling The host‟s responsive

behaviors can be categorized into three kinds: (1) continuers (brief vocations such as Yes,

Uh huh, or Yeah); repetition of words or phrases which the guest has just uttered; (3)

stance displays, newsmarkers (such as Oh or What?), and lengthened vocalizations

2.2.3 Narratives in TV talk shows

It is well established that narratives play an indispensible role in success of this mass communication kind Since stories in TV talk shows are constructed with turn-in-interaction by the host and guest, conversation analytic approach should be employed to explore their narrative structure and evaluation (Ilie, 2001) Despite interactional form, stories in TV talk shows differ from purely natural narratives in some ways An obvious example is that TV stories are triggered by the host asking the guest to share their personal experiences Thus, the role of narrator and recipient may alter in the entry into narratives: it

is the recipient that prefaces the story, not the narrator as in normal conversation Narration

in TV talk shows are also distinctive in the way that stories may be already known to the elicitor and potential teller, but remains unknown to the audience in the broadcast events

As a result, the host can act as a co-narrator with the guest in developing the story (Thornborrow, 2012)

2.3 Related cultural concepts

It goes without saying that language use is significantly defined by its surrounding culture and the cross – linguistic dissimilarites mainly root from cross – cultural differences We, therefore, find it necessary to give a further discussion into some cultural taxonomies, including individualism and collectivism, directness and indirectness, linearity and circularity, which may help to justify the differences spotted

2.3.1 Individualism and collectivism

Individualism and collectivism refer to one of the dimensions in the influential cultural taxonomy proposed by Hofstede (1980) This dimension involves the relationships between individuals and the larger social groups they are living in and to survive they have

to establish a way of relating that is associated with a balance between showing concern for themselves and concern for others It is concluded by Hofstede (1980) that cultures are distinct in how much individual autonomy is considered, resulting in the tendency to encourage social members to be unique and independent or conforming and interdependent

Cultures regarded as highly individualistic do appreciate the autonomy and independence of the individual people who are believed to care about themselves and their immediate families Because motivation is primarily generated from the person, it is the individual benefit that directs decision making With reference to judgments when people evaluate what is right or wrong, it is also the individual viewpoint that matters Particularly, individualistic members are trained to speak out as a way of resolving problems and tend to employ confrontational strategies to address personal issues

Those who live in collectivist societies absolutely own a very different concept about the relationships between self and the community In these cultures, loyalty to the group, ranging from the nuclear family, the extended family, a work group, a social organization, the whole community; and dependence of the individual on organization appear to be more favorable Decisions and evaluation, thus, are made based on the benefits to the groups rather than the benefits of individual and people often have a great sense of belonging Besides, it is claimed that collectivist cultures are more likely to be

group – oriented, which impose a psychological distance between ingroup and outgroup members

Hofstede‟s individualism and collectivism dimension is further investigated by House (2004) and his team of more than 170 researchers who form GLOBE cultural taxonomy In their project, individualism – collectivism is termed in – group collectivism, displaying the degree to which people express pride, loyalty and solidarity with their family and similar group They also take decision making into particular consideration and use it as a base for deciding the level of institutional collectivism For instance, in cultures with high institutional collectivism, decisions are largely dependent on what is best for the group, rather than the individual

2.3.2 Directness and indirectness

Directness and directness is a matter of growing concern in communication, especially in the domain of cross – cultural communication The reason is that the communication success requires participants‟ shared understanding of the communicational channels, and their ability to decode the message With directness, people say what they mean and mean what they say One of the most obvious indicators of directness is direct messages which are plainly and explicitly stated According to Hall (1977), the details of the direct message are precisely and specifically conveyed in the people‟s words as their primary aim is to communicate with each other He also links this kind of messages with low – context cultures where people need to explain things clearly

as they do not share much background information Meanwhile, indirectness is considered

as “the means in which one‟s meaning is conveyed indirectly through utterances or verbal behaviors in order to achieve certain goal, or the means in which one‟s intent is revealed in a roundabout way” (Zhang and You, 2009: p 99) Participants are required to

non-“read between the lines” to perceive what is being said because things are often expressed implicitly

2.3.3 Linearity and circularity

Linearity and circularity are linguistic attributes introduced by Kaplan (1966) in his pioneering work known as contrastive rhetoric By analyzing the organization of paragraphs in ESL students‟ essays, he concludes the cultural thought patterns that vary from culture to culture The research also exhibits the obvious links between linearity and directness, and between circularity and indirectness To illustrate, such Germanic

languages as German, Dutch, and English tend to be linear, while some Oriental languages tend to be circular

Though Kaplan‟s model has been criticized by other researchers, its influence and contributions are undeniable Particularly, it has inspired a number of studies on contrastive rhetoric and has become a relatively reliable justification for many cultural differences

2.4 Previous studies on Vietnamese narratives

Vietnamese narratives have been investigated from different approaches; yet most papers examine written narrative discourse To illustrate, many theses and studies have been conducted on Vietnamese fairy tales and legends to figure out their generic structure

or special linguistic features One of the most salient works is based on four written narratives by Daley (1998), which, however only concentrates on Vietnamese classifiers in narrative texts

Studies on written narrative discourse have made significant contribution to enrich our understanding on Vietnamese language in general and Vietnamese narration in particular Nevertheless, it should be noted that written data are usually carefully structured

in comparison to oral data Clearly, once an utterance is made, it cannot be unsaid Recognizing the virtue and value of spoken stories, a group of researchers carry out a study

to identify how cultural differences among the U.S, German, Vietnam, and China influence perceptions about storytelling, resilience and values (Stanley et al, 2015) They conclude that the differences between the Eastern and Western cultures define the degree of childhood experiences of storytelling, adult resilience and values This study also offers useful implications for teacher training in storytelling to promote resilience

Vietnamese narration, as an interactional phenomenon, seems not to gain sufficient consideration while narratives in broadcast events like TV talk shows house typical characteristics for further and deeper explorations Therefore, the current thesis aims at Vietnamese and American TV talk shows for two reasons From cross-cultural point of view, comparison on storytelling in Vietnamese and American TV talk shows can reflect narrative styles of the two languages Pedagogically, this would help second language learners acquire and perform narrative interactions more effectively

2.5 Concluding remarks

The previous overview has presented the conceptual framework on narratives in general and personal narratives in TV talk shows in particular First, narration has been a topic of concerns for numerous researchers and linguists who have approached it from a variety of perspectives Second, narrative structure and evaluation are among the most appealing issues in the domain of narration and have inspired noticeable studies Third, it also indicates what has and has not been done in this research area to confirm the significance of the study It is expected that the literature review would be of usefulness to shed the light for the study as well as to develop an appropriate framework for analysis

Chapter III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 3.1 Research questions

As mentioned above, the study seeks the similarities and differences in the discourse

of personal experiences told in American and Vietnamese talk shows In details, this

investigation attempts to answer fully the following questions:

1 What generic structure and evaluative strategies characterize personal narratives

in American talk shows?

2 What are generic structure and evaluative strategies employed in personal

narratives in Vietnamese talk shows?

3 How are personal narratives in American and Vietnamese talk shows similar and different in terms of structure and evaluation?

3.2 Research methods

Like other discourse analysis studies, this paper has been conducted with the combination of various methods, namely descriptive, analytic, contrastive, and inductive However, descriptive and contrastive approaches are two dominant ones applied in the thesis First, the study is a descriptive investigation as it “involves a collection of techniques used to specify, delineate or describe naturally occurring phenomena without experimental manipulation” (Seliger & Shohamy, 1989) Hence, the process of data collection will be non-intrusive and non-manipulative Wisker (2001) also emphasizes that this method aims to “find out more about a phenomenon” and “capture it with detailed information” In case of the current study, descriptive approach was useful to explore frequency of the occurrence of structural and evaluative elements of narratives in Vietnamese and American talk shows That would help to draw cogent conclusions on general patterns and evaluation of narratives in the two languages

Second, contrastive analysis was utilized in the research Regarded as an interlinguistic, bidirectional phenomenon, contrastive analysis takes both form and function of language into consideration and treats language both psycholinguistically and sociolinguistically as a system to be described and acquired (Carl, 1980) In the present paper, two subjects – American and Vietnamese narratives in TV talk shows were exposed

to contrastive process to clarify similarities and differences in terms of their form and

function From psycholinguistic point of view, the study focuses on how language use is influenced mentally by individuals, especially through their choice and order of linguistic items Sociolinguistically, aspects of society, like cultural factors, expectations and contexts, are investigated to justify the shared and distinct features of two languages

3.3 Data collection procedure

The materials of the research include transcripts of 30 episodes of TV talk shows commonly eliciting personal experiences of guests, 15 American and 15 Vietnamese They were taken on the internet or television channels The episodes were selected so

as that they include several personal narratives each and the sensitive topics such as politics, religions, and life secrets can be avoided Most of the guests work in the domains of art and entertainment The guests mainly share about their life and career as well as their opinions or attitudes towards topics of common interests For the research objectivity to be guaranteed, data in each language were chosen from several talk shows led by different hosts of different age groups and genders

American narratives as data of the thesis were taken from the five well-known talk

shows The first show was The Oprah Winfrey Show often called Oprah, aired nationally

for 25 seasons from 1986 to 2011 with 4561 episodes and achieves the highest ratings

among talk shows in American television history The next three extracts were from The

Tonight Show with Jay Leno that initially aired from May 25, 1992 to May 29, 2009, and

resumed its performance on March 1, 2010 until its ending on February 6, 2014 The Ellen

DeGeneres Show, also known as Ellen, was the third source of data It has aired 12 seasons

with 1965 episodes since its debut in 2003 The show combines comedy, celebrity, musical guests and human-interest stories and has proved its popularity among viewers As the

most watched and longest-running program, Larry King Live was also selected This show

was hosted by Larry King from 1985 to 2010 and then has been entailed with four episodes

of Larry King Special every year Lastly, Late Show with David Letterman provides three

interesting extracts for the thesis Winning the award of Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series six times, the show has become one of the principal U.S late-night programs through 22 seasons with 4263 episodes The episodes from American talk shows used in the present study include:

Hosts – Guests Professions

of guests

1 Oprah Winfrey – Whitney Houston Singer 14.09.2009 A bad memory with her

husband

2 Oprah Winfrey – J K Rowling Novelist 01.10.2010 An inspiring place for

her writing

3 Oprah Winfrey – Ricky Martin Singer 02.11.2010 His charity activity

4 Jay Leno – Evangeline Lilly Actress 03.10.2011 Her son‟s reaction to

her dressing up

5 Jay Leno – Jason Reitman Director 13.12.2011 A dog casted in his

film

6 Jay Leno – Michelle Williams Actress 05.01.2012 Her horseback riding

7 Ellen DeGeneres – Chloe Grace

02.01.2011 His old friend

9 Ellen DeGeneres – Dakota Blue Actress 27.10.2011 The day she gained a

12 Larry King – Johnny Depp Actor 16.10.2011 His film

13 David Letterman - Marg

Helgenberger

Actress 01.04.2009 Her job as a kid

14 David Letterman – Emma Watson Actress 12.07.2011 They day she was

chosen for an audition

15 David Letterman – Tom Hanks Actor 18.05.2015 His memory in Los

Angeles

Table 1: List of American TV talk shows

Five Vietnamese talk shows with details of hosts, guests, and episodes are listed as follow:

of guests

Air date Narrat ive topics

1 Tạ Bích Loan – Phú Quang Songwriter 15.10.2010 A memory with his

mother

2 Tạ Bích Loan – Nguyễn Cường Songwriter 11.02.2011 A story about his friend

3 Tạ Bích Loan – Trần Đăng Khoa Speaker 11.03.2011 His confidence at the

primary school

4 Mr Shoulder – Mỹ Tâm Singer 06.01.2012 Her first swimming

5 Mr Shoulder – Thủy Tiên Singer 08.12.2014 A happy memory in her

childhood

6 Mr Shoulder – Chi Pu Actress 22.05.2015 The process to become

an actress

7 Lê Quốc Vinh – Đức Trí Songwriter 11.10.2010 His failure

8 Lê Quốc Vinh – Lương Mạnh Hải Actor 30.12.2013 His family‟s reactions

to his scandals

9 Lê Quốc Vinh – Giáng My Producer 12.04.2014 A story about her

beauty competition

10 Minh Vy – Quyền Linh Actor 07.11.2011 His daughter‟s accident

11 Minh Vy – Phi Ngọc Ánh Cascadeur 06.03.2012 The reason why she

became a cascadeur

12 Minh Vy – Phương Dung Singer 10.02.2013 Her memory when

participating in a singing contest

13 Công Tố - Quang Đăng Dancer 20.09.2015 A story in his

childhood

14 Công Tố - Trúc Nhân Singer 08.11.2015 His father‟s accident

15 Công Tố - Tiên Tiên Singer 22.11.2015 Her hairstyle

Table 2: List of Vietnamese TV talk shows

The first selected Vietnamese talk show was Người đương thời [Current people], led

by the experienced host Tạ Bích Loan, airing from 2001 to 2012 every week in VTV1 with

more than 500 guests from many walks of life Second, Lần đầu tôi kể [Told for the first

time] with Mr Shoulder provided three other stories for the thesis It has been broadcasted

since October 2011 and attracted viewers with intimate talks of various topics Nói ra

đừng sợ [Dare say] hosted by journalist Lê Quốc Vinh was the next selected talk show As

displayed in its name, the show is a place for the celebrities to honestly reveal and share

their life and career stories The next one, Sức sống mới [New vitality], is a combining TV

program specialized for women It deals with topics of female concerns like cooking, fashion, make-up An interesting part in each episode is a talk show with famous people to

elicit their life experience or key to success Finally, three last narratives came from Ghế

không tựa [Stool] hosted by Công Tố Despite its recent appearance, the show has proved

its popularity as it brings interesting stories about the progress and key to success of famous people

Though these shows are not formatted in the same way, they share certain features In general, the shows begin and end in roughly similar way For instance, to launch an approximate 11 – minute interview with Evangeline Lilly, Jay Leno gave a salutation like other hosts:

JL: Welcome back my first guest tonight got out started on the hit TV lost

she now stars after Hugh Jackman in the x-movie Real Steel fun movie it opens this Friday please welcome Evangeline Lilly

(The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, interview with Evangeline Lilly, 03.10.2011)

The show then contains a number of narratives dealing with the guest‟s life and career According to Norrick (2000), where a story begins and ends in a conversation is often not obvious and challenging to identify exactly However, there are still hints for deciding how

a story is triggered The first method is using turns that start with “let me ask you about”,

“let‟s talk about” or similar expressions The second structure for a topic change includes words such as „hey‟ „okay‟ „so‟ „now‟, or combinations of these words In the interview with Evangeline Lilly, Jay Leno employed a variety of way to introduce topic breaks, for

example:

JL: Now were you in the hospital a long time tell me about the whole

JL: Okay so now so do you get a lot of advice now do you have people giving

you just all this kind of euh ?

JL: Let me ask you no you just got back from where were you New Zeeland

JL: Now how did your baby see you in the elf costume?

(The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, interview with Evangeline Lilly, 03.10.2011)

The story usually ends with final comments from the hosts or questions to elicit the coming story It is worth noting that once the boundaries of narratives are defined, stories from each show were chosen randomly The shows eventually reach the end with the hosts‟ expressions of gratitude towards the guests and audiences and their promise to return in the next show

3.4 Data analysis

The data were transcribed using the simplified version of Jefferson Transcription System With the focus on narrative structure and evaluative devices, some properties of phonetics could be omitted Once collected and transcribed, the discourse of narratives in each talk show was investigated to work out generic structure and evaluative elements of narratives in Vietnamese and American English Descriptive method was utilized in this stage Subsequently, contrastive method was employed to compare and contrast how narrative is structured and what evaluative elements are prominent in Vietnamese and American narratives To compare the frequencies of linguistic items in two samples (American and Vietnamese talk shows), the findings were subjected to statistical analysis

by using chi-square in a null hypothesis Chi-square tests were performed on Microsoft Excel and then were compared with significance level α = 0.05 in order to draw cogent conclusion

Another remarkable concern is the scheme for the materials to be coded In terms

of structure, the research applies Goodwin‟s model (1984) as it depicts comprehensively how an oral story is told through interaction while narrative devices are selected from some influential models

3.4.1 Narrative structure

As details of his narrative structure have been presented in the previous section, the

researcher will only summarize the key points in story preface, story solicit, preliminary,

story action, story climax, parenthesis, and story appreciation

1 Story preface

It announces the story that the speaker has to tell and discovers if there is any interest among the audiences in hearing the story This can be done by question about the possible recipient‟s experience with the intended story or a statement of offereing the story

2 Story solicit

This strategy is employed by the potential recipient to suggest the telling of a story or

to align with the narrator In general, story solicit can be a question, an imperative or a statement

3 Preliminary to the story

This part is the background information for the story and includes statements that can respond to the questions of “who”, “where”, “what”, and “why”

7 Story appreciation

This includes signals from the audience that convey their response to the narrative This might be at several points during or at the end of the story During the delivery of the story, the listener can prove their listenership through continuers, statements of the upshot, repetition, assessments, questions, and laughter Final appreciation may in the form of assessment or questions