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oai:repository.unam.edu.na:11070/39272025-02-01T22:00:56Zcom_11070_3507com_11070_3317com_11070_3306col_11070_202

Sabao, Collen Sibalatani, Cecilia Chuma 2025-01-29T13:42:07Z 2025-01-29T13:42:07Z 2024 http://hdl.handle.net/11070/3927 A dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of philosophy in English studies This study investigated the argumentative discourse of the Namibian Broadcast Corporation (NBC) One-on-One talk show interviews between the host and a guest. Although the interviews present different guests per sitting, the host is an NBC employee assigned to the interview segment and is couched within the theoretical explications of pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation (van Eemeren, 2017). The pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation is fundamentally a broad spectrum of the study of linguistics that has, through its development and growth, shifted its interest and focus from abstractions of formal logic to a more structured interest in pragmatics. This theory has since been more concerned with pragma-dialectics encompassing the rules of argumentation, strategic manoeuvring, and effectiveness through reasonableness. The discourse in argumentation varies in a range of how influential political figures represent or defend their points of view on the issue at hand. Specifically, the study represented a qualitative establishment of television show discourse, and it was primarily focused on investigating the patterns of pragma dialectics in which the host of the talk show and the guest strategically manoeuvred to resolve differences of opinion. In the same vein, the study investigated whether the resolution of the differences of opinion was achieved and how effectiveness and reasonableness played any role in the process of the arguers' attempt to defend their standpoint on issues under discussion. The data was collected from archived audio recordings transcribed into readable text files. The topics of the talk show discussions covered were on issues pertaining to Namibia’s social, economic and political spheres. The analysis employed the pragma-dialectical method to evaluate the data. The findings, on one part, demonstrated that three turn-taking strategies played a vital role in the argumentative discourse in the following ways: the arguers (especially the host) used the turn-holding strategy in order to maintain and prolong their window of talking. This was more prevalent in the repetitive use of "but", and "and". The arguers also used turn-claiming as a strategy by interjection and conjunctions such as “but!”, “really!’ and “Oh!” Turn-yielding strategy was also used but rarely. The arguers decided to give up their turn to talk when deemed necessary and when they seemed to have exhausted their stance in opinion. This benefitted the opponent ii in the argument by rendering them more time to express and defend their standpoint at certain issues. The findings further reflected that, through the constellation of argumentative moves displayed by the arguers, argumentative patterns were employed through their typology of standpoints, a difference of opinions, argumentative schemes and argumentative structure. It was also observed that the arguers strategically manoeuvred at every stage of the discussion to maintain their standpoint; in this regard, argumentative patterns came up as a result of strategic manoeuvring. By trying to observe the importance of being effective and reasonableness, the arguers still strategically manoeuvred. Although there are numerous pragma-dialectic studies on talk shows, the study concluded that there was a need for improvement in journalistic communication skills between One-on One talk show in terms of strategic manoeuvring and adhering to the rules that apply in every argumentation stage. It is recommended that further studies should be carried out directed towards communication skills in television shows, especially in situations where non-native English speakers struggle to express their opinions and fail effectively to defend their viewpoints due to language barriers and poor argumentation strategies en University of Namibia Pragma-dialectics Argumentation Argumentation structure Argumentation stages Strategic manoeuvring Television talk show discussion University of Namibia A pragma-dialectical approach in television talk show argumentation: A case study of the Namibia Broadcasting Corporation’s one-on-one discourse Thesisopen.access