Spoken Language Study. How Is Spoken Language Used in the Interview Between Piers Morgan and Cheryl Cole?

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Spoken Language study. How is spoken language used in the interview between Piers Morgan and Cheryl Cole? This is a transcript of an extract of a television interview between two media personalities. The interviewer is Piers Morgan, and he is interviewing Cheryl Cole. The interview was aired on ITV and serves two purposes. The first is to entertain an audience, the immediate studio audience and the wider television viewing audience. The second purpose is to inform. Cole’s responses to Morgan’s questioning give information about her life. Morgan opens with a welcoming statement. This is the first part of an adjacency pair. The second part is Cole’s response ‘Thanks Piers. It’s so nice to be here.’ This opening dialogue between Morgan and Cole is phatic talk, creating a pleasant dynamic between both people and seems to indicate that the interview will be cooperative rather than adversial. There are nine adjacency pairs which follow and these are composed of a question and answer. Piers Morgan starts the question-answer sequence in each case, and therefore can be seen to be leading the interview, and also the dominant speaker. The interview is aired for a given time on television, so in that time a certain amount of information has to be communicated both by Cole and Morgan. The interview is semi-structured. Morgan will have researched the interviewee and thought about the questions to ask which will entertain the audience. Usually the interviewee will know in advance, the questions to be asked. Cole will have an idea about how to respond and what to say, but her words won’t be scripted unlike those of Morgan. Morgan shows that he already knows Cole. He says ‘The last time we met’ and later on ‘I don’t think we want to see that, do we? No, don’t go there.’ These words suggest that Morgan knows Cole better than the audience, and give them a special status, that is,

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