‘It's quite simple, really’: Shifting forms of expertise
in TV documentaries
Jan Chovanec
Department of English and American Studies, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, Arna Nováka 1, Brno 60200, Czech Republic
a r t i c l e i n f o
Available online 31 March 2016
Keywords:
Broadcast talk
Conversation analysis
Participation framework
TV documentary
Lay and expert discourse
Pragmatics
a b s t r a c t
In this paper, I analyse how expertise is discursively negotiated in TV documentary programmes. While
previous research has explored the relationship between the ‘lay’ and the ‘expert’ dimensions in various
public participation programmes, this paper focuses on a TV programme format that is based on the
cooperative interaction between professionals who differ in the extent of their knowledge and experience.
The paper notes that while expertise is unevenly distributed between the voiceover, the presenter
and the expert, these parties complement each other in explaining complex phenomena for the benefit
of the audience. Using data from the documentary series How Britain Worked, I argue that as long as the
presenter possesses some technical expertise, he may be positioned as a semi-expert between the true
expert and the lay audience, even when he simultaneously acts in other contexts as a novice acquiring
the specialized expertise needed for his quest. Thus, rather than demonstrating his own knowledge and
skills, the presenter mediates expertise for the benefit of the audience. The mediating role is attested by
the presenter's frequent shifts of footing in and out of the conversational interaction with the true expert,
who may end up assuming a background role of expert support.
& 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
The discursive construction and negotiation of expertise in
media broadcasts has attracted considerable attention among
discourse analysts. Much of this interest has been motivated by the
aim to understand the performance of ‘ordinary’ people, particularly
in the area of public participation broadcasting (Scannell,
1991; Bonner, 2003; Thornborrow, 2015). It has been shown that
the concepts of ‘ordinary’, ‘lay’, and ‘expert’ are not static since
media discourse participants may be involved in various forms of
constructing and performing their identities. As Livingstone and
Lunt note, “Many who are called experts resist the label and many
‘ordinary’ people claim specific domains of expertise” (2002: 100).
The categories of ‘lay’ and ‘expert’ viewpoints are interactionally
constituted (Hutchby, 2006: 52), with ‘ordinary expertise’ being a
valuable asset that is aligned with relevant and authentic experience.
The lay viewpoint allows individuals to narrativize their own
experience (Livingstone and Lunt, 2002; Thornborrow, 1997) and
have it accepted as a valid conversational contribution, even
though the ‘lay’ and ‘expert’ perspectives give rise to quite different
accounts (Hutchby, 2006; cf. Heffer, 2005). The role of the
expert may then include, for instance, defining what is ‘normal’ for
the ‘ordinary’ participants (and, by extension, the audience; cf.
Wood, 2007).
So far, there has been little research on the construction and
discursive management of expertise in documentaries, possibly on
account of the generally cooperative, non-belligerent and nonconfrontational
nature of such programmes. However, the transfer
and mediation of knowledge and expertise have a central role in
the design of these broadcast formats on account of their informational
function and educational purpose. In TV documentary
programmes, the negotiation of expertise has some specific characteristics
arising, in general, from the unequal distribution of
expertise between the main discourse participants, i.e. the presenter,
the experts, the voiceover, and the audience. In documentaries,
expertise is typically co-constructed jointly and is not
subject to confrontational negotiation as in some kinds of belligerent
broadcast programmes (cf. Higgins et al., 2011; Eriksson,
2014; Camauer, 2016) and talk shows (cf. Tolson, 2001).
This paper investigates the shifts of expertise between the
presenter, the expert and the voiceover. It argues that while the
performance of expertise oscillates between these three voices,
the role of the presenter is central in that he is involved in diverse
forms of negotiating expertise for the benefit of the audience. The
analysis is based on the Channel 4 historical documentary series
How Britain Worked, which shows how the presenter actively
participates in the reconstruction of historical artefacts from the
period of the Industrial Revolution. In this series, the presenter (a
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/dcm
Discourse, Context and Media
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2016.03.004
2211-6958/& 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
E-mail address: chovanec@phil.muni.cz
Discourse, Context and Media 13 (2016) 11–19
lorry mechanic by profession) has expert knowledge in his own
technical field; yet, he is positioned as a lay individual with respect
to the specific knowledge and skills called for in his quest, i.e. the
reconstruction of historical machinery. The lack of expertise aligns
the presenter with the lay audience of the programme, who may
vicariously identify with him while he is being guided by skilled
professionals in the acquisition of the technical expertise needed
for his task. Apart from the presenter, who serves as an intermediary
between the programme producers and the experts in the
programme on the one hand and the public audiences on the
other (Bonner, 2011), there is another important role involved in
the process of knowledge mediation to the audience: the voiceover.
Relying on script rather than personal expertise, the voiceover
is the ultimate source of expert information and commentary
that complements the acquisition of expertise by the interacting
participants.
The goal of this paper is to describe the dynamics of the
negotiation of expertise between these participants, with a view to
how the voiceover frames the interactions of the participants, and
how the show's presenter draws on the experts (in terms of their
knowledge of terminology and processes) in order to mediate
complex technical expertise to the audience.
2. Data and methodology
The data analysed in the article come from the documentary
series How Britain Worked, a Channel 4 programme produced and
broadcast in 2012. The six-part series is presented by Guy Martin,
a British lorry mechanic and motorcycle racer, who gets involved
in several reconstruction projects that bring back to life some
major 19th century engineering achievements across the UK. In
that sense, the programme is a genre hybrid, combining a historical
documentary and a personal quest programme. Its educational
function is thus enriched with a strong experiential component,
since the presenter physically performs diverse tasks requiring
historical industrial skills and expertise.
The analysis is based on a five-minute segment from the
opening episode of the documentary. It involves Guy Martin participating
in the reconstruction of a Victorian steam engine. The
analysed data consist of a chronological sequence of several
independent scenes that show Martin interacting with professional
mechanics. The participants in these scenes not only need to
coordinate their actions but are engaged in the mediation of
expert knowledge necessary for the successful completion of the
tasks. This segment is representative of the diverse ways in which
expertise is mediated in the whole series. The continuous nature
of this segment shows how the different strategies are condensed
and how the presentation of expertise dynamically changes shot
after shot.
The approach to the data is grounded in the qualitative methodological
tools of linguistically-oriented discourse analysis. The
analysis draws on conversation analysis (Atkinson and Heritage,
1984; Sacks, 1992; Hutchby and Wooffitt, 1998) and the pragmatics
of small-scale speech situations (Verschueren, 1999; Cap, 2011).
These two perspectives complement each other in their aims to
deal with the dialogic organization of talk produced by interlocutors,
i.e. the participants in the TV documentary in this particular
case. At the same time, the paper relates to the tradition of
media discourse research emphasizing the double articulation
characteristic of broadcast talk (Scannell, 1991; Tolson, 2006;
Marriott, 2007) and telecinematic discourse (Dynel, 2011). This
involves the organization of the speech event on two levels: the
level of the participants within the broadcast programme and the
level of the absent audience, with the latter positioned as the
‘overhearing audience’ (Montgomery, 2007; Bubel, 2008; O'Keeffe,
2006) or ‘distributed recipients’ (Hutchby, 2006: 167). The discourse
participants negotiate their positions between the two
frames (Fetzer, 2006), adjusting their momentary interactional
arrangements (Goodwin, 2007) by means of reorienting from one
frame to another through shifts of ‘footing’ (Goffman, 1981; Clayman,
1992; Chovanec, 2016).
As I argue in the next section, this structure of the media event
is crucial to the understanding of how expertise is handled in
documentary broadcasts. Expertise is not only negotiated and
performed in the communicative encounters between on-screen
participants but also mediated to the ultimate recipients on the
level of the programme's reception format. Arguably, these shifts
between the different forms of expertise presentation and the
corresponding changes of footing contribute towards making the
documentary series appealing to the audience.
3. Discursive mechanisms for the mediation of expertise
In documentary programmes, ‘expert’ discourse is constructed
in several ways. The most relevant forms include the presentation
of terminology, the negotiation of the precision of terminology and
the explanation of complex technical processes. Because of the
‘experiential’ nature of How Britain Worked, these forms of
expertise combine with the shifting status of the main protagonist,
who oscillates between various degrees of ‘layness’ and ‘expertness’.
The gradual shift between the two epistemological positions,
realized through learning and the acquisition of expertise, is a key
factor that contributes to the successful reception of the programme
by the audience, who can vicariously identify with the
main protagonist.
3.1. Presenting expertise
One of the areas of expert knowledge involves the mastery of
the technical vocabulary of one's field. However, because of the
knowledge gap existing between experts appearing in documentary
programmes and the lay broadcast audiences, these programmes
often have a strong metalinguistic component. This means that one
of the crucial roles of the expert is to name and explain diverse
phenomena. In this way, expert knowledge can be mediated to the
audience in an intelligible and meaningful manner.
The presentation of technical terminology can come from three
sources. The simplest form is the introduction of terms by the
main protagonist, whether or not this person acts as the sole
presenter. This format occurs, among other, in case of speakers
who are generally acknowledged as experts in their field. A classic
example of this format is found in the nature documentaries featuring
the British naturalist David Attenborough.
A discursively more interesting situation occurs when a presenter
draws on the expertise of some other individual, particularly
where the other speaker has a better claim to expert
knowledge. The structuring of the interaction as a dialogic
encounter then enables expertise to be demonstrated and mediated
in the form of negotiation between the presenter and the
expert. The presenter may variously position himself/herself as a
layperson or an expert, sometimes strategically using his/her
knowledge (or the lack of it) in order to draw on the knowledge
resources of some other expert (see Sections 3.2 and 3.3 below).
At the same time, however, expert knowledge – including terminology
– is also mediated by means of voiceover, i.e. the
monologic sound track superimposed upon the dialogic interactions
within the programme at a later stage by the production
crew. In this sense, the voiceover has a ‘personality’ in the programme
(Bonner, 2011). While expertise is unevenly distributed
between the presenters, the expert and the voiceover, all three
J. Chovanec / Discourse, Context and Media 13 (2016) 11–1912
voices co-participate in the mediation of expert knowledge to the
lay audience. Let us consider the joint accomplishment of
expertness in the area of terminology in the following series of
extracts.
The role of the voiceover in mediating expertise is illustrated in
Extract 1. The transcript captures the interaction between Guy
Martin and an unnamed technician following the cleaning of the
engine with a water hose:
Extract 1. [GM and boy walking away from camera towards the
engine; 5.46–6.09]1
1 GM: (unintelligible) But we've got a plan what
2 do we do now?
3 Boy: We'll see if you washed it out properly
4 now.
5 GM: Right. (cut)
6 Boy: All right.
7 VO: It was the responsibility of the boiler-
8 smith then to check inside the loco for
9 corrosion.
10 Boy: If you can (.) manipulate your mirror (.)
11 you should be able to tell me if there's
12 any blockages down there at all.
13 GM: I::::::'d say yes e:hm how they were put
14 in. (unintelligible)
15 VO: But not everything can be observed through
16 an inspection hole (.) with a paraffin
17 flame.
In line 1, Guy Martin reveals his apparent lack of expert
knowledge about the standard procedure of railway engine
maintenance. He addresses his unnamed companion with a
question about the next step to be taken (What's the plan now?). In
line 3, the boy outlines the action (We'll see if you washed it out
properly now). He does so, however, by way of evaluating the
adequacy of Martin's previous action, when he assisted in the
cleaning of the engine. While the evaluation is to be carried out by
both of them (cf. the inclusive pronoun we in we’ll see), it will
actually require the recourse to the boy's expertise in order to
assess whether the presenter had cleaned the engine properly.
Although the utterance could have been formulated in an impersonal
way as the next step in the procedure (e.g. *…see if it is
clean), it is framed as a personally oriented utterance (…if you
washed it out…). This is followed by an explicit evaluative adverb
(…properly). In this way, Martin is positioned by the boy as a nonexpert
and novice – a lay person performing the action for the first
time. Martin acknowledges the shared evaluation of his previous
performance by means of the backchannel token Right in line 5.
This closes the brief exchange between them.
In line 6, another scene begins. The boy's utterance (All right) is
formally latched to Martin's acknowledgement token in line 5,
though it already belongs to the new scene. The utterance introduces
the demonstration of how the engine is inspected – it is
accompanied by a brief shot of a burning stick. However, the
expert is not given any chance to explain the technicalities at this
point. Instead, the voice track switches into voiceover. In lines 7-9,
the voiceover introduces the semi-technical word boiler-smith in
reference to the role that Martin is to perform during the
inspection. It also uses the colloquial word loco, a shortened version
of the technical word ‘locomotive’, which substitutes for the
more common word ‘engine’. The crucial point is that the
voiceover substitutes for any explanation between the participants,
leading to a momentary disconnection between the verbal
and the visual tracks.
In lines 10-13, the mechanic instructs Martin on how to perform
the check, thus conveying expert information to him (If you
can manipulate the mirror, you should be able to tell me…). While
the utterance serves to coordinate Martin's activities so that the
two men can jointly perform the check of the engine, thereby
assessing how efficient Martin had been in cleaning it, it also
provides information to the audience. The switch from the voiceover
in lines 7-9 to the mechanic's explanation in lines 10-12 is
accompanied by a shift of footing: the adjustment of the participation
role of the audience from that of the addressee to the
overhearer.
Acting according to the expert's instructions, Martin reports his
findings in line 13. The prolongation of the vowel sound in the
personal pronoun ‘I’ at the beginning of his utterance
(I::::::'d say) indicates his hesitance about the outcome. These
words actually function as a hedge prefacing the post-positioned
affirmative answer ‘yes’. The hedge serves as a modality marker,
revealing Martin's uncertainty about (a) whether the engine had
been cleaned properly and (b) whether he is able to adequately
assess its state. The inability to give a definite, modally unhedged
answer stands as a clear indication of his non-expert status. It is at
this point that the voiceover interferes again, as if supporting
Martin's indecision. Passing an external comment on the scene,
the voiceover makes a generalized statement that can, once again,
be read as the voice of the ultimate expert (But not everything can
be observed through an inspection hole with a paraffin flame).
Two conclusions about the role of the voiceover can be drawn
from the extract. First, the voiceover acts as a kind of ‘omniscient
narrator’: it can provide the authoritative account of the phenomena
covered in the programme. The supreme expertise associated
with the externally added voiceover can substitute, complement
or even contradict any of the claims made by the individuals
featured in the documentary. The second role of the voiceover
concerns its function to mediate terminology to the audience.
Speaking from the superordinate position within the structure
of the programme's format, the voiceover can provide technical
terms for objects and processes that the participants in the
programme are involved with. Thus, it adds a metalinguistic level
by explicitly naming phenomena that are handled matter-of-factly
by the participants (cf. the terms inspection hole and paraffin flame
in line 16 above). In this sense, the voiceover can overlay the
expert talk within the programme with another level of expertise,
explicating and naming objects and processes for the benefit of the
‘overhearing’ audience.
3.2. Negotiating expertise
Expertise has an important discursive dimension. As mentioned
above, a clear sign of expertise consists in the knowledge of
the terminology of a particular domain and the ability to use the
terms correctly. Extract 2 illustrates how terminology issues are
negotiated between the presenter and the expert. This process has
two dimensions. On the one hand, terminology negotiation reveals
the presenter's non-expert status. On the other, it can be seen as
being performed for the audience since it is frequently accompanied
by shifts of footing, as is the case in the extract.
Extract 2. [Martin talking to camera, boy located down inside the
engine hatch; 6.10–6.35]
1 GM: I have been there. I have been in the fire-
2 box. Oh we call it the firebox, monkey?
3 Boy: It is the firebox, yes.
1
GM¼Guy Martin; VO¼voiceover; Boy¼mechanic, i.e. the professional with
the status of the expert.
J. Chovanec / Discourse, Context and Media 13 (2016) 11–19 13
4 GM: That's my man, Monkey. He knows the score.
5 Boy: He he he
6 GM: And I’m gonna go in there and we… what do we
7 call it, it's not an inspection hammer,
8 what do we call it
9 Boy: It’s a stay testing hammer.
10 GM: A stay testing hammer. (1.0) (Boy nodding)
11 So I’m gonna go in in a firebox and let me
12 take the stay testing hammer and then what
13 Boy: (unintelligible)
14 GM: I’m gonna do WHAT?
15 Boy: Bash’er on the stays.
16 GM: Bash’er on the stays he he he it's quite
17 simple really he he he
18 Boy: (unintellible)
19 GM: […Monkey will show me the way she's gonna
20 be a bit cozy in there!
The central issue in the extract concerns terminology negotiation
and the corresponding shifts of footing between the participants
and the audience. In line 1, Guy Martin talks to a nonpresent
participant, facing sideways away from the camera. His
talk is evidently addressed to a production crew member who has
neither voice nor face in the documentary. In his utterance, Martin
claims first-hand experience (I have been there.). Pronounced in a
very agitated manner, the utterance is somewhat indeterminate as
far as its illocutionary force: it could be read as an act of either
informing the non-present participant or expressing pride (possibly
even bragging) about one's experience. The utterance is
repeated for special emphasis, with the repetition specifying the
location, since the vague deictic adverb there becomes replaced
with the expression firebox (I have been in the firebox.).
At this point, however, there is a shift of footing. Martin glances
downwards, addressing the boy who is peeking out of the firebox
hatch. Martin's utterance checks whether the technical expression
used by him previously is correct (Oh, we call it the firebox…?).2
While the question is added almost as an afterthought, it appears to
have two functions. First, it could be used as a ploy merely to
reframe the situation strategically in order to get some verbal
involvement from Martin's expert companion. On its face, however,
the utterance also confirms the presenter's non-expert status
because he seeks confirmation from the other – presumably more
experienced – interlocutor. While the utterance adjusts the participation
framework, positioning the audience in the overhearer role,
it helps the presenter convey a piece of technical knowledge that he
has acquired shortly before and may not be quite certain about yet.
By confirming that the term is really the correct one (It is the firebox,
yes), the boy articulates his position of an expert able to provide
guidance on the proper technical procedure as well as terminology
(as is attested further in the programme).
The short verbal interaction between Martin and the boy
includes two other cases of terminology negotiation. The first one
occurs in lines 6–8, where the presenter starts to describe the
procedure to be followed next. However, he is unable to finish the
explanation due to lack of proper words (And I'm gonna go in there
and we…). At this point, Martin performs yet another shift of
footing, reorienting from the audience to the boy and asking him
to specify the exact missing term (…what do we call it…).
Evidently, the expert's metalinguistic knowledge is needed
once again, though Martin relies on it differently than in the
immediately preceding exchange. In this case, he offers a name for
the tool he is shown holding in his hand. He does that by making a
negative statement (…it's not an inspection hammer…). The
negative polarity and the falling intonation of the utterance indicate
that Martin is quite aware that he is not even attempting a
guess – he is merely approximating the name of the instrument.
The illocutionary force of the utterance is one of a request for
information rather than confirmation, as in the previous example.
Adding urgency to his request, Martin goes on to repeat it once
again, making the request explicit (…what do we call it?).
The whole utterance found in lines 6-8 can be interpreted in
several ways. Arguably, Martin openly acknowledges that he either:
(a) genuinely does not know or (b) does not remember. After all, he
is most likely following a script and repeating information he had
heard only shortly before (cf. the tool he is wielding in his hand at
the moment). However, he could also (c) be staging or performing
his ignorance (i.e. ‘doing being ordinary’) in order to tease out an
aspect of expertise from the expert and get him involved in a dialogic
interaction performed for the benefit of the audience.
Responding to Martin's request, the boy provides the expected
answer in line 9 (It's a stay testing hammer.). Martin then repeats
the utterance word-by-word (A stay testing hammer.) in what is a
form of echoic repetition commonly found in learning situations,
particularly those with a metalinguistic focus. In this example,
the only alteration is a marked change in pronunciation: Martin
shifts the boy's non-standard pronunciation of stay ([staiə]) into a
more standard form ([stiə]), almost as if he was mediating it for
his own understanding. While doing this, he not only puts a
stress on the adjective, thereby contrasting the non-standard and
the standard vowel sounds, but he also pronounces the rest of the
phrase in a very clear manner, carefully articulating the words
testing and hammer. This attention to pronunciation is most likely
motivated by his role of a presenter who feels responsible for
mediating the expertise from the expert to the audience. The
repetition of the word with its modified pronunciation is particularly
interesting in light of Martin's own heavy use of strong
regional accent throughout the programme, owing to which his
speech is sometimes almost unintelligible. The regional and
social connotations of Martin's accent make him an ‘ordinary’
individual, aligning him with the blue-collar workers featured in
the programme rather than with the voiceover that speaks in
standard English.
The third instance of terminology negotiation that reveals
Martin's non-expert status appears in lines 12-17. At this point,
Martin pauses for a while to gather his thoughts and then resumes
with the description of the technical procedure. However, his
utterance consists of little more than a mere repetition of the two
technical expressions firebox and stay testing hammer that Martin
has just verified and learned from the expert in the immediately
preceding turns. Almost instantly, he yields the floor to the expert
again, prompting him to describe the next step of the procedure
with the blunt phrase and then what (So I’m gonna go in the firebox
and let me take the stay testing hammer and then what). Since the
boy blurts out the answer in an unintelligible way, Martin repeats
the request (I'm gonna do WHAT?). The very emphatic intonation,
bordering on the expression of disbelief, may be read as either
Martin's failure to understand or an attempt to add liveliness to
the interaction and, thus, focus the audience's attention on what is
to follow.
Once again, Martin echoes the expert's utterance through exact
repetition (Bash'er on the stays), at which point he performs
another change of footing. He raises his head from the boy towards
the camera and glances at members of the production crew who
are present in the scene but not shown on the camera. By
2
The expert remains unnamed throughout the extract, being referred to as
‘Monkey’. While this label may be Martin’s attempt to claim common ground with
a fellow mechanic, the denial of any name or credentials also defocuses from the
boy’s role of the expert in this situation. After all, the specification of rank, name
and status in broadcast programmes typically legitimize an expert’s standing (cf.
Thornborrow, 2001).
J. Chovanec / Discourse, Context and Media 13 (2016) 11–1914
addressing them with his evaluative rejoinder (…it's quite simple,
really), Martin creates a momentary role for them within the
participation framework. While the phrase is uttered with mild
amusement and followed with a chuckle, it is also complemented
with a short utterance that refers to the boy in the third person
(monkey will show me the way). This is clear evidence of the
reorientation of Martin's talk away from the expert since he is
momentarily talking ‘about’ him rather than ‘with’ him.
This realignment is significant with respect to how expertise is
handled in the programme. While Martin obtains new information
from the expert in their mutual dialogic interaction, he uses this
freshly acquired expertise to mediate it to other recipients. This
involves the production crew as well as the audience, whose
expert status differs from Martin's – he is, after all, an experienced
mechanic. It is from this perspective that he evaluates the procedure
as ‘simple’ for the other participants (cf. it's quite simple,
really). However, the reorientation of the talk away from the
expert is only very brief since both the presenter and the boy start
laughing at the same time, affirming their joint understanding of
the step to be taken as a potential source of amusement.
Throughout this extract, Martin is not only being very spontaneous
but he is also performing his patent lack of expertise. At the
same time, his reference to the expert with the somewhat
patronizing and derogatory label ‘monkey’ affirms the hierarchy of
roles within the programme: Martin shows himself to be the main
protagonist who is, in fact, in charge of how the entire situation is
discursively managed. Though lacking in expertise, he is not
lacking in leadership: he is in control of the extraction of expertise
from the expert and its conscious mediation to the audience, as
attested by his shifts of footing that explicitly take the audience
into account as the ultimate recipients of Martin's performance.
3.3. Shifting expertise
As shown above, the presenter in How Britain Worked is in an
ambivalent position in terms of the ‘lay’ v. ‘expert’ dimension. His
lack of familiarity with the historical procedures and the proper
technical terminology define his role of a lay individual who needs
to rely on the expertise of others. However, the presenter's position
is not fixed. It shifts from that of a layman relying on the
guidance of an expert to that of an individual acquiring and
eventually imparting expert knowledge himself. Within this process,
the role of the expert becomes limited to that of a mere
bystander who is monitoring and only occasionally confirming the
presenter's account.
As the previous two extracts have illustrated, Guy Martin is a
novice who is guided by the true experts. Extract 3 is a further
illustration of this status, showing how Martin's physical movement
needs to be coordinated by the expert in order to enable the
two of them to perform an inspection of the firebox:
Extract 3. [Martin climbing into the firebox hatch; 6.36–6.55]
1 GM: Feet first (.)
2 Boy: Feet first (.) it's not too much of a drop.
3 (1.0)
4 GM: Yeah?
5 Boy: That's it (.) Keep going and you should be
6 able to slide yourself in.
7 Keep to it.
8 GM: All right, god, I:: (1.0) There's room in
9 there, man (2.0)
The extract opens with Guy Martin making a brief descriptive
comment on how to climb through the narrow hatch into the
firebox (Feet first), probably on the basis of having observed the
boy climb inside shortly before or being told to do so (not shown
on the camera). Martin's initial utterance is ambiguous with
respect to its precise footing: it may be intended both for the
audience as a form of ‘running commentary’ that describes what
Martin is currently doing, as well as oriented to the boy (who is
already inside the firebox) as a way of checking the right procedure.
In either case, the presenter demonstrates that his
momentary expertise has an ambivalent status: he knows the
basic procedure, yet needs the expert to guide him.
The boy simply echoes Martin's initial utterance: his repetition
of the phrase confirms the correctness of the procedure and marks
the beginning of a brief sequence in which he gives instructions to
Martin. Within the same turn, the boy provides some additional
information about the depth of space beyond the hatch (it's not too
much of a drop). This piece of knowledge reflects the imbalance of
expertise between the two participants at this point: the boy
supplies information that he believes is relevant for Martin to
successfully climb inside. Martin's brief comment in the opening
line, then, serves as an implicit prompt through which the expert –
acting cooperatively – is subtly invited to share a piece of his
expertise. In this way, the presenter's status gradually changes
through the process of acquiring experience from the expert (see
also Section 3.5).
In line 4, Martin checks with the boy to make sure that he is
following the procedure correctly (Yeah?), which receives a positive
confirmation from the boy (That's it) as well as elicits further
instructions about climbing inside (You should be able to slide
yourself in). Martin's physical movement is thus fully coordinated
by the expert, who monitors and offers encouragement to the
novice throughout the procedure (Keep to it). Martin's emotional
reaction after the completion of the task, which is devoid of any
propositional content (All right, god, I::), indicates that this is a new
experience to him, though he might be well performing his evaluation
(and thus staging his novice status) for the benefit of the
TV audience. The positive evaluation is continued in Martin's final
informative statement (There's room in there, man). Significantly,
the utterance already introduces an external perspective to the
location (cf. the choice of the adverb ‘there’ rather than ‘here’). In
this way, Martin realigns himself with the point of view of the
production crew behind the camera and, ultimately, the audience.
All in all, Martin's talk in this extract epitomizes the subjective,
experience-based reactions of a layman who is finding out how
things work for the first time (cf. Hutchby 2006: 52; Heffer 2005).
Though the presenter's reactions may, at least partly, be staged for
the camera, they allow the audience to identify with the presenter
and, thus, vicariously experience how expertise is gradually
transferred from the expert.
3.4. Mediating expertise
With the next cut, however, the entire situation changes dramatically.
The next scene shows Martin in the darkness of the
firebox, holding a lamp. He launches into a long monologue, giving
a fairly large amount of technical information and, essentially,
taking over the role of the expert from his companion. The expert's
involvement in this segment is very minimal, being limited to
several brief tokens of little more than merely confirming the
description provided by Martin, cf. Extract 4:
Extract 4. [Martin inside the dark firebox; 6.56–8.30]
1 GM: I don't know if many are thinking ‘ow (1.5)
2 you know ‘ow a steam locomotive works. And
3 I suppose there is (.) no better way to
4 explain it than them ehm being (.) in a
5 steam locomotive firebox. It's not the
6 biggest o’ places he he he is it, Monkey?
J. Chovanec / Discourse, Context and Media 13 (2016) 11–19 15
7 Boy: No but¼ (laughter)
8 GM: ¼(laughter) but there is no better place
9 to explain it. So, yeah, it's eas, fai:::
10 rly, e:hm e:hm I don't know if it's simple.
11 It's it's e:hm, it's what it is. Look.
12 There you see the floor, ehm, that's for the
13 coal (.) with the blazing fire on it, crea-
14 tin’ loads and loads and loads o’ heat. All
15 right, a massive fire but it (.) it's a
16 massive fire, I’ll tell you what, takes
17 three four hours to get going…
18 Boy: Yeah…
19 GM: … that's how much ‘eat we need we won’t (GM
20 shaking head) do it in tea break, we do
21 wan’ a massive amounts of heat. And ehm,
22 this creates a lot of heat, the heat
23 deflects off here, off this brick wall
24 ‘ere, you see. Firebricks are those, Mon-
25 key. What do you call it, Monkey?
26 Boy: Eeehm, it's brick arch.
27 GM: Brick a:::rch. So the heat then is deflec-
28 ted back into these tubes (.) you see these
29 tubes here? So what's happening here. On
30 the other side of the tubes we've got
31 water. Right? The heat from the fire is
32 going down the centre of these tubes it's
33 getting drawn down there from the chimney.
34 Heat into water. Water turns into steam
35 goes to the pistons, powers the train. You
36 see, quite (.) sort of simple. Sort of
37 simple. The first lot of steam trains only
38 ‘ad but the one tube but then they learned
39 to get a more efficient steam train we wan-
40 ted more tubes. And that's what you got
41 ‘ere, look. You can see that, mostly, I
42 ‘aven’t counted them, Monkey, there must
43 be a hundred tubes in, Monkey.
44 Boy: They’re a couple of ’undred…
45 GM: [Yeah…
46 Boy: [Yeah…
47 GM: Yeah, a couple of ’undred tubes maybe.
48 More heater tubes is obviously more sur-
49 face area to pass the heat from the fire to
50 the water. As simple as that.
The construction of expertise in this extract is related to a
noticeable change of footing. The previous dialogic interaction
between Martin and the boy is replaced with Martin talking
directly to the camera. Within this participation arrangement, he
assumes the role of a knowledgeable presenter – an expert
imparting technical information directly to the audience.
The new role distribution, with Martin acting in the role of the
expert and the true expert being backgrounded, is not immediately
obvious from the start of the scene. In the first turn, Martin
defines the occasion as one in which some technical expertise will
be conveyed to the audience (… no better way to explain it…). At
this point, it is not clear who will be giving the explanation.
However, the set-up of the scene is such that we can only see
Martin, with the boy remaining hidden in the darkness. While
Martin addresses the boy at the end of his turn, adjusting the
footing momentarily, he does not actually yield the floor to him.
Instead, Martin merely asks for a confirmation of his own personal
observation that is based on his immediate experience of the
physical space (It's not the biggest o’ places he he he is it, Monkey?).
This utterance appears to have two functions. First, it
acknowledges the continued physical co-presence of the boy – he
is shown to have some participation status within the communicative
frame and, thus, his expertise can be drawn on in case of
need. Second, the utterance also serves to indicate the modified
status of the two participants: Martin has the expert confirming
quite a banal observation rather than asking him to provide any
sophisticated technical explanation.
However, the boy's reaction in line 7 (No, but…) indicates that
while he concurs with Martin's opinion, he is ready to elaborate by
providing some counter argument or further explanation. This is
implied by the adversative conjunction ‘but’. While the boy evidently
tries to claim the next turn, Martin does not give him the
opportunity to take the floor. Instead, he effectively silences the
boy with his laughter, taking up the conjunction ‘but’ from the
boy's confirmation and instantly following it with a repetition of
what Martin had said shortly before (but there is no better place to
explain it). Since the boy is denied the chance to give his opinion,
Martin's utterance in line 8 essentially functions as a put-down of
his conversational partner, though presented in a convivial mood
of jocularity and friendship. The boy does not contest the loss of
the floor and remains silent, as well as invisible to the camera.
Martin continues with the discourse marker so (line 9), indicating
that the floor belongs to him and that he is about to start
the explanation. However, what follows is a rather extensive
stretch of hesitation, indicating that he is searching for the best
way of mediating the technical expertise about the firebox (So,
yeah, it's eas, fai:::rly, e:hm e:hm I don't know if it's simple. It's it's e:
hm, it's what it is.). The utterance contains multiple hesitation
markers and false starts, as well as a self-correction. This piece of
apparently very spontaneous talk is significant in that it reveals
how Martin himself is coming to terms with the complexity of the
technical process and its mediation to the audience. This is
attested by his initial formulation of the simplicity of the process
(it's eas, fai:::rly) that he quickly abandons in favour of conceding
its complexity (I don't know if it's simple). While Martin's expertise
is most likely locally obtained, with him repeating – for the
audience – the process that he has learned shortly before from the
expert, the extract shows him momentarily disconcerted about
how to best mediate the expertise for the lay audience. The
spontaneity present in Martin's speech at this point makes him
more authentic (cf. Tolson, 2010), helping him to overcome the
likely scripted nature of this scene.
Martin starts the explanation, i.e. the transfer of expertise from
him to the audience, by using the imperative of the verb ‘look’ and
continues by appealing to the visual perception of the camera
crew and the recipients (Look. There you see the floor, ehm). In this
way, he explicitly aligns himself to the audience, positioning the
boy in the role of a bystander.
In the rest of the scene, Martin provides the explanation of how
the firebox works. The expert gets involved three times, once of his
own accord and twice as a result of being asked by the presenter
to supply precise information. While all three interventions affirm
the status of the expert as someone who possesses (or is supposed
to possess) full technical expertise, they also indicate that Martin's
status relates to the mediation rather than the possession of expert
knowledge.
The first intervention in the presenter's monologue comes at a
point when Martin specifies the length of time it takes for the
engine to heat up. He does so in an approximate manner (cf. lines
16-17: I’ll tell you what, it takes three or four hours to get going…).
The boy acknowledges the correctness of this information with the
brief affirmative response token Yeah in line 18. However this is
little more than a backchannel response coming at a moment
when Martin momentarily slows down his speech a little, pondering
the information. While the change in Martin's
tempo does not constitute a transition-relevant point, it at least
J. Chovanec / Discourse, Context and Media 13 (2016) 11–1916
provides the space for the other interlocutor's backchannel
acknowledgement.
The second intervention is related to the proper use of terminology.
When describing the operation of the brick wall, Martin
does not recall the precise technical term for one of the crucial
parts of the firebox. He thus momentarily interrupts his explanation
and addresses the mechanic with a simple metalinguistic
question in line 25 (What do you call it, Monkey?). Without
expecting this question, the expert is somewhat put on the spot, as
indicated by his brief hesitation before supplying the missing term
(Eeehm, brick arch). The answer is echoed by the presenter, who
repeats the term in line 27 without including it in his subsequent
explanation. (This situation is analogous to that with the ‘stay
testing hammer’ in Extract 2 above.) While it is possible that
Martin's question in line 25 is meant either to reactivate the active
participant status or even humorously test the knowledge of this
silent participant, it is more plausible to assume that the real
expert is used here by the presenter as a point of recourse, i.e. to
help with some technical aspects should the presenter have any
problems mediating the expertise to the audience.
The boy's third, and final, intervention into Martin's monologic
description comes when the presenter makes another approximation,
guessing the number of tubes used for heating the water.
In his utterance in lines 41-43, Martin changes the footing again,
reorienting his talk from the audience to the mechanic in order to
draw on his expertise and obtain either a confirmation or a specification
from him (You can see that, mostly, I ‘aven’t counted them,
Monkey, there must be a hundred tubes in, Monkey). The expert
takes up the prompt and concurs by giving an approximate
number, using the phrase ‘a couple of’ (They’re a couple of
‘undred…). Martin instantly acknowledges the response (Yeah),
which overlaps with the boy's response token. Similar to other
instances of terminology negotiation identified above, Martin uses
echoing to repeat the phrase, though this time he adds yet another
approximator in the form of the modal adverb ‘maybe’ (Yeah, a
couple of hundred tubes maybe, line 47. After providing the final
piece of technical information, Martin wraps up the whole scene in
an utterance that retrospectively evaluates the whole process (As
simple as that).
The personal evaluation of the process in terms of its simplicity/
complexity reflects Martin's orientation to the demands of the
mediation of expertise for the benefit of the audience. This is attested
by the initial assessment of the complexity of the description to
follow (cf. lines 9-10: it's eas, fai:::rly, e:hm e:hm I don't know if it's
simple), the middle sequence in which Martin reflects on his success
to verbalize the process (cf. lines 35-37: You see, quite (.) sort of simple.
Sort of simple.), and finally the closing utterance that evaluates the
successful mediation of expertise and terminates the entire explanation
sequence (cf. line 50: As simple as that.).
3.5. Acquiring expertise
The last issue to be discussed concerns the presentation
of expertise in learning contexts. This involves situations where
the expert teaches the main protagonist to perform specific physical
tasks that require certain professional skills and expertise.
While the focus of the interaction is on the apprenticeship
experience of a novice learning a trade, this transfer of knowledge
and skills is performed for the benefit of the audience. Rather than
being told and tutored, the audience observes how the knowledge
status of the novice gradually changes under the guidance of an
experienced expert. This process, however, is complemented with
the narrative function of the voiceover that contextualizes the
learning environment by providing the audience with an additional
textual level of expertise. This phenomenon is illustrated in
Extract 5.
Extract 5. [Martin and boy inspecting rivets in the firebox;
8.30–9.14]
1 VO: 5164's inspection continues with an
2 important check for broken rivets (sound
3 and image of hammering appears) steam
4 pressure of two hundred pounds per square
5 inch turns any weak spot into a potential
6 explosion.
7 Boy: All right. You hear the difference?
8 (hammering on the rivet)
9 GM: Yeah. (2.0)
10 Boy: That's the broken one. (hammering on the
11 rivet) (1.5)
12 GM: The last one.
13 Boy: [Yeah]
14 GM: [Yeah]
15 Boy: It's got a more [dull tone [to it.
16 GM: [Yeah [yeah so that's broken.
17 Boy: Yeah. You’re allowed two broken stays in a
18 box.
19 GM: All right, all right.
20 Boy: So if you’ve got any more than two(.) dead
21 engine(.) you fail it and replace the
22 stays. (GM hammering on rivets)
23 VO: Five problem rivets were found. (.) They
24 may be small (.) but if they’re not
25 replaced, 5164 will never be allowed (.)
26 to move again.
Structurally, the entire learning experience (lines 7-22) is
enclosed within voiceover that frames the interaction, providing
additional background information and explanation of the
importance of the procedure. In the opening section of the extract,
the voiceover identifies the scene as a search for ‘broken rivets’
and explains the reason for the inspection. However, the voiceover
plays a metalingual role as well, helping the audience to understand
the content of the interaction. This is because the voiceover
uses semi-technical vocabulary (rivets; lines 2 and 23). The expert,
by contrast, prefers the technically more correct expression stays
(line 17), which refers to the structural elements inside boilers
and other pressure vessels used in order to contain internal
pressure. The role of the voiceover in the segment is thus to
mediate the technical terminology to the audience, who may be
expected to be familiar with the semi-technical concept of ‘rivets’
rather than the much more specific ‘(boiler) stays’. The meaning of
the technical term, once it is used by the expert in line 17, becomes
clear thanks to the situational context (the physical inspection
shown on the screen) as well as the preceding verbal context
(with the hyperonym ‘rivet’ being used by the voiceover a few
lines before).
The actual teaching and learning experience in the extract
starts with the expert physically demonstrating his expertise. He is
shown hammering on the rivets (lines 8-11), guiding the novice to
use his perceptual skills to identify the problematic parts by sound
(‘You hear the difference?’). Martin acknowledges his status of a
recipient of this form of mediated expertise by providing repeated
backchannel noises and confirmations (‘Yeah’ in 9, 14 and 16). The
latching of these reactions with the boy's explanations indicates
Martin's cooperativeness (cf. lines 15–16).
Throughout this scene, Martin's communication consists only
of brief response tokens and confirmations; the only time he takes
over the floor to produce a more complete utterance is to indicate
his understanding (All right, all right’ in line 19). He pronounces the
two phrases with a very prominent rise-fall intonation contour,
J. Chovanec / Discourse, Context and Media 13 (2016) 11–19 17
which underlines his enthusiasm to learn from the expertise and
experience of the other interlocutor.
The entire scene ends with the image of Martin hammering on
rivets himself, while the voiceover provides a summarizing commentary
(Five problem rivets were found). The final image of Martin
performing the inspection is almost symbolic: it marks his transition
from an ordinary lay person, who starts off as a passive
recipient of expert knowledge provided by someone else, to an
individual who not only learns the specialist knowledge but is also
able to re-apply it actively and successfully. This is a motif that
recurs throughout the documentary series.
Finally, with a change of scene and a readjustment of the
interactional footing, Martin is shown talking to the camera and
reflecting on his learning experience (Extract 6).
Extract 6. [Martin talking to the camera in front of the steam
engine; 9.15-9.37]
1 GM: Lots o’ learning. (0.5) That's all that's
2 in it, really. I think the old aside about
3 dogs is right, innit. You cannot teach an
4 old (.) I’m not even that old, am I? I’m not
5 thirty yet, but I’m struggling to take all
6 this information on so we’ll give it we’ll
7 give it maybe a pint or two tonight, I don't
8 know, we’ll just give it a bit more oppor-
9 tunity to sink in. We ‘ave ‘ad a lot of
10 learning today, but we’re all right we’re
11 not here for a day, you know, but we’re all
12 right.
In this frank testimonial, Martin expresses an indirect appreciation
for the high level of expertise involved in the design of steam
engines. Though a skilled mechanic by profession, he airs some doubt
about the manageability of the amount of expert knowledge and
skills that he has encountered. He moves from an unfinished general
statement (‘You cannot teach an old’ in line 3) to a personal reflection
(‘I’m not thirty yet, but I’m struggling to take all this information on’ in
lines 4-6). Eventually, he extends the idea of learning to the production
crew (who are the immediate addressees of his talk within
the basic interactional frame), possibly also including the audience
within the inclusive plural pronoun ‘we’ (‘We’ave’ad a lot of learning
today, but we’re all right, we’re not here for a day or two, you know, but
we’re all right’ in lines 9-12). With the final phrase ‘but we’re all right’,
repeated twice, he ends on an optimistic note, indicating that the
transfer of expertise will ultimately be successful.
In a sense, the extract epitomizes the essence of the entire
documentary programme. The design of the series revolves
around the presenter Guy Martin's apprenticeship experience.
Martin is positioned as a novice, i.e. a lay participant, who learns
the technical skills of the past under the mentoring of more
experienced professionals. From this point of view, the programme
not only mediates the expertise of others but also documents the
process of the gradual transfer and acquisition of expertise by lay
participants. Thus, it captures the transformation affecting the
show's main protagonist and presenter, whose knowledge and
experience status change in most of the scenes that he is shown to
be actively participating in.
However, the relationship between Martin and the experts is
not unproblematic. Being the central protagonist of the programme,
his role also consists in the direct mediation of knowledge
to the audience. However, since his knowledge and skills are
not always based on personal experience, he needs to resort to
having the experts confirm his account or provide terminological
specification when describing complex technical processes. The
presenter is, thus, a semi-expert: despite his own professional
experience, his expertise is positioned between the lay audience,
the experts, and the omniscient voiceover that adds yet another
level of expertise to the entire participation framework of the
programme.
4. Conclusion
The findings of my analysis have several implications for our
understanding of the role of expertise in documentary programmes.
These concern the distribution of expertise between
various parties; the dynamic oscillation of expertise in the case of
the presenter; and the different strategies through which expertise
is performed and mediated.
First of all, expertise needs to be acknowledged as a graded
phenomenon. It is distributed unevenly: different parties hold
different levels of expertise. Thus, the ‘omniscient’ voiceover, as an
external narrator, provides authoritative information in a separate
communicative level of the programme. This type of expertise has
a global presence in documentaries: it functions as a unifying
structural element that connects the individual scenes and provides
‘pedagogic’ commentary. By contrast, experts are crucial in
documentary programmes since they constitute repositories of
ultimate expert knowledge that can be drawn on locally, i.e. in
relation to specific points and issues. Documentary programmes
typically rely on the expertise of several experts as the focus of the
programme shifts from one topic or area to another. The third
party is the presenter, who typically possesses substantial expertise
but qualifies as a semi-expert. This allows the presenter to
interact with the true experts in their own specialist domains.
Following the script of the programme, the presenter coaches the
experts to share their expertise in diverse ways. The final party is
the audience, which – by default – consists of lay participants for
whose benefit expertise is mediated throughout the programme.
The assumed level of the audience's knowledge is present only
indirectly. It is taken into account by the production team since the
programme's script can be seen as a form of conscious audience
design (e.g., reflecting the age of the target audience). The production's
consideration of the audience then inevitably affects the
extent of explanations provided by the more knowledgeable parties
– the presenter, the experts, and ultimately the voiceover.
The second, and most important, general observation is that
the distribution of expertise is not fixed. While some of the voices
in the programme (the voiceover and the experts) may be considered
to display a relatively ‘static’ level of expertise, the situation
is much more complex and dynamic with the presenter. The
presenter oscillates between ‘lay’ and ‘expert’ status. He is caught
in the double bind of performing expertise for the benefit of the
audience, as well as performing layness towards the expert in
order to facilitate the demonstration and transfer of the expert's
knowledge. In this manner, some formats of documentary programmes
– such as the series analysed in this article – provide an
opportunity for the lay audience to identify with the presenter's
role. This identification is strengthened whenever the presenter is
involved in situations requiring him to learn new skills. Arguably,
this also helps to overcome the overly didactic role that many
documentary programmes have, and provides for a much more
enjoyable viewing experience. As the entire process of expertise
presentation is grounded within the double articulation of
broadcast talk, the reorientations involved in the different kinds of
expertise presentation are accompanied by frequent shifts of
footing, with talk being reoriented from dialogue between the onscreen
participants to direct address of the audience and
vice versa.
The third finding, as revealed and documented by the analysis,
concerns the discursive strategies of constructing, presenting and
J. Chovanec / Discourse, Context and Media 13 (2016) 11–1918
mediating expertise. Expert knowledge may be merely presented,
such as when the programme presenter prompts the expert to
elaborate or when the voiceover complements the interaction
between the presenter and the expert with additional commentary.
Expertise can also be dynamically co-constructed in a dialogue
between the presenter and the expert, e.g. through terminology
negotiation. This is linked to the gradually shifting level of
the presenter's expertise, which at this stage typically needs the
support of the expert. Another strategy for the presentation of
expertise occurs when the documentary programme shows the
presenter in the process of acquisition of expertise and skills, with
the learning performed under the explicit guidance of the expert.
The final possibility involves the mediation of expertise by the
presenter. In this case, the presenter's commentary is essentially
monologic, though being subject to the background monitoring
and occasional approval by the expert, who is otherwise involved
only very minimally.
All in all, it is evident that the role of expertise in TV documentaries
is far from simple. The presentation of expertise is
carried out by multiple parties, either in the form of explanatory
monologue or through joint dialogic accomplishment. Of particular
interest appears to be the role of the presenter, who actively
performs his pre-scripted role of the host while shifting between
different levels of expertise that are enacted with varying degrees
of scriptedness and spontaneity. Further research promises to cast
more light on the detailed operation of the shifting levels of
expertise between the different participants.
References
Atkinson, J.M., Heritage, J. (Eds.), 1984. Structures of Social Action: Studies in
Conversation Analysis. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Bonner, Frances, 2003. Ordinary Television. Sage, London and New York.
Bonner, Frances, 2011. Personality Presenters: Television's Intermediaries with
Viewers. Ashgate, Farnham.
Bubel, Claudia, 2008. Film audiences as overhearers. J. Pragmat. 40, 55–71.
Camauer, Leonor, 2016. Denigrating and Being Denigrated for a Higher End: Constructing
Ordinary Expertise Through Supportive and Belligerent Talk. Discourse,
Context & Media http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2016.02.001.
Cap, Piotr, 2011. Micropragmatics and macropragmatics. In: Wolfram, Bublitz,
Norrick, Neal (Eds.), Foundations of Pragmatics. De Gruyter Mouton, Berlin and
Boston, pp. 51–75.
Chovanec, Jan, 2016. Eavesdropping on media talk: Microphone gaffes and unintended
humour in sports broadcasts. J. Pragmat. http://dxdoi.org/10.1016/j.
pragma.2016.01.011.
Clayman, Stephen, 1992. Footing in the achievement of neutrality: the case of news
interview discourse. In: Paul, Drew, Heritage, John (Eds.), Talk at Work. Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, pp. 163–198.
Dynel, Marta, 2011. ʻYou talking to me?’ The viewer as a ratified listener to film
discourse. J. Pragmat. 43 (6), 1628–1644.
Eriksson, Göran, 2014. See the error of your ways: belligerent expertise and the
curative power of ‘tough love’. Int. J. Cult. Stud. 17 (6), 573–589. http://dx.doi.
org/10.1177/1367877913519312.
Fetzer, Anita, 2006. ‘Minister, we will see how the public judges you.’: Media
references in political interviews. J. Pragmat. 38 (2), 180–195.
Goffman, Erving, 1981. Forms of Talk. University of Pennsylvania Press,
Philadelphia.
Goodwin, Charles, 2007. Interactive footing. In: Elizabeth, Holt, Clift, Rebecca (Eds.),
Reporting Talk: Reported Speech in Interaction. Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, pp. 16–46.
Heffer, Chris, 2005. The Language of Jury Trial. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke.
Higgins, Michael, Montgomery, Martin, Smith, Angela, Tolson, Andrew, 2011. Belligerent
broadcasting and makeover television: professional incivility in Ramsay's
kitchen nightmares. Int. J. Cult. Stud. 15 (5), 501–518. http://dx.doi.org/
10.1177/1367877911422864.
Hutchby, Ian, 2006. Media Talk: Conversation Analysis and the Study of Broadcasting.
Open University Press, London.
Hutchby, Ian, Wooffitt, Robin, 1998. Conversation Analysis. Polity, Cambridge.
Livingstone, Sonia, Lunt, Peter, 2002. Talk on Television: Audience Participation and
Public Debate. Routledge, London and New York.
Marriott, Stephanie, 2007. Live Television: Time, Space and the Broadcast Event.
Sage, London.
Montgomery, Martin, 2007. The Discourse of Broadcast News: A Linguistic
Approach. Routledge, London.
O’Keeffe, Anne, 2006. Investigating Media Discourse. Routledge, Abingdon and
New York.
Sacks, Harvey, 1992. Lectures on Conversation. Blackwell, Oxford.
Scannell, Paddy (Ed.), 1991. Broadcast Talk. Sage, London.
Thornborrow, Joanna, 1997. Having their say: the function of stories in talk-show
discourse. Text – Interdiscip. J. Study Discourse 17 (2), 241–262.
Thornborrow, Joanna, 2001. Authenticating talk: building public identities in
audience participation broadcasting. Discourse Stud. 3 (4), 459–479.
Thornborrow, Joanna, 2015. The Discourse of Public Participation Media: From Talk
Show to Twitter. Routledge, Abingdon and New York.
Tolson, Andrew (Ed.), 2001. Television Talk Shows: Discourse, Performance, Spectacle.
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah.
Tolson, Andrew, 2006. Media Talk: Spoken Discourse on TV and Radio. Edinburgh
University Press, Edinburgh.
Tolson, Andrew, 2010. A new authenticity? Communicative practices on YouTube. Crit.
Discourse Stud. 7 (4), 277–289. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17405904.2010.511834.
Verschueren, Jef, 1999. Understanding Pragmatics. Arnold, London and New York.
Wood, Helen, 2007. Talking with Television: Women, Talk Shows, and Modern SelfReflexivity.
University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago.
J. Chovanec / Discourse, Context and Media 13 (2016) 11–19 19