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When we watch and listen to actors speaking lines that have been written by someone else-a common experience if we watch any television at all-the illusion of "people talking" is strong. These characters are people like us, but they are also different, products of a dramatic imagination, and the talk they exchange is not quite like ours.
List of contents
- 1.: Introduction
- 2.: Previous Research
- 3.: What Is TV Dialogue Like?
- 4.: What TV Screenwriters Know About Dialogue.
- 5.: What Audiences Know About Dialogue.
- 6.: Dialogue As Social Interaction.
- 7.: Dialogue, Character and Social Cognition
- 8.: Dialogue and Dramatic Meaning: Life on Mars
- 9.: House and snark
- 10.: Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Appendix: List of television shows referred to
About the author
Kay Richardson is Reader in Communication Studies, School of Politics and Communication Studies University of Liverpool.
Summary
When we watch and listen to actors speaking lines that have been written by someone else-a common experience if we watch any television at all-the illusion of ¨people talking¨ is strong. These characters are people like us, but they are also different, products of a dramatic imagination, and the talk they exchange is not quite like ours.
Television Dramatic Dialogue examines, from an applied sociolinguistic perspective, and with reference to television, the particular kind of ärtificial¨ talk that we know as dialogue: onscreen/on-mike talk delivered by characters as part of dramatic storytelling in a range of fictional and nonfictional TV genres. As well as trying to identify the place which this kind of language occupies in sociolinguistic space, Richardson seeks to understand the conditions of its production by screenwriters and the conditions of its reception by audiences, offering two case studies, one British (Life on Mars) and one American (House).
Additional text
...this affordable book can be recommended to university libraries and students interested in television dialogue research, in particular sociolinguists.
