language theories

Theories

 Theory 1: power 

This theory is relevant to my investigation because it will consist of various footballers being interviewed by the media post match and in this interview there will clearly be a more powerful participant and according to Fairclough there is instrumental and influential power and this can be determined by lexis such as formal, informal, slang, jargon etc. using fillers and how fluently their speech is can also be an indicator to who is the more dominant participant in the conversation. The dominant participant will generally set the agenda of the conversation, leads the talk, changes the topic freely, interrupt and overlap. the more submissive participant will respond rather than initiate,follow the set agenda and use fillers and be less confident.

Theory 2: politeness theory

This theory was made by Brown and Levinson and it includes elements such as face threatening acts which suggests that positive and negative face exist universally in human nature. facial expression are sometimes inevitable during conversations. An FTA  damages the face of the addressee or the speaker by acting differently to the others wants. An FTA can either be positive or negative. A negative FTA is when an individual doesn't try to avoid an obstruction in the conversation, this can affect the reader or the hearer. A positive FTA is when the speaker or hearer doesn't care about the speakers feelings,wants and needs. this can also have an affect on the hearer/reader.

Theory 3: 3 different types of power:

Wareings'  research suggested that there are 3 different types of power. these are: social group, personal and political. this could be useful to my investigation as in the dialect this theory could suggest what type of power each participant hold in the conversation.