The Ross Priory Broadcast Talk Group: A Developing Forum for Research in Language, Discourse and Mediated Communication

Joanna Thornborrow
CLCR

In September 1992, a number of scholars from various countries and a range of different disciplines were invited to the University of Strathclyde to take part in a seminar on Broadcast Talk. This invitation was in part prompted by the publication the previous year of an innovative collection of papers under the same title (Scannell, 1991), which opened up new directions for work in language and media discourse. The intention was to provide an interdisciplinary forum for the analysis and discussion of talk on TV and radio, and with a particular focus on talk produced during occasions for unscripted interaction. Among the initial participants at that seminar were researchers from the fields of linguistics and discourse analysis, as well as from media studies and sociology, and the analytical perspectives they brought to the data ranged from social semiotics to conversation analysis, pragmatics to critical discourse analysis.

Since that first meeting the seminar has evolved in a somewhat organic fashion, but has retained its heterogeneous and international character, and encompasses many different theoretical approaches to the study of broadcast talk. Participants at the seminar continue to be people with particular research interests in aspects of media discourse, and who are making significant contributions to a developing body of work at the intersection of language, communication and media studies.

Our principal agenda at these seminars has been to focus on the centrality of language within the media, to promote both linguistically informed analyses of naturally-occurring, mediated talk, while also encouraging cross-disciplinarily informed approaches to media discourse. Papers presented at the seminars now span a broad analytic spectrum from within media studies and discourse analysis, but still remain centrally concerned with the phenomenon of talk: its role in constituting the nature of broadcasting as social, and in providing the materials for that inherent sociability. Important themes that weave through the debates concern the changing nature of broadcasting, the development of new discursive practices of representation, and the ways in which the broadcast media function as a site for the occurrence of orderly, contextualised social interaction.
The language of mediated communication, whether we are concerned specifically with linguistic form, discursive practice or interactional order, is inevitably shaped by the technological and interactional frameworks within which it is produced. It is also, as Scannell puts it, 'knowingly, wittingly public’ (Scannell, 1991: 11), and some of the key issues which have emerged from, and been addressed in, these seminars are precisely to do with the changing forms of mediated communication which offer new perspectives on the production of public discourse. Most significant among these are the ways in which the media provide contexts for the development of new kinds of identities and relationships, new frameworks for interpersonal interaction, and new forms of participation, address and discussion. These issues have been reflected in recent thematically framed seminars, 'Identity and Performance' hosted by Stirling University in 1998, and 'Authentic Talk', University of Strathclyde, 1999.

From the early focus on unscripted talk, participants have continued to bring to the seminar broadcast data not just from within Britain but from countries such as Denmark, Israel and Germany, and recorded from local and national radio and TV. But the generic mix has also expanded, reflecting the changing nature and communicative structures of broadcasting, to include material from news programmes, live commentary, talk radio phone-ins, documentaries, chat shows, party political broadcasts, TV shopping channels and recently the new medium of internet relay chat.

A collection of papers resulting from the seminar has been published in a special issue of Text (17.3, 1997) but other work presented at Ross Priory over the last eight years has subsequently appeared in a range of journals, among them Discourse & Society, Media, Culture & Society and Language & Society. Currently in press is a book edited by Andrew Tolson (de Montfort University) on talk show discourse (Tolson, A. (ed) The Talk Show Phenomenon New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum), and two more special journal editions are also in preparation.

This web site is currently under construction, and will provide up to date information about the group, its members and their affiliation details, our aims and research themes, as well as a bibliography of relevant publications, and full list of previous participants at the seminars. Further information about the group is also available from the seminar organisers, Martin Montgomery, University of Strathclyde, and Joanna Thornborrow, Cardiff Centre for Research on Language & Communication.

References:
Scannell, Paddy, 1991. Introduction: The Relevance of Talk. In Scannell (ed) 1991. Broadcast Talk. London: Sage.