A Pragma-Stylistic Study of Two Videos of Noah’s “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah”

Abstract

The present study tries to investigate the field of pragma-stylistics in talk shows, particularly, the American talk show “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah”. It tries to find how the pragmatic theories are applied stylistically to reflect the speakers’ perceptions and obtain their goals. The study aims at: 1) Specifying the most dominant between the politeness and impoliteness principles used by speakers in each video. 2) Identifying the videos speakers mostly use with politeness or impoliteness principles. 3) Showing the aims behind using politeness and impoliteness strategies. The present study is limited to two principles of pragmatics; politeness and impoliteness. The data of the analysis is limited to videos taken from the official channel of “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah”. After analyzing the data, it is concluded that impoliteness principle is the most dominant in the analyzed videos. It is used by speakers to scorn the other and do a direct FTA against their negative face. Positive politeness and off-record politeness and positive impoliteness are mostly used in videos were Noah reports news and comment on them, while videos were Noah interviews a guest, off-record politeness, and positive impoliteness are mostly used. Speakers can achieve politeness and impoliteness strategies by employing the stylistic devices of metaphor, hyperbole, irony, repetition, allusion, quotation, and parody to achieve different aims and effects.