Socially Incompetent Character in The Office: Focus on Action Formations and Understanding Displays

• 영문명: Socially Incompetent Character in The Office: Focus on Action Formations and Understanding Displays
• 발행기관: 한국사회언어학회
• 저자명: Eunseok Ro Josephine Mijin Lee
• 간행물 정보: 『사회언어학』제31권 1호, 1~32쪽, 전체 32쪽
• 주제분류: 어문학 > 언어학
• 파일형태: PDF
• 발행일자: 2023.03.30

영문 초록

By adopting conversation analysis, this study examines how action formation and understanding displays construct a socially inept and humorous character in the TV sitcom, The Office. The analysis revealed two recurrent patterns in the main character’s interactions—improper action formation and insufficient understanding displays. Specifically, the findings showed that the main character, Michael, was construed as one that is unaware of his uncanny actions and unable to understand the interlocuter’s inferential and sarcastic remarks. The inserted interview scenes also highlighted that a conversational norm has been violated and contribute to the characterization of Michael as a quirky, socially incompetent worker. As a result, the collective sender is not only able to establish common ground with the audience but also dramatize the humorous potential of the episode. These analytic findings demonstrate that CA can be a rigorous tool for revealing the specific interactional devices that are exploited by scriptwriters to configure characters and infuse comical elements into TV sitcoms.

목차

1. INTRODUCTION

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

3. DATA AND METHOD

4. ANALYSIS

5. CONCLUSION

REFERENCES

APPENDIX

키워드

sitcom The Office action formation understanding display conversation analysis media televisual discourse