The pragmatics of advice-giving in the media discourse: The interplay of speaker gender and hearer gender
ChihsiaTang
National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology
Abstract
This study investigated how the gender of the contestants in TV talent competitions affects male and female
judgesβ management of their advice, exemplified by evaluative talks in two Taiwan-based talent contests. In addition to the
pragmatic configuration of the advising acts, the internal and external modifiers of the advising speech events were also analyzed
in an attempt to gain insights into whether and how the advice messages are instrumental in the construction of gender identities.
Results showed that deviating from the stereotypical gendered style of communication, the female judges utilized significantly
fewer politeness mechanisms than did their male counterparts to moderate their advice. Besides, the psychological needs and face
want of the male and female advice-receivers remarkably influenced the discursive moves of the given advice comments. These
findings suggested that in the public media discourse, the speech context outweighs the socially prescribed gendered styles of
communication on oneβs advice-giving behavior.
The advice-giving linguistic behavior is defined as an utterance where an idea is put forward as a possibility for the
addresseeβs future action (Li 2010). Bach and
Harnish (1979) maintained that the force of the advising illocution is for the recipient to embrace an evaluation or
idea which is beneficial to himself/herself. Namely, βwhat the speaker expresses is not the desire that H does a certain action
but the belief that doing it is a good idea, that is in Hβs interestβ (Bach and Harnish
1979, 50).
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