FREE ESSAY ON TIRED OF SURFING

TIRED OF SURFING

Tired of Surfing?
A couple of weeks ago I came home from a hectic day as usual and decided to relieve my
tension by sitting on the couch for some "quality" television. As I turned on the tube
and began channel surfing, I unconsciously stopped at a commercial for a daytime talk
show. Clips of many different women fighting over men were being shown sporadically. Then
the narrator of the commercial announced the title and I about fell on the floor
laughing. "Black women who want their white friends to stop dating black men because they
are taking up all the good ones!" I couldn't believe that a whole one-hour show was going
to be dedicated to this subject. I was instantly consumed by the thought of what kind of
people would actually want to watch such an outrageous show. It was at that moment that I
realized that this show related to a certain type of audience that didn't include me. In
fact, every television show relates to many different people. It's not necessarily the
topic of the show that gets people addicted; it is most often the language within the
show that draws them in. I thoroughly enjoy shows in which I can affiliate with the
language. If my schedule allowed me, I would come home every night and watch Judge Judy.
I love every aspect of the law and can watch court television programs without giving any
of the language said a second thought. This situation isn't the same for all people.
There are many people who would feel as if they were being tortured by being made to
watch five minutes of Judge Judy. 
Over the next few weeks I decided to pick a couple of daytime talk shows to watch.
Through watching these shows I discovered just how much of a role language played in
different television shows. I chose to watch Ricki Lake and The Rosie O'Donnel Show, two
shows that I had never seen a full episode of. Both of these shows appear during the
daytime, one right after the other. They are both female talk show hosts in their
thirties. Both of these women performed in live plays or appeared in many movies before
they became talk show hosts. With so many similarities I found it shocking that the shows
were so different.
Ricki Lake is always formatted around one main subject that is definitely not aimed
towards children. Ricki invites many different guests that have personal insight
pertained to the subject. Her audience plays a huge part in the show by asking multiple
questions or making personal comments. Appearing in almost every show is a "surprise"
guest that always has to come out and make some sort of a scene. There are always mixed
emotions and bad feelings between the guests. I was constantly waiting for a fight to
brake out and I felt as if the audience only added to the fire. Some of the things that
happened on the show seemed unreal. A majority of the characters were within my age
group, in their late teens and early twenties, and I still couldn't relate to anything
that was happening in their life. At times I was lost in the show because I basically
couldn't understand the language. There were other times when I found humor in the show,
laughing at the situations these people had gotten themselves into. 
The Rosie O'Donnel Show is a completely different story. Rosie sits up at a desk and
invites her guests to sit up next to her. She usually has a single guest at a time unless
she has a family or two co-stars together. Many of her guests are famous and are on the
show promoting a new album or movie that is about to be released. Her guests often
perform for the audience, which takes up a lot of the talking time. When they aren't
performing, Rosie asks them a few common questions as if she was making up time lost with
an old friend. The audience never asks questions but one lucky member introduces the
guests that will be appearing on the show that day. Her show has a very personal approach
and the language is fit for people of all ages. I never was lost in the language but I
did hear quite a few new words that Rosie herself had made up.
Since language was constantly being spewed out of the guest mouths, I chose to tape a
select few episodes to monitor the language. The first time around I wrote phrases that
caught my ear or that I didn't understand. I found myself working my pen out a lot harder
with Ricki Lake than with The Rosie O'Donnel Show. I also noted on how many guests used
hand gestures and made faces to back up their comments. There were times when more
language was in the movements they were making than actual words coming out of their
mouths.
When watching Ricki Lake I found myself concentrating on the language that I didn't
understand. I often had to rewind because I had missed so much while I was trying to
translate what had been said. My personal opinion was my biggest problem when taking
notes. I wasn't paying attention to the language being used; instead I was making a
mockery out of it. I had to get past my personal opinions to see what was really being
said and it was a big struggle for me. I often got lost in the language and became easily
uninterested. I had to rewind the Ricki Lake episodes countless times to pick apart the
language being used. It wasn't until I started looking for certain types of language that
my notes became useful.
After working through the Ricki Lake episodes I found The Rosie O'Donnel Show to be a
piece of cake. The language expressed on Rosie's show was almost always at a level that
children could understand. She kept her shows clean and the language definitely was
inviting to me. At first I didn't have many notes because nothing seemed to catch my ear.
It was as if I was listening to an everyday conversation between friends. My notes fell
short of what I expected until I went back and viewed the show a few more times to really
see beyond the simple conversations. 
The main struggle was that I quickly adapted to the show that I liked and disoriented
myself from the one I didn't like. I did what every viewer does when they watch TV. I
enjoyed the show that pertained to my speech community and disliked the show that was an
uncomfortable speech community. In order to really take good notes I had to force myself
to try to understand the different types of communication involved in each of the shows.
As Paul Roberts states in Speech Communities, a speech community is " a group of people
steadily in communication with one another, steadily hearing one anther's speech."
(p.232) It was obvious to me that the two shows I watched represented completely
different speech communities. It was very apparent that the speech communities found on
Ricki Lake were greatly shaped around education. Many of the guests had dropped out of
high school or were going to some sort of continuation school. Their profiles revealed
similar jobs, if they had one, which included exotic dancers, homemakers, and
secretaries. The guests'ages, ethnicity, and where they were from also took a part in
forming the speech communities. On the other hand, the speech communities represented in
The Rosie O'Donnel Show reflected social positions. A majority of the guests were famous
and already known by many people. Elton John, Jennifer Connel, and Linda Lavin were just
a few that appeared.
As I monitored the different speech communities I found within the shows I discovered the
three categories that James Britton discusses in The English Language: "An Owner's
Manual." By the end of my viewing process I became very familiar with expressive,
transactional, and poetic language. Both shows used each of these three categories,
although it was in two very separate mannerisms. 
As Britton stated, "expressive language tends to be spontaneous and unrehearsed, and it
represents the closest association with that mysterious process we call thinking." (p.18)
Expressive language was always flowing out of the guests' mouth on Ricki Lake. Take for
example the story of Ty and Kenya. These two people had two children together and broke
up shortly after. Ty seemingly disappeared from Kenya's life leaving her at home to be a
single mother with no support. As Kenya poured out her side of the story, the audience
quickly grew feelings of hatred towards Ty without even meeting him. As soon as he was
introduced and brought on to the stage, a wave of "boos" came from the audience. Upset
from what had been said he quickly responded with, " You ain't nothin' but a liar. All
you have done to me is caused baby mama drama from day one! Everybody needs to stop
listening to this bitch and hear my side of the story!" All the while, he was standing in
Kenya's face and pointing and waiving his hands uncontrollably. I wasn't until he sat
down in his chair and calmed down that the expressive language ended. 
The use of expressive language was much different on The Rosie O'Donnel Show. There was
never a quick slip of the tongue but instead the expressive language was represented
through body language. Almost every guest was using their hands to help them speak. If
they were telling a story about recent work they have done, their hands would sort of
move in circular motions. Then there was Elton John who never stopped moving his hands.
When he was done speaking he would clasp his hands on to the armrest of the chair,
sporadically stoking them. Hand movements and facial expressions were also almost always
at a constant with Rosie. Her eyebrows would move to accentuate what she was talking
about. She also would stand up and personally greet her guests, sometimes giving them
hugs to add to the warm welcome.
Transactional language was also a really big part of both of these shows. Britton states,
"it is the language that gets the job done, that allows people to conduct transactions of
meaning." (p.21) In order for the guest to tell their stories, transactional language had
to be in use. Most of the transactional language on Ricki Lake came when the guests were
explaining what had happened in their lives. On the show titled, "You can't keep our kids
from me because I'm gay," couples rambled out their stories of how they became gay soon
after they had children with their heterosexual lovers. The subject itself was somewhat
taboo and at times it seemed as though Ricki was reluctant to intervene with the guests.
While the guests were speaking many of the words that were being said reflected their
speech community. Phrases like, "He don't even got a house," and "You ain't paid nobody,"
were common throughout the show. There were common misuses of English words possibly due
to the lack of education. Transactional language was also being used before and after the
commercial breaks when Ricki would either recap what had happened or would give a preview
for the next guests.
The Rosie O'Donnel Show used transactional language in the most conservative form. The
simple conversations that Rosie held with her guest were probably transactional language
at its purest. The back and forth conversation between two people is what the show is
based around. This allows for the viewers to "get to know" someone who they will probably
never actually meet in real life. Their social class showed when the guests spoke and
greatly represented their speech community. Rosie O'Donnel also would give recaps and
previews before and after the commercial breaks allowing the audience to keep up with
her.
The last category of poetic language was rarely used in comparison with the other two
categories. In The English Language: "An Owner's Manual," it states that "a major
characteristic of poetic language is that the words themselves are memorable and enhance
the meaning." (p.28) Rosie O'Donnel would perform short songs because of her admiration
of singing. A traumatic scene occurred when two-year old quadruplets, that shared that
same birthday as Rosie, were brought onto the show to meet the characters of The Wizard
of Oz. They were supposed to love The Wizard of Oz, but first sight of the characters set
fear into the quadruplets and they all started crying. Later in the show Rosie sang a
poetic song to "If I Only Had a Brain," replacing the words with new ones. Some of the
words included were "dope-o-rama" and "cutie-patootie." These were words that I had never
heard before but quickly caught onto due to their childish nature. A few things said on
Ricki Lake also appeared to be poetic. "Baby mama drama" is a phrase used to talk about
the problems that the mother's child has caused for the father. "Babies daddy" is also
used to talk about the father of the child. Another new phrase I learned was "I'm fin to
bounce up out of here." Translation; "I can't take this anymore, I'm going to leave this
place." All of these are excellent examples of poetic language used throughout these two
shows. As I discussed earlier, each of them relates specifically back to the speech
communities that they represent.
In watching these two shows I fell upon knowledge of television that I didn't have
before. There are many different shows to choose from while a person sits on the couch
channel surfing. Within these different shows there are categories. Take for example talk
shows, game shows, sit-coms, court televisions, etc. These shows may be the same in
general but within these show lies a level of language that completely sets them apart. I
discovered that two day time talk shows that appear one right after the other are
virtually two different shows, all due to the language that is within them. I felt that I
was strongly attracted to the language in The Rosie O'Donnel Show because I was very
comfortable with the speech community it represented. On the contrary, the language I
found on Ricki Lake was repulsive. I couldn't affiliate with half of the things that were
being said. I basically was an outsider because I was lost in the language. 
The final decision to stop surfing at a talk show, cooking show, or video show is
influenced by language. People have a different perspective on which language they
prefer. Paul Roberts writes in Speech Communities that "good English is whatever English
is spoken by the group in which one moves contentedly and at ease." The English found on
Ricki Lake wasn't easy for me and therefore I formed an opinion of dislike for the show.
The complete opposite was true for The Rosie O'Donnel Show. This is why every show has a
different appeal to each person. In the end it is the decisive point that helps us choose
what channel we actually want to watch.