Analyzing the Gendered Power Dynamics in Addressing Practices: A Corpus-based Approach

Talk show, a type of media discourse, blend casual conversation with institutional dialogue. This study investigates the addressing performance by the host towards male and female guests. Due to the widespread popularity and
rapid dissemination of information, talk shows have been a significant form of media discourse. Addressing is particularly important in the talk show, particularly in the conversation where there are multi-party interactions to determine the next speaker. Previous studies have found asymmetrical addressing forms for different gender groups. Males tend to have wider selection of addressing forms while females have relatively limited choices, indicating the power difference in the society (Lakoff, 1975; Kramer, 1975). The phenomena seem be more obvious in Chinese society, where is deeply rooted in the patriarchal hierarchy (Pan, 1995; Blum, 1997).

By applying the T/V model proposed by Brown and Gilman (1960) in the Chinese contexts, it is observed that the addressing practice in the talk show in Chinese context reflects broader culture norms. The results indicate asymmetrical addressing practice towards male and female guests. Particularly, male guests tend to be addressed with titles while females are more often addressed by their first or full names. Although subtle gender bias is observed in the addressing
practice, there is also a tendency towards gender equity, as indicated by the frequency of the ‘T’ form. The study underscores the importance of context in corpus-based research and highlights how language use can reflect gendered social structures, particularly in Mandarin Chinese, which lacks grammatical gender marking.