Scholarly record

THE COHERENCE OF VERBAL AND NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION ELEMENTS IN THE POLITICAL TV TALK SHOWS: CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS

Audrone Poskiene

Abstract

Verbal and non-verbal communication elements are widely studied especially in political discourses. This is predetermined by the fact that the political evidences or truth very often could be deciphered only after analyzing the non-verbal elements. The presupposition that political TV talk shows could be an excellent media revealing the possible incoherence between the verbal and non-verbal communication (body language) fostered this research. The format of these shows often provokes politicians to reveal or hide their interests, positions, beliefs, etc. So, the research hypothesis was highlighted that political TV talk shows could be a productive location for detecting the incoherence in the verbal and non-verbal elements. Two TV political talk shows: “Samokslo teorija” (Lithuanian) (Eng. “Collusion theory”) and “Meet the Press” (American) were selected for the analysis. The functions of the body language: affirmation, contradiction, substitution, complementation, accentuation were taken for the basis in the research. The observation and interpretative analysis were used to identify the body language elements of the program participants. The results were rather unexpected because the body language elements in the contradiction function was the smallest group and the affirmation was the dominant group. It means that the hypothesis was not proved and the verbal and non-verbal elements in TV political talk shows were coherent. Lithuanian and American political discussions were ethically correct.

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