Linguistic Features of Radio Drama: A Case Study of Albert’s Bridge

The role of radio as a special medium within mass media, especially when lots of audiences are
concerned, becomes more vivid and important. As a result, radio paly as one of the most successful
entertaining programs among radio works, gains a specific value. In this article, the unique features
of radio are discussed, and the role of language in this medim is studied. Afterwards, radio drama and
its linguistic features have been analysed, and four linguistic patterns (stage directions, place diexix,
speech acts, and textual cohesion) have been checked. Finally these features have been applied to the
radio play Albert’s Bridge by Tom Stoppard (1969). The issues coverd in this study encompass all
the major features studied in the linguistic analysis of conversation. Therefore, issues such as speech
act theory and its several subcategories, as well as diexis analysis, cohesion and coherence have been
considered. Speech act as the main feature of the current study revealed some very interesting results.
As we know, Speech acts can be analysed on three levels: A locutionary act, the performance of an
utterance: the actual utterance and its ostensible meaning, comprising phonetic, phatic and rhetic
acts corresponding to the verbal, syntactic and semantic aspects of any meaningful utterance; an
illocutionary act: the pragmatic ‘illocutionary force’ of the utterance, thus its intended significance
as a socially valid verbal action; and in certain cases a further perlocutionary act: its actual effect,
such as persuading, convincing, scaring, enlightening, inspiring, or otherwise getting someone to do
or realize something, whether intended or not. There are five illocutionary speech acts which were
considered in this study, which are assertives (speech acts that commit a speaker to the truth of the
expressed proposition, e.g. reciting a creed), directives (speech acts that are to cause the hearer to
take a particular action, e.g. requests, commands and advice), commissives (speech acts that commit
a speaker to some future action, e.g. promises and oaths), expressives (speech acts that express the
speaker’s attitudes and emotions towards the proposition, e.g. congratulations, excuses and thanks),
and declarations (speech acts that change the reality in accord with the proposition of the declaration,
e.g. baptisms, pronouncing someone guilty or pronouncing someone husband and wife). The other
feature studied in this paper is the extent of cohesion and coherence of the text in radio drama. Cohesion
is the grammatical and lexical relationship within a text or sentence. Cohesion can be defined as
the links that hold a text together and give it meaning. It is related to the broader concept of coherence.
There are two main types of cohesion: grammatical, referring to the structural content, and lexical, referring
to the language content of the piece. A cohesive text is created in many different ways. On the
other hand, Coherence is what makes a text semantically meaningful. It is especially dealt with in text
linguistics. Coherence is achieved through syntactical features such as the use of deictic, anaphoric
and cataphoric elements or a logical tense structure, as well as presuppositions and implications connected
to general world knowledge. All these factors have been checked on the play Albert’s Bridge,
and the results have been put forward in several tables.