Televisual Expressivity: Emphasis and Emotionality in American and British Singing Competition Shows

This paper presents a case study on the language of American and British singing competition shows. It illustrates that the dialogues of these shows are characterised by a particularly prominent expressivity, representing a notable manifestation of the expressive inclination of contemporary English discourse. Methodologically, the expressivity of singing competition shows is investigated through an analysis of keywords – emphatic adjectives, intensifiers, attitudinal/ affective adjectives – in a sample comprising episodes from The Voice USA, The Voice UK, The X Factor USA, The X Factor UK and American Idol (190 episodes; 1,786,849 words). The sample is extracted from, and examined through, the TV Corpus (Davies 2019; 2021).