Exchange Structure and Topic Development in Selected Igbo Phone-in Media Programmes

Abstract

Exchange structure is a sequence of discourse moves -by at least two speakers - that forms atopical or subtopical unit. A minimal exchange comprises of initiating move plus a contributionby another speaker, and topic negotiation is the act of selecting or highlighting a topic fordeliberation in a discourse. This study focusses on the exchange structure and topic developmentin selected Igbo phone-in programme as little or no research has been done on the topic usingIgbo phone-in programmes for illustrations. The purpose of this academic exercise is toinvestigate how Igbo phone-in programmes are arranged, and to highlight how topics aredeveloped in Igbo phone-in programme using Sinclair-Coulthard (1975) ‘Birmingham model’.Data for this study were collected from Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN), Enugu.The fingings show that phone-in programme is organized hierarchically into act, move, exchangeand transaction structures, also, that in phone-in programme, as a conversation, the presenter wasthe host of the programme, the guests (if any) were the resource persons, while the listener/callerwas the target audience. The researcher recommends more researches on similar topics.