Topical strategies in oprah winfrey talk show

The purpose of this research is to analyze the topical strategies applied in Oprah Winfrey Talk Show. The writer is interested in finding the types of topical strategies and its frequencies that are often used in Oprah Winfrey Talk Show. The writer uses the qualitative descriptive method. The writer watch and listen to the video of Oprah Winfrey Talk Show, transcript the data, and analyze them using Stenstrom?s Theory. The findings shows that there are 45 data selected as introducing, terminating, changing, shifting, drifting, digressing, and resuming strategy. The writer found that as a talk show host, Oprah used all of the topical strategies except drifting strategy. Shifting strategy is the most strategy that is used in the talk show. On the contrary, drifting strategy is the only one strategy that other participants use in Oprah Winfrey Talk Show. She also found that Oprah used ―now‖, ―alright/okay‖, ―oh‖, ―well‖, and ―so‖ as the topic shift markers. In addition, the writer also finds questions and statements are used by Oprah to introduce new topics. In the talk show, the role of a talk show host is very important. Because talk show is a limited conversation, the host have to be able manage between both the talk show limited time and topic will be discussed. A good communication skill is very useful for smooth interaction between 2 or more people in every kind conversation. Thus, spoken interaction and other related aspects are always become interesting things to learn