Directness and indirectness in the pursuit of love : A qualitative study on manifestations of directness and indirectness in the reality TV show Love on the Spectrum

Sammanfattning: When it comes to human communication, there are several possible ways of expressing the same idea. This is often explained in terms of direct and indirect speech acts. The concept of direct and indirect speech acts is not only of interest to scholars within linguistics, but rather, it has come to serve as a source of entertainment for a wider audience as well. This essay aims to investigate manifestations of directness and indirectness in the unscripted reality TV show Love on the Spectrum. More specifically, the study aims to identify possible functions of directness and indirectness respectively in the TV show as well as to investigate what factors seem to govern the participants’ levels of indirectness. The study retrieved its data from eight episodes spread across two seasons. The study was conducted using a qualitative approach with occasional quantitative elements in order to identify the most frequent functions of directness and indirectness, respectively. The results showed that request for clarification, giving explanations and saving face were all identified as possible functions of directness in the TV show. The possible functions of indirectness identified were politeness and consideration, giving hints and creating figures of speech. The results also showed that Thomas’ (1995) factors said to govern the levels of indirectness correspond with how indirectness was applied by the participants of the show.