Speech Functions. An Analysis of Language and Status in Columbo

Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2,3, University of Bonn (Institut für Anglistik, Amerikanistik und Keltologie), course: Issues in Linguistics: Macrolinguistics "Sociolinguistics", language: English, abstract: In this term paper I will look for the relationship between language and status or language and power in the episode "A Friend in Deed" from the Lieutenant Columbo series. In this episode, the Lieutenant has to investigate against his own boss, Commissioner Mark Halperin, who covered up one murder and commits one himself. I have chosen this episode, because I am a big fan of the Columbo series and because I think it is very interesting to see how both of them act during the investigations. Halperin wants to cover the truth by blaming a burglar, while Columbo finds out that something is wrong and his boss may be suspicious.

Through the hierarchical background they try to manipulate each other. Halperin stops Columbo every time he finds out new traces that lead to the Commissioner as the murderer by telling him to look for a burglar. This again leads Columbo to the conclusion that his boss might be involved in the murder cases. But still, he has to follow his orders, because he is the subordinate and Halperin is the superior of the two. So he uses his possibilities of "using power" in a very subliminal, careful way, by telling the Commissioner his new developments every time he finds out something new, which again makes the Commissioner use his power to give him orders to stop investigating into that direction. But nevertheless, Columbo manipulates him this way and in the end he can arrest him as a murderer. The plot of the episode can be found in the appendix.

For research I have looked up some books concerning "power and language" or "status and language", explaining the linguistic background between language and power and giving definitions of the relationship between it.

First of all, I will give some short background information about the Columbo series, and then I will give some explanations concerning the relationship between language and power with the background of the chosen literature. After that I will describe how I use the results from the theoretical part for the analysis of two chosen dialogues between the Lieutenant and the Commissioner, which can be found in the appendix. This leads to the discussion of the results of the analysis and in the conclusion I will have a look on how language and power work together in this context and if the theories from the literature work in dialogues between superior and subordinate.