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Dialogue and character in 21st century TV drama

The case of ‘Sherlock Holmes’
  • Kay P. Richardson
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Dialogue across Media
This chapter is in the book Dialogue across Media

Abstract

The successful British-made TV drama series Sherlock (BBC 2011-present) is one of the latest in a long sequence of dramatisations of the Victorian short stories and novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This chapter discusses some passages of dialogue from the first episode of this series, demonstrating how the character is created and maintained, focusing in particular on Sherlock’s antisocial tendencies, his eccentricity and his remarkable deductive powers. The analysis further seeks to isolate the distinctive contribution of dialogue in this respect from other aspects of audiovisual production, drawing as appropriate on the sociolinguistics of stance, politeness theory and conversational analysis.

Abstract

The successful British-made TV drama series Sherlock (BBC 2011-present) is one of the latest in a long sequence of dramatisations of the Victorian short stories and novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This chapter discusses some passages of dialogue from the first episode of this series, demonstrating how the character is created and maintained, focusing in particular on Sherlock’s antisocial tendencies, his eccentricity and his remarkable deductive powers. The analysis further seeks to isolate the distinctive contribution of dialogue in this respect from other aspects of audiovisual production, drawing as appropriate on the sociolinguistics of stance, politeness theory and conversational analysis.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. List of contributors vii
  4. Introduction 1
  5. Part I. Creating characters through dialogue
  6. Pragmatic stylistics and dramatic dialogue 19
  7. Dialogue and character in 21st century TV drama 37
  8. Look who’s talking 55
  9. All talk 77
  10. Part II. Involvement, audience design and social interaction
  11. Studying everyday conversation 95
  12. Dialogic interactions on radio 117
  13. Dialogism in journalistic discourse 137
  14. Friends and followers ‘in the know’ 155
  15. Dialogue with computers 179
  16. Part III. Playfulness and narrative functions of dialogue
  17. Dialogue in Audiophonic Fiction 205
  18. Dialogue in comics 225
  19. Dialogue in video games 251
  20. Dialogue and interaction in role-playing games 271
  21. Index 291
https://doi.org/10.1075/ds.28.03ric

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. List of contributors vii
  4. Introduction 1
  5. Part I. Creating characters through dialogue
  6. Pragmatic stylistics and dramatic dialogue 19
  7. Dialogue and character in 21st century TV drama 37
  8. Look who’s talking 55
  9. All talk 77
  10. Part II. Involvement, audience design and social interaction
  11. Studying everyday conversation 95
  12. Dialogic interactions on radio 117
  13. Dialogism in journalistic discourse 137
  14. Friends and followers ‘in the know’ 155
  15. Dialogue with computers 179
  16. Part III. Playfulness and narrative functions of dialogue
  17. Dialogue in Audiophonic Fiction 205
  18. Dialogue in comics 225
  19. Dialogue in video games 251
  20. Dialogue and interaction in role-playing games 271
  21. Index 291
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