Edited by Anita Fetzer and Elda Weizman
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 307] 2019
► pp. 133–156
Radio call-in shows, mainly political ones, are prevalent in discursive research, dating back to Hutchby’s influential work. This chapter discusses the leading United States economic self-help radio call-in show, “The Dave Ramsey show” and how ordinariness is used in it. The host, Dave Ramsey, advises callers, and the audience, regarding their economic behavior. This counseling creates a paradox: an expert-millionaire advises ordinary people and fans regarding their economic struggles. The host presents himself as ordinary to solve this paradox. Ramsey constructs his ordinariness using vernacular language, referring to a shared ‘common-sense,’ using mundane stories and relating to the callers as a family. Then, the chapter discusses two interactions with “non-ordinary” callers, a poor and a rich caller, to show the uses of the ordinariness practices in them. The conclusion connects the ordinariness of the host to his neoconservative ideology, to point to the notion of ordinary success he tries to deliver.