The paper explores how the feel of the West Wing is reproduced through language in the screenplay of A. Sorkin. In particular, it gives a linguistic account of the walk-and-talk technique, a prominent story enhancer that emphasizes the hectic life of characters and functions as a language economy device. The paper also illustrates the most relevant linguistic features used in episode 10 of the series and it reveals that artificiality is preferred to linguistic realism and naturalness. In fact, the type of audiovisual product in question, the limited time available to convey much information, and the need to be pungent and effective do not allow for the natural inconveniences of real interaction to be included in the screenplay.
