COMPONENT 1A - FULL RESPONSE

Ok everyone.

Here is the full response. This took just under half an hour IN TOTAL - I wanted to prove it could be done. You have almost twice as long to write yours. It could do with one or two more PGs ideally and stronger/more frequent connections, but it is certainly a strong effort.

Read it, and allow this to inform your structure for section A.

"Text A is a transcript between a famous ex-footballer and his mother, which I imagine would be partially pre-scripted as it is for TV broadcast. Within the exchange, we see both parties using spoken language techniques to identify family members and to recount memories which are relevant to the celebrity’s career, often over-explaining, which shows that this has been partially set up for the entertainment of the viewing audience.

It is clear that the two speakers have been instructed to ensure that they clarify certain aspects of their family life for the purpose of the viewers, visible where M says ‘my favourite picture of your father’. The emphatic stress placed on the noun ‘father’, and the determiner ‘your’ sound unnatural as it would be clear that Barnes would already know who is in the picture, but she is clarifying it for the viewers. We see a similar example when she says ‘you used to play a lot of football there’. The use of the second person pronoun ‘you’ and the phrasal verb ‘used to’ is again an odd inclusion as Barnes would already have this recollection. This seems to have a secondary purpose to inform the viewers of the origins of Barnes’ footballing career. This is dissimilar to text B where F actually refers to C’s mother as ‘little Norma’ – the proper noun reflecting a shared understanding only between family members.

The fact that JB is famous as a footballer is reflected in the edited subject matter of the exchange in Text A, with M focussing on Barnes’ footballing as a child and her declaration that he ‘had a good place coz [he] could run up and down’. The verb ‘run’ and adverbial phrase ‘up and down’ shows that he was an active and athletic child and hints that he was always destined to become a sportsman. Barnes also reflect how different life was for him compared to children living in the UK as he mentions ‘we had eighty mangos in the garden’. The enumerator ‘eighty’ and relatively low-frequency plural noun ‘mangos’ shows that Barnes lived in exotic surroundings, and this would seem odd or alien to the majority of BBC1 viewers who would have grown up in a much colder climate. This is similar to Text B where F focusses on the rural lifestyle he and his siblings enjoyed as children, and the trouble this got them into.

An element of humour is introduced in the text where the two speakers discuss how inappropriate the father’s gifts of a ‘woolly bath robe’ and a ‘big sweater’ were for their ‘hundred degree’ climate. The premodifying adjectives ‘big’ and ‘woolly’, juxtaposed with the enumerator ‘hundred’ shows how ill-thought-out the gifts were and categorise him as a rather dim individual, thus entertaining the audience.

Barnes attempts to add context to his arrival in the UK by claiming, ‘some of us who were deserted (2) stayed longer.’ It is clear that Barnes delivers this accusation with a humourous tone due to the massively hyperbolic past participle verb ‘deserted’ which is followed by an unvoiced timed pause for comic effect. The use of paralinguistic features by the mother ‘[laughs]’ shows that this is taken in good humour and is merely an inclusion to show how JB ended up being here for so long.

It is clear that the exchange has been edited to appear spontaneous and emotive. In a more formal situation, we might expect that there would be lots of interrogatives and more obvious adjacency pairs, but these are lacking from this exchange, except for later in he transcript when M asks ‘you remember much about him? (his grandfather). Here, the elliptical interrogative containing the adverb ‘much’ is used to chow that JB has gaps in his family memory which the show will help to fill. Throughout the exchange, we see lots of playful and relaxed interruptions by both speakers. Whilst this could be seen as a struggle for power in other situations, here it merely reflects their close relationship as family members. However, in terms of Fairclough’s features of dominance, JB is allowed to speak more, perhaps reflecting the wishes of the directors who would want to hear his insight on matters as the subject of the show. This is different to Text B where F allows C to interrupt him in order to keep her interest in the conversation.

A purpose to inform the viewers that Barnes’ family is perhaps far more prestigious than they might expect is fulfilled through the inclusion of a description of JB’s grandfather, Frank Hill. M’s assertion that ‘he was like an indoor kinda guy’ creates a humourous tone through the mixed formality of the hedge ‘kinda’ to mimic Barnes’ earlier comment about himself. The colloquial noun phrase ‘indoor kinda guy’ proves that Frank Hill was studious and intelligent. The importance of him as a figure is represented by the mention of a ‘bust of Frank’. The concrete noun ‘bust’ connotes he must have been a figure of some repute. JB’s backchanneling during this section, ‘mmm’ and ‘yes’ implies that he is impressed and proud to hear about this significant member of his family who was ‘Chairman of the National Heritage Trust’ – the compound noun ‘chairman’ signifying his huge importance, thus entertaining the audience.

Text B is an exchange between a small child and an older family member in which we see the older family member allow the child to dominate the conversation in order to keep her interested in the exchange. The child leads the conversation by asking directed questions, resulting in adjacency pairs presenting themselves. In addition to this, the uncle attempts to use this opportunity to instruct and warn the child, without much success.

An attempt to ensure the conversation runs smoothly is eveident from F. As C is only 9 years old, she is not familiar with the rules of conversation and so does not realise that she needs to be more specific with her questioning. This is reflected by F’s more simplified interrogative of, ‘what you want to hear then?’. The simplified verb ‘hear’ and adverb ‘then’ show that he wants to be more precise about the memories C would like him to divulge. C also shows that, due to her age, she is prone to interrupt F, meaning that F has to accommodate her so as not to upset her. We can see this on line 7 when when Freddy says, ‘well I said I’m a bit tired //but I//’ and is interrupted. Although he has just started an additional clause, the child interrupts him mid sentence with an interrogative, ‘//why// why were you tired uncle Freddy?’ This demonstrates that the child unintentionally flouts Grice’s maxim of quantity by interrupting after she has asked a direct question. This is dissimilar to text A where the exchange can be viewed as more of a battle for dominance.

A voice of encouragement from F regarding C’s ability to learn to ride a bike is visible through F’s use of prosodic features such as strtching out the verb ‘ri::::de’ and adverb ‘alri:::ght’. This is arguably done to make the process of learning to ride the bike sound more appealing and to encourage C to stick at it in order to reep the rewards of learning a new skill.

In a similar respect, we see F attempting to incorporate sub-purposes into the exchange when he warns C what nearly happened to her mother one time stating, ‘if I han’t a-caught her her she’d a-ran straight into the pit.’ From the conditional conjunction ‘if’ and adverb’straight’, it is clear that F is trying to exaggerate the risk faced by C’s mother in order to encourage the child to be more careful herself. However, it is evident that the child lacks the understanding of the situation and merely back-channels with the paralinguistic ‘{laughs}’, proving that she does not full realise the magnitude of the danger.

This voice of warning continues later on when F uses an example of a bridge washing away due to the actions of his brother Gerald. Because of their building up of a dam, he claims that someone said, ‘father gotta pay’. The elision ‘gotta’ and the overly formal proper noun ‘father’ hints at a situation full of tension due to the blame placed on the children, and the apparent lack of closeness in the relationship between the children and their father. F appears to think that the message has got through to C this time due to his willingness to stop talking and once more use prosodic features to respond with an elongated ‘ye::::s’ after C back-channels with the statement, ‘in big trouble’. The colloquial idiom containing the premodifying adjective ‘big’ shows that she has begun to take some of these warning seriously. However, her final declarative ‘but they had their fun’, containing the conditional conjunction ‘but’ and abstract noun ‘fun’ shows that she is still far more interested in whether or not the children enjoyed themselves than taking any sort of moral message from the anecdote.

It is clear that F is keen to use aspects of his local dialect when speaking to C, such as his use of dialect nouns such as ‘picle’ and ‘hoss’. It could be argued that his is a slightly irresponsible way to communicate with a child who apparently does not share the same dialect, as this would often be described as a potential use of downwards divergence in other contexts. However, it is possible here that this is simply a reflection of the relaxed communication between two family members, and may be used by F to simply introduce her to some words which are part of her family’s culture, and which she may wish to use in the future herself. This would be supported by Peter Trudgill who claims that is it our duty to attempt to preserves dialects, both new and old. We do not see similar dialect words being used in Text A, despite the family originating from Jamaica where the dialect is probably far more strong. This is likely because of the audience of the broadcast who may struggle to understand if a strong dialect were used, to the director has probably requested a rather standard use of English.

A final moral lesson about the perils of gambling is attempted by F when he recounts another anecdote where he hyperbolically exclaims, ‘I said to them can’t you see that police car’ in response to seeing his fiends playing the card game Newmarket for money. The rather incredulous sounding interrogative tone, particularly in reference to the contraction ‘can’t’, dynamic verb ‘see’ and noun phrase ‘police car’ shows that he is trying to persuade his young niece to adopt a negative stance towards gambling from an early age, something which she finaly seems to accept with the exclamative ‘more trouble’, the intensifier and abstract noun connoting that she ha finally learned a lesson. This is dissimilar to text A where the communication from the parent in recounting anecdotes is done for the entertainment of the viewers rather than to inform the child."