Transcripts

I searched 'harry potter cast interviews' on YouTube and selected videos based on length and not title. I transcribed a minute into each interview to avoid introductions and scripted speech from the interviewers; by using data from the middle of each video, the speech will more likely be natural and flowing. I transcribed for three minutes and I wanted there to be at least one minute of the interview remaining before I stopped transcribing to avoid outro's. For that reason, my chosen videos were at least five minutes long. I didn't choose videos based on any other features such as cast included, setting or date, therefore I avoided cherry picking and my data was reliable as it could be for using secondary data. Below are the two transcripts I have made so far, I will analyse the data based on Tannen's theory and if I feel I do not have enough text to use as support for my investigation, I will transcribe more. 

'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2' Press Conference (1/3)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVV9GowGPaM 1:00-4:00

A=Main male interviewer

B=Rupert Grint

C=Emma Watson

D=BBC radio interviewer

E=David Yates (director)

F=Main female interviewer

G=Rob Discall

A: I uh also have a question eh for Emma (0.5) and and Rupert I mean David there speaking about how you’ve worked so closely for so long (.) what’s it gonna be like not returning to the set of harry potter uh (0.5) on a yearly basis

B: yeah I I don’t think I still have really come terms come to terms with that um (1) after we finished like a year ago now (1) um (0.5) I have felt a little bit lost without it really and (0.5) not really knowing what to do with myself and (0.5) um it’s been such a constant part of my life and um (0.5) to suddenly have that kind of just suddenly come down to this kind of one film it’s (0.5) it’s yeah it is quite sad and um I’m really genuinely gonna miss it and miss everyone

C: yeah it’s funny um (0.5) I’m sort of used to having gaps in between each of the films (.) usually five or six months and then (1) um (0.5) after this this last film ended (0.5) around that point I started getting like this itch that was like (0.5) okay I’m ready to go back now and then I realised I wasn’t and uh (1) it was that was really the moment that I had to come to terms with thi-so difficult to process um (1) but (1) I think Dan Rupert and I have all moved on to other projects and we’ve been working really hard on (0.5) on you know what’s next for us and and we’ve learnt so much during the making of these films and I think we’re all just excited to put it into practice and do more good work

A: thank you (1) um ooh we have a question over here (0.5) thank you

D: hi I’m from BBC radio (0.5) just want to ask uh the director given the (0.5) oh I’m over here sorry on the left (1) given that this is the most successful frim-franchise of all time (0.5) are you perhaps a little bit disappointed that the Harry Potter films haven’t received very much recognition in Oscar’s or Bafta time 

E: do you know I think we’ve all made peace with that in a way (.) there are so many (0.5) things to enjoy (.) being part of this whole (0.5) um series of films (.) most of all the affection of the fans and the fact that there’s a global community (0.5) um who follow these stories with great passion (.) if you go down to Trafalgar Square right now you’ll see a mini Glastonbury (0.5) of people from all people all over the world who have been camping out in the rain for the last three nights (1) and (1) and that’s (1) that’s more of a compensation than lots of trophies so I think we’re cool about that (1) um that’s somehow more important I’d say

F: okay we’ve got a a question in the front row I think a Rob Discall here thank you if you take the mic off me Rob

G: thanks (0.5) uh question for Rupert and Emma again (.) um which film in the series of eight would you say uh provide you with the uh the biggest turning point for your character in terms of um (0.5) tr-trial to adult or transition or maybe just learning a big lesson

'Harry Potter Order Of The Phoenix' Full Unscripted Interview | Moviefone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yOJFJHqAms 1:00-4:00

A=Emma Watson

B=Daniel Radcliffe

C=Rupert Grint

A: um (1) I thought Umbridge in this one / was  / quite a good character / like           / you can do a lot with that

B:                                                             / yeah /                                    / absolutely /

*Video clip plays – scripted speech from movie*      

A: okay (0.5) I don’t actually know what your favourite scene is

C: it’s there was so many in this one I liked all the (0.5) the fighting stuff with the wand and all and all that (.) like the Room of Requirement stuff was really good

A: final scene

C: / yeah

A: / final bit

B: apart from the heat on that set

A: / yeah /

C: / yeah / that was / yeah

B:                            / sort of

A: / that was /

C: / could’ve / done without / that

B:                                        / cause it felt like we were in the centre of the sun

A: yeah it literally did (.) it literally did

C: there were lights everywhere

B: yeah cause it was filmed on a on a set with loads of mirrors and so um (0.5) they they had to (0.5) have (0.5) a fireplace loads of fireplaces in the room so they they would be reflected in every mirror and uh so we we we were essentially burnt alive for three days (2) that’s not too much of an exaggeration I don’t feel

*Video clip plays – scripted speech from movie*      

B: so Rupert (1) is fame (2) the way you imagined it wa-hold on (1) it would be when you first auditioned for the movies and that’s from Rebecca in Surrey / England

C:                                                                                                           / England

A: Aw cool

C: I dunno I mean (1) I don’t really feel (1) sort of (0.5) that famous I guess it’s just sort of getting recognised and that I’m finding that quite hard to (1) get my get my head around but / no I mean / no everyone’s always really nice and / yeah it’s good fun     /                                                                                     

A:                       / I think       /                                                             / I don’t think we really / like knew we were gonna be famous (.) when we / like first starting doing it    /

C:                                                                                      / oh yeah I know that’s true /

A: I don’t think it like when we were auditioning it really occurred to us as a kind of like (0.5) this is what fame will be like or  

B: we just wanted to do the films at that stage

A: / yeah    

C: / yeah

B: we weren’t even thinking that far ahead

C: / no / we weren’t /

A: / no /                   / I don’t think we had any idea

B: no (0.5) I still don’t think very far ahead (.) I’m not really gonna plan

C: what is the most outrageous rumour you’ve heard about yourself

A: god (0.5) I’ve never really been that (0.5) many outrageous (0.5) / rumours / about me

B:                                                                                                        / I dunno /

A: I guess just like every week (0.5) I’m attending a different school or um

B: / yeah yeah /  

A: / I’m a like   / there was like Rugby Moorburgh or like Beedales literally like five or six different schools that I’ve never like set foot in so uh that was quite amusing (.) uh and also like loads of different films that I’m also like apparently in

B: going to be in

A: which again I’ve never heard of

B: yeah

A: apart from that I’ve (2) there’s pretty much been (2) I keep getting called Emily Watson

B: yeah

A: which is quite annoying (1) um (0.5) I mean they’re still doing that like five years on like Emily Watson at the Harry Potter premiere last night I’m like no Emma come on yeah so but apart from that there’s nothing really like (1) outrageous

(Some of the overlaps went out of place when copying and pasting in from Word but will be correct when printing out from Word to use in the coursework folder) 

Further research into Deborah Tannen's Difference Theory

Further research into Deborah Tannen's Difference Theory:

• Explored and discussed her theory in her 1990 book 'You Just Don't Understand' and the theory became popular and recognised as a result of this
• Females engage in rapport-talk - a communication style meant to promote social affiliation and emotional connection, while men engage in report-talk - a style focused on exchanging information with little emotional input
• Her evidence is based on literature, and Tannen's friends, family and students 
• Brief recap of her discovery of the different male and female conversational styles

1. Status v. Support
2. Advice v. Understanding
3. Information v. Feelings
4. Orders v. Proposals
5. Conflict v. Compromise
6. Independence v. Intimacy 

Language Investigation Ideas

I have decided to continue with the idea of studying Deborah Tannen's Difference Theory for my language investigation coursework. This is because I found the research, transcribing and annotating interesting and insightful when I first attempted the language investigation. My next step is to choose which data I want to use and how I plan to select it. I need to also have a set question and hypothesis for my investigation. I predict that males will have adopted more of the female traits and vice versa. So both gender will use the traits more or less equally and won't be exclusive to one gender.

In terms of my data, I'm hoping to use cast interviews from the same television series so the language doesn't fluctuate. Although the speech may not be 100% spontaneous due to structured speech from  interviewers, I think the interviewees will use natural speech. The formality will be very low, chatty and friendly so this will hopefully make the data I transcribe natural and spontaneous, adding to the reliability of my investigation.

Child Language Acquisition - notes

Pre-verbal State

Vegetative (0-4 months) - sounds of discomfort or reflexive actions
Cooing (4-7 months) - comfort sounds and vocal play using open mouthed-vowel sounds
Babbling (6-12 months) - repeated patterns of consonants and vowel sounds
Proto-words (9-12 months) - word-like vocalisations, not matching actual words but used consistently for the same meaning



Lexical and Grammatical Stages of Development

Holophrastic/one-word (1-1.5 years) - the child utters their first word; they then build a vocabulary of holophrases. they are called holophrases because they convey all the meaning of a phrase/sentence through intonation, body language, etc. The types of words are short and related to the here and now - the child's everyday life.

Two word (1.5-2 years) - the child begins to use two words at a time and grammar begins to emerge because the child can choose word order. They are more flexible with a range of grammatical functions: an action affects an object, an actor performs an action, an object is given a location, etc. There are still a few that defy definition and often understanding, however are creative phrases. Most children use correct word order using prepositions (e.g. on), possessions (e.g. my) and pronouns (e.g. she).

Telegraphic (2-3 years) - the child uses three or more words combined. Sentences may have gaps in them but they can combine 3-4 words in a variety of grammatical constructions. However statements, questions and commands may not always make sense.

Post-telegraphic (3 years+) - the child uses more grammatically complex combinations.



Types of Sound

Plosives - created when the airflow is blocked for a brief time (also called stop consonants) e.g. voiced - d, b, g & unvoiced - p, t, k
Fricatives - created when the airflow is only partially blocked and air moves through the mouth in a steady stream e.g. voiced - v, z, th & unvoiced - f, s, h, sh
Affricates - created by plosives and fricatives together e.g. voiced - dg & unvoiced - ch
Approximants - similar sounds to vowels e.g. voiced - w, r, j
Nassals - produced by air moving through the nose e.g. voiced - m, n
Laterals - created by placing the tongue on the ridge of the teeth and then air moving down the side of the mouth e.g. voiced - l



Pamela Grunwell is a theorist who said children at the following ages should be able to pronounce the following phonemes...

2 years - p, d, b, m, d, n, w, t
2.5 years - k, g, h
3 years - f, s, j, l
3.5 years - ch, dg, v, z, sh, r



Key CLA Processes

Addition - the repetition of particular sounds and structures e.g. doggie (adding an extra vowel sound to create a CVCV structure)

Reduplication - repeating the whole syllable e.g. choochoo

Deletion - deleting the last sound and/or swapping other sounds around e.g. ca instead of cat, pi instead of pig (often occurs on the last consonant)

Consonant cluster reduction - reducing the amount of consonants in a word so it is easier to pronounce e.g. banket instead of blanket

Substitution - when one sound is swapped for an easier sound e.g. debra or zebra (fricative sound replaced by a stop sound)

Assimilation - repeating the same consonant sound so it is easier to pronounce e.g. goggie instead of doggie, babbit instead of rabbit (illustrates how some sounds change because of other sounds around them)



David Crystal has suggested that the repetition and and simplified pronunciation in these words helps children to recognise and learn them bit by bit. Children also replace new difficult words with phonologically similar ones as a kind of stand-in whilst they're learning the correct one.

A child's pronunciation of the seeing word can often very a great deal from day-to-day or even hour-to-hour. For example, one child produced over 10 different forms of the word pen in just half an hour.

By age 3 - they have usually grasped twice as many consonants and nearly all the vowels, they use words of three syllables and use emphasis of keywords

By age 4 - they still may not be able to grasp consonant clusters, they may have begun to use them but won't be able to pronounce the 300+ different ways consonants can be combined in the English language

By age 5 - most things are no longer a problem apart from in long, complicated and unfamiliar words/phrases



Rate of Lexical Development
1 year - 50 words
2 years - 200 words
3 years - 2000 words



Katherine Nelson (1973) identified four categories for first words:

Naming (things or people), actions/events, describing/modifying things, personal/social words

60% of child's first words were nouns, verbs were the second largest group and were used with actions or location words like 'up' and 'down'. Modifiers/describing words came third. Personal/social words made up the smallest group of the sample (8%).

Whole object assumption - when children first name is something using one down they refer to the whole object and not little parts

When children used two words, a noun and a verb or a modifier and a noun are most commonly used.



Spelke notes for categories that concrete nouns fit into:

Cohesion, continuity, solidity, contact - children are are like objects that are clearly defined in shape

Overextension - it is common for children to overextend a word's meaning. Children link objects with similar qualities and may, for example, apply the word 'dog' to all for naked household pets.

Underextension - less frequently, children underextend a word by giving it a narrower definition then it really has, for example, a child might use 'duck' for a fluffy cartoon dark and not for the brown ones in the local pond.



Eve Clark's study of first words found that children base overextension on:

The physical qualities of objects & features such as taste, sound, movement, shape, size and texture

Professor Aitchison argues that language has a 'biologically organised schedule' and quotes Eric Lenneberg's theory that language is "maturationally controlled, emerging before it is critically needed."



Types of Overextension
Categorical Overextension (60%) - the name for one member of a category is extended to all members of the category, e.g. apple used for all round fruits

Analogical Overextension (15%) - a word for one object is extended to one in a different category, usually on the basis that it has some physical or functional connection, e.g. ball used for a round fruit

Mismatch statements (25%) - one word sentences that appear quite abstract; child makes a statement about one object in relation to another, e.g. saying 'duck' when looking at an empty pond



B.F. Skinner wrote a book called Verbal Behaviour (1957) in which he described his theory of language acquisition. He experimented on rats and pigeons and discovered he could train them to do tricks with the reward of food. He formed his 'Operant Conditioning Theory', also known as Behaviourism. He applied the theory that children learn language through imitation and reinforcement and claimed no complicated internal mechanisms were needed when learning languages. A child would just have to imitate others around them and then be rewarded and encouraged by it.

However, there are many ways to argue against Skinner. For example, some children have 'seen and not heard' cultures and develop language fine without contact with adults (at the same rate). Children also learn words/use utterances that have never been said to them by adults. People who can't speak but can hear can still understand language spoken by others, without imitations.

Professor Jean Aitchison identified three stages in children's linguistic development:

Labelling - linking words to the objects which they refer, understanding that things can be labelled

Packaging - exploring the labels and to what they can apply, over/underextension occurs in order to eventually understand the range of a words meaning

Network-building - making connections between words; understanding similarities and opposites in meanings



Network Building
Hypernym - e.g. clothes
Hyponym - e.g. socks, shoes, coat, vest, etc.
Synonym - words that have the same meaning




Eve Clark found that common adjectives ('nice' and 'big') are among children's first 50 words, but spatial adjectives ('wide' and 'thick') are acquired later.




Piaget was a 20th century Swiss psychologist whose views about children's cognitive development have been very influential. He emphasised that children are active learners who use their environment and social interactions to shape their language. Piaget linked linguistic development with an understanding of concepts surrounding the word's meanings, suggesting that children cannot be taught before they are ready.
His four developmental stages are:
Sensorimotor (up to 2): Experiences physical world through the senses and begins classifying the things in it - when lexical choices appear, they tend to be concrete rather than abstract. Object permanence develops - the concept that objects exist when out of sight.
Pre-operational (2-7): Language and motor skills develop and become more competent. Language is ego-centric - either focused on the child or used by the child when no one else is around.
Concrete Operational (7-11): Children begin thinking logically about concrete events.
Formal Operational (11+): Abstract reasoning skills develop.

First Attempt at Language Investigation Essay

During my first attempt at exploring language, I chose to study gender, in particular, focussing closely on Tannen's Difference theory. I find this topic one of the most interesting out of the whole English Language course and using YouTube for my source selection gives me a great, diverse range. I may choose a similar style of investigation for my coursework. Below is my first attempt at a written language investigation:

I have chosen to study gender, particularly focusing on Deborah Tannen’s Difference theory which makes assumptions about the differences between male and female speech. Due to the large number of differences Tannen notices, for example, men give advice while women show understanding, I knew I would be able to identify lots of examples in my data. My hypothesis aims to prove if the theory is actually applicable to male and female conversations.

My data will consist of YouTube videos I have transcribed. The benefits of this are that the videos I have used contain natural speech because I have used cast interviews from the TV show ‘Game of Thrones’. I have found it beneficial to use cast interviews as opposed to one cast member speaking to an interviewer because it shows a wider range of genders and their speech. Having more than two individuals in the data gave much more data for me to explore and I could even compare two people of the same gender and their speech. This allowed me to notice more of Deborah Tannen’s findings in the speech as a opposed to a limited amount that would appear in interviews with just two people.

The selection process is simple, I typed ‘Game of Thrones interviews’ into the search bar and selected every other video to transcribe, so the first, third and fifth videos to make the sample fair and systematic. As the videos vary in length, I decided to transcribe the first two minutes of each video as a method of selection. Two minutes gave me a generous amount of speech to transcribe, but not too much that it was time consuming, or not too little that would be difficult to analyse.

The first video I transcribed was male dominated and contained little female speech, as was the second video which contained no female speech. However, the third video contained a large amount of female speech due to the three women being shown, against only one man. Although this was unavoidable due to my fair method of selecting data, I could have improved this factor by transcribing more videos to obtain a larger amount of data.

In all three clips, men conform to Tannen’s theory about men giving information, for example, “I’m gonna ask the first question, then there’s gonna be an informal Q&A” in the second text which spoken by the male interviewer. This feature also applies to females which contradicts the theory, for instance, “it’s been shown at exactly at the same time on both sides of the Atlantic” which is said by the female interviewer. However the cause of this could be a result of the style of video because it is imperative for the presenters to provide their audiences with a large amount of information. So it can be considered unavoidable for both genders to give information.

The female contradiction of information in this theory is feelings, which again, seems to be dominated by males as opposed to females. The actor, Jack Gleeson, expresses feelings in the first interview, for example, “I was very intimidated.” In the same interview, Pedro Pascal also expresses his feelings such as, “I felt like I knew more about the show than anyone else on the show.” However, this could be due to the fact that these clips were mostly male dominated so the females had little time to express their feelings.

The males showing a large amount of understanding (opposing the Difference Theory), could also be a result of the male dominated clips. Understanding worked alongside feelings in the interviews as the male interviewed often tried to understand what certain actors were feeling. For example, “one thing that’s lovely about your performance… is that you’re both villains in the peace but neither of you approach that all and I think it really shows the characterisation,” said in the first interview. “Poor chap,” in the third interview from the male presenter also shows understanding of experiences. In the second interview, the interviewer shows understanding towards the audience and their situation, “I know you’ve already been waiting a very long time in the rain.”

The second male-only interview shows some elements of an attempt to gain status which conforms to the theory. The presenter often says, “I’d like to thank you” or “could I please welcome,” and puts emphasis on himself as opposed to using “we” which would be more appropriate as he is part of a large organisation hosting the interview. In a more apparent attempt to gain status, actor John Bradley makes a joke regarding Kit Harrington’s previous comment about his favourite TV shows. “They’re not strictly speaking TV shows are they?” which Bradley does to embarrass Harrington while at the same time gaining status by mocking him and making the audience laugh to win them over.

Repetition frequently occurs which could symbolise a lack of independence because certain speakers just copy what the others are saying. For instance, all three women in the third interview repeat “yeah” one after another at one point during the clip. Another example is in the second interview, creator Dan Weiss says “Kit” and is then repeated by David Benioff while they both attempt to be funny by making Kit Harrington answer an awkward question. This, in fact, can show status of trying to be humorous as mentioned in the previous paragraph, but at the same time contradicts the theory as the male creators are not showing independence.   

Although my method of selecting data by transcribing the first two minutes is ideal when trying to avoid ‘cherry-picking’, it also meant that a large amount of data I transcribed was only introductions and the conversation had little chance to progress. As the videos are interviews, the presenters often introduce the characters and inform the audience about the programme which gives little opportunity to show natural speech. It can also be suggested that some of what the interviewers say is scripted, especially when they are presenting the audience with facts about Game of Thrones which can make the data unreliable. However, it is extremely unlikely that the actors and directors who are also speaking in the clips use a script so their speech is spontaneous so is reliable.

To avoid these issues in further investigations, I would skip directly into the middle of each script and transcribe for two minutes from there so that the conversation had become more developed and the register had lowered so the speech was more natural making the data I recorded more reliable to use in my investigation.

Using videos from YouTube avoids practical issues such as recording live natural speech, which may make the conversation sound unnatural if they are told their voices are being recorded.  If I were to record natural speech without informing the participants this would face ethical issues, however with using YouTube videos as data I avoid having to obtain permission to record speech.

However, using YouTube does have issues of its own such as the fact that I do not own the videos or the data I record. I also have to transcribe the speech in the videos and due to the amount of overlaps; it is hard to understand what some speakers are saying. This may make the data unreliable if I have written the wrong word or missed out a word. On the other hand, I am able to replay the video as many times as I need to understand what the speaker is saying.

Mini Twitter Investigation

For this investigation we expect to see a frequent use of declaratives used to represent power and used data from Twitter as evidence to support our hypothesis. We used Fairtrade Foundation’s Twitter feed and chose every other tweet to study so the investigation was fair and reliable. Fairtrade is in a position of power therefore it was ideal to use their tweets; Ed Miliband’s Twitter feed was also one ideal for this use due to his position of power. We used the same method of choosing every other tweet as a form of systematic sampling. To obtain more of a diverse, random sample, we used the first page of a personal Timeline showing tweets from people followed. We also used the method of selecting every other tweet for our analysis.

After collecting the data from the Fairtrade feed, we studied four tweets. Two contained declarative statements, for example, “This special blend is darkly roasted to produce a rich and caramelly sweetness.” By contrast, the other two only contained interrogative statements, for instance, “Who pays the price for our clothing?” This feed both contradicted and agreed with our hypothesis equally.  Ed Miliband’s feed differed from Fairtrade as it contained no interrogatives or imperatives. Out of four tweets we looked at through the selection process, such as, “I am grateful to the people who worked on our campaign,” all of them were declarative statements which support our hypothesis.

After selecting three tweets from the Twitter feed, the majority were also declarative such as, “The suffragettes didn’t fight to be left out of an entire GCSE history paper.” However, one tweet had an imperative mood, “Don’t ever stop being you.” It was interesting and valuable to use a random Twitter feed because of the contrast between average individuals and celebrities who have a higher position of power. Two individuals out of the three were celebrities, one used a declarative and the other imperative which again, both disagrees and agrees with my hypothesis.

Declaratives work alongside hashtags and tagging other users which are usually large and powerful organisations. For example, Fairtrade tag their other Fairtrade accounts such as @FairtradeUKNews to make them appear more powerful and a larger organisation. They also tag users not linked to their companies, such as @StarbucksUK to make their power base and connections seem more wide scale.  They also use declarative hashtags to promote their tweets, such as #Fairtrade. By using hashtags and tagging other users, for example, @MichaelJackson in our random tweets feed, they are allowing more people to view their tweets. They display their power by making their tweets viral and shared.

In all of the Twitter feeds we have used as evidence, all use declaratives in the form of sentences and using the tagging feature on Twitter. However, some power was expressed in the form of interrogative rhetorical questions or imperatives. But overall the dominant sentence type appears to be declaratives. To better my investigation for the future, I will include a larger range of examples of Twitter feeds to support or disprove my hypothesis.

Geordie Shore: Ricci and Vicky talk weddings – transcript & analysis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_4PvRZi3XY

A: are we gonna see a Geordie wedding this season (.) or coming up

B: no (0.5) we’re not um I think (.) well (.) um in ooh

C: you lost for words babe

B: [laughs]

C: is she feeling alright (.) are you feeling alright

B: I’m not lost for words I’m just struggling working out / things

C:                                                                                                / oh yeah okay

B: [puts hand over his face] shut up

C: I can’t believe this like

B: we don’t have a / wedding

C:                               / got this on camera

B: no [continues to put her hand on his face]

C: this never happens

B: shut up (0.5) we have sort of like um an engagement party (1) so it’s kinda like in the right direction for a wedding but it’s not a wedding (.) so wu we’re moving [makes hand gesture indicating direction] (.) towards (.) a wedding but we’re still very far away from a wedding (.) stop putting so much pressure on us [buries head in scarf]

A: I can’t think of anything worse than planning a wedding it must be a lot of / hassle

B:                                                                                                                                      / I can’t literally cause I’m so dreading the point where I have to do something like that (.) in real life we just had our engagement party like in one for all our friends and all our family /

C: family that obviously couldn’t get there’ll come on the [mumbles] show / at that point

B:                                                                                                                                   / and it was the most stressful time tryna plan it and /

C: so much planning and so much /organising

B:                                                         / oh yeah Ricci I bet your knackered after all that planning are ya

C: [laughs]

B: yeah all those decisions ya had to make (.) all those emails ya had to send (.) meetings with the cake maker yeah (1) he did nothing until about a week before where he suddenly got interested and started demanding all sorts of ridiculous things (.) which were just not possible like monkeys carrying trays of drinks

A: [laughs]

B: so Ricci is not gonna be part of planning the wedding as he didn’t plan the engagement party and I’m not planning the wedding until I get a team of people to help us

 

 

 

I chose this data because male and female conversational styles interest me and in this clip there were clear contrasts between the two speakers. I found that this video corresponded with Robin Lakoff’s Deficit Theory. For example, speaker B, the female, used a plentiful amount of intensifiers and frequently spoke in italics, for example, “shut up,” and “team of people,” used to exaggerate. Speaker B also uses hedges, such as, “sort of like” and “kind of like.” She often repeats how she organised their engagement party single handily and the same will not happen with her wedding which can be viewed as an indirect request for her fiancé to have more involvement in wedding planning and organisation.

However there are some differences between this clip and the theory as it does seem to be the female speaking more frequently which links more to verbosity. The female character cannot be considered polite, however does avoid using derogatory language. Her speaking is more declarative so she tends not to use empty adjectives as this text is limited in description.

 If I attempted to investigate this further, I could name this investigation ‘Is Robin Lakoff’s 1975 theory about female speech still relevant in modern day conversations?’ Additional data I could add to this investigation could be a recording of a conversation in 1975 between a male and female to test if the theory was relevant then. Most importantly, to compare it to modern day language, I could collect primary data recording a live conversation between a male and female and transcribing it myself. I could repeat the process and obtain a large quantity of data that I could choose examples from that either contradict or agree with my hypothesis.