Transcript Analysis Essay

                                An Analysis of Spontaneous Conversation

 Spontaneous conversation comes up in every day life more often than not, but if our early morning chats and break time gossips were all planned it would all be a bit perculiar wouldn’t it? Spontaneous conversation is basically a conversation that hasn’t been planned, for example, situations like chatting with your friends at college or talking to your family at dinner time. If these conversations were planned and written out as speeches and such, there would be no such emotion and personality behind the conversation. However, job interviews are both, the questions may be planned and thought out, as well as your answers but if you’re thrown something you weren’t expecting, your answer wouldn’t have been planned out for this moment.

 Transcripts are made for spontatneous conversations and through this you can see that a conversation is unplanned and spontaneous through this proof. For example, in my transcript of a ‘QI’ episode, there are lots of overlaps, pauses, informal lexis and euphanasia as well as many other things that are evident in the transcript.

 One of the first things noticed about the transcript I wrote was the lack of opening speech or opening sentences. This was mainly because I wrote my transcript starting through the middle of the conversation rather than the start, removing the possibility of this appearing, although it is one of the most common features of spoken lexis and spotaneous conversation.

 Although openings arent found within the transcript, the second thing I noticed was the sheer amount of interruptions and overlaps within the speech, examples including lines 2, 6, 9, 25, 27, 30, 32, 36 and 47. The feature of overlapping and interruptions within the speech show that the conversation was not planned as it can quite easily be interrupted and added to by the less ‘in control’ members of the conversation who seem to be Jo, Colin, Alan and David.

 Another feature which supports the idea of the spontaneous conversation was the informal lexis used within the speech. For example things such as fillers, impromtu pauses, laughter from the audience and the overbearing voice of Alan Davies making noises. This is evident from lines such as ‘WOOHOW’ from Alan after laughing at his own joke. Without fillers, pauses and other uses of informal lexis such as taboo language, shortenings and other forms of words such as glottals, this conversation would’ve seemed a lot more planned rather than a genuine talk. All of these features seem to be followed through with subconsciously by everybody in certain times of appropriateness, shouting ‘WOOHOW’ and imitating cowboy actions probably wouldn’t get you the job at an interview.

 Topic shifts and turn taking elements are also evident within the conversation the five are having, especially when it comes to what Stephen is saying. Right near the end on lines 69 to 73, Stephen is changing the topic quite clearly as a completely different part of the show starts. This also shows his power within the conversation as well as the fact that the conversation isn’t planned. Turn taking elements are shown when somebody uses things such as tag questions in which somebody else is inclined to answer because of Grice’s Maxims and Co-operation theory.

 Finally, another piece of evidence to prove that this speech is spontaneous is seemingly one of the most entertaining. False starts. False starts are basically what is says on the tin, somebody starts to say something, changes their mind and then says something else. This is shown in this transcript through a short pause after the mistake itself and then the continuation of the line afterwards. The person that seems to do this most is David, especially when he says ‘that’s very (.) that’s uh (.) he’d have to have been a toddler (.) during the American civil war and’ in lines 3 and 4. These show that the speaker is not quite sure how to say something either because they change their mind or they are just not sure what should come next in the sentence, which can end up being quite humourous, especially with the added pauses and filler, resulting in the audience laughing out loud.

 Throughout the transcript, there are quite a few other features of spontaneous language to do with lexis, such as dietic expressions, which are expressions that might not be understood unless the context of the conversation is understood, for example when Jo says ‘and theres the toddler’ on line 9, you don’t really understand what she is talking about unless you have heard the other half of the conversation and seen what she sees on the photograph they are shown.

 Also, what seems quite evident within Stephen’s choice of words is the use of discourse hedges and skip connectors. When Stephen says on line 11 ‘I should imagine’ he is softening the statement he has just used, as if he cannot be sure if it is true but he thinks it would be, as if asking the audience and the other members of the conversation not to blame him if he is wrong. Stephen also seems to loop the conversation back on track, creating discourse markers called skip connectors. He does this when he says ‘so (.) that’s the uh (.) Civil War answer’ on line 69. However, this line can also be described as an ending or a summing up of the conversation, as well as reminding us of his power over the conversation.

 Finally, stephen uses disjointed construction in some of his shorter lines, such as the one on line 16 when he says ‘well (1) that’s the answer (2) still alive’. He answers his own statement with another statement, reformulating what he was saying. This also counts as an ellipsis as he misses out some words but the statement still makes sense, therefore shortening the statement, making this yet again more proof as to how this conversation is spontaneous as the language and grammar is informal.

 Using Grice’s Maxim from the list of conversation theories, you can see that not all of this conversation follows this theory. This is because some of the speech is not relevant or clear, especially when Jo claims that somebody is a toddler. However, the other two aspects of the theory, quality and quantity are followed by most participants of the conversation, maybe apart from Stephen who can sometimes say a lot more than needed, however this also shows his power within the conversation. Using face and politeness theory from the list of conversational theories, you can see that this conversation holds many aspects of the positive politeness, especially humour and using respectful terms of address. On the other hand, you can also see that the conversation holds negative politeness also because of Stephens use of hedging and the occassional use of pessimism. The use of positive politeness brings a boost of self-esteem to the recipent and fits the human need of wanting to be liked or agreed with, whereas the use of negative politeness makes the recipent feel comfortable and less opposed. Finally, although you don’t see much of this theory, accomodation theory is shown a little bit within this conversation. As the conversation continues, you can almost hear the 4 members of the panel other than Stephen suiting up to his full on british poshness, showing convergence between the two.

 Finally, throughout most of the transcript, you can see that Stephen Fry is the one person that is mostly in power. This is because of his use of lexis, overpowering quantity, hedging and how easily he can control the topic of the conversation as well as who it is directed to. However this could be argued that this isn’t the case because of the amount of interruptions and feedback within the conversation. It is clear that Stephen gets interrupted a lot whilst he is giving the information that the panel needs, whether this is for humour purposes from the other panel members is unclear, but it does show that Stephen does speak a lot when he talks, breaking Maxim’s quantity rule, which could also be showing his lack of power and how he is trying to regain it from the other members. Back to the first hand though, Stephen is mostly the guy that the others ask the questions to when they manage to pipe in between speeches. Stephen seems to be the one with the most knowledge about the subject as he is the host of the show, following the idea that he holds the power most of the way through this spontaneous conversation.

Eleanor Williams