In the conversation taken place, it is apparent that Person A is the more dominating speaker. We know this as they are use interrogative sentences. "Did you see what happened?" This shows that Person A is trying to investigate what has been going on and that their agenda is to find out the necessary information. Additionally, the person has been very concise with what they said, the speech isn't long winded which conveys that Person A had planned out their speech. From these points we are able to assume that Person A is someone authority, possibly a police officer.
As Person A has asked a question, Person B is inclined to respond, from this response we are able to identify a location. "It was not long turned dark. and we'd been down the alley there and back..and..um...then" The use of non-fluency fillers conveys that Person B is nervous and that they have been shaken up by the incident. However, this is a form of referential language as person B is providing information so that person A can understand the situation. Additionally, we can gather that the incident has happened in a rural state as Person B speaks of an alley way.
Person B is seen as the more submissive character as they haven't managed to maintain their composure when speaking to person A. "...Bloody flying he was...I turned around and there was this bloody great crash" The use of informal lexis in "Bloody" could show that Person B is being watchful about how they address person A, instead of using a strong taboo synonym, they have chosen to use a term that is less offensive, this could be due to the witness being in the presence of someone of high importance. Furthermore, we can assume who has control in the conversation by the way their dialogue is structured. Person A has strong, power structure in the way they speak whereas person B lacks that due to the hesitation.
A: "Could you see if anyone was hurt?"
B: "Like I say, it was dark and there was all that smoke"
B shows that they are hedging as by saying "Like I say" has weakened the strength of what information is being given.
No comments:
Post a Comment