Transcript Analysis

Conversation at College, outside by the fountain.

A: what did you do last weekend?
B: I started my new job
A: what was it like?
B: I was on the tills (2) *name of speaker A* what did you do on the weekend?
A: umm my brother went to uni on Sunday (.) we went down Southampton and then yeah basically
B: greaaaat
C: I was working all day on Saturday and then that was about it
D: umm I was doing homework all weekend (.) didn't really
B: yeah umm I had my first driving lesson as well
A: how was that?
B: that was really good actually yeah (.) I can't wait to be able to drive (.) yeah
A: umm what else did I do (3) I had dance on Saturday
C: how was dance?
A: great (.) getting ready for competitions and performances (.) yeah


Analysis
Phatic talk -  sticks to safe topics, to avoid disagreement and controversial topics; this is a positive politeness strategy
Chaining of adjacency pairs - conversation follows expected pattern of adjacency pairs to prevent awkwardness
Dispreferred response - although this response is relevant, it does not follow the expected pattern of this adjacency pair
Dialect - this is geographical specific lexis, as Southampton is south of Bristol
Back-channeling - this shows support to the other speakers and prevents an awkward silence
Preferred response - allows the expected chaining of adjacency pairs to continue
Grice's maxim of quantity - flouted by speakers C and D who do not talk as much, especially when compared to the other speakers
Fillers - key feature of spoken language, not present in written language, could suggest the speakers are nervous or hesitant, perhaps uncomfortable Utterance tails off, incomplete, differs to written mode
Overlaps/interruptions - no one overlaps or interrupts the other speakers, possibly suggesting the group don't know each other very well