Transcript Analysis

This transcript involves three different speakers. It is clear to see that speaker 2 is the most dominant for an number of reasons. The first reason would simply be because within the context, they have familial dominance. Another reason would be that the person that is asking most of the questions is speaker 2. Therefore it is likely that speaker 2 is of greater authority than speaker 1. Also because when speakers 1 and 2 meet speaker 3, it is speaker 2 who does the talking. It can finally be presumed from the simple fact that they have the greatest number of utterances (21 as oppose to speaker 1’s 17 and speaker 3’s 7). The text contains a number of different adjacency pairs. These are however voiced by each of the speakers; not just by speaker 2. This may suggest that although speaker 2 is dominant in the situation, they are also being courteous in allowing the other speakers to make contributions (thus suggesting that the speakers are being cautious not to offend others and that the speakers do not feel pressured to be actively seeking the power). Such a hypothesis would be further backed up by the fact that the register of the speakers is mostly quite formal. Also because there is a very low amount of elision within the transcript. This level of formality would naturally be associated with a higher class so it might also be presumed that the speakers are of a higher class. There are some interruptions within the text, however they are usually when a speaker either realises something or is being apologetic, therefore they are within the context and not completely irrelevant or unnecessary (usually the speaker trying to be polite).