The transcript ‘ cami-knickers’ is a spoken interaction between J, her cousin, E, her friend, T, and her aunts, M and S at a wedding reception. This means that they are all related or have a close relationship with each over. Throughout the whole interaction they are all very comfortable around one another and use a lot of different spoken language features in it. In the transcript J starts off the conversation by using a discourse marker. She starts with the word ‘ So’. This could show that she is trying to take control of the conversation because she has something interesting to say.
In this case she is trying to bring up a new topic and saying ‘ so’ implies to other people that she has something new to say. Although she way seem confident as she says the most J does do a false start at the beginning when she starts the interaction. She say ‘ so which which’ and then goes on to finish her sentence. This could represent her think what she is going to say. She might have thought of what she was going to say then just before she says it realizes that it doesn’t sound right so has to think of another way to say it.
This sometimes makes the speaker have no more control but in this case she clears it all up and carry’s on with the interaction. J is also the most dominant in the transcript. She talks the most and also seems to be leading the conversation. This could be because she has a higher status than everybody else or that she just knows more about the topic they are talking about. It might also be because she is more confident than everybody else. J also uses back channelling while E is taking. He uses the word ‘ Yeah’.
She could be using back channelling to show that he understands what E is talking about and so she knows to carry on talking. It might also show reassurance to E that he is listening to her and respects what she is saying. T uses deixis in the text by using the word ‘ thing’. The way T used deixis shows that everybody in the spoken interaction understand what he is talking about because if you said it to anyone they would not know what you were talking about. He might have also used deixis because he had forgotten what something was called. In the transcript you can tell that it is a very informal.
You can tell this because they use contractions such as ‘ don’t’. This shows that they are all comfortable around each over and that it is a very relaxed context. In the transcript J uses repetition. E says ‘ wore cami-knickers’ and then J follows with ‘ she wore cami-knickers’. This could show reassurance to E and to let her know that he understands what she is saying. The way J adds the extra word ‘ she’ makes it sound that J is certain she did wear them and is telling E she is right. Also all the way through everyone uses repetition. The phrase ‘ cami-knickers’ is repeated loads bye each person.
At one point the repetition is to tell everyone that they remember and understand what they are talking about. They also repeat the phrase because they think find it really funny. At the beginning when J brings up the topic before J has finished his sentence E overlaps him. She quickly say ‘ Queen Marys cami-knickers’ before J goes on to say the same thing. This might confirm that she understands what she is going to say and relates to it. Overlapping someone could sometimes come across as being rude but in this context it does not as it is very informal and they are all related and comfortable around each over.