Flexibility of your beliefs, alignments, and interest are the only ways to be truly authentic. No one should be ascribed a definition. The human spirt is simply too intertwined with others and with the world to limit its itself. However, at a specific moment people can take up an identity. The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguist states that “identities are how we represent who we are to ourselves and others and how we interpret who others are” (Joseph 2006). More importantly, a flexible identity allows the conversation to proceeded with minimal gaps, because the other interlocutor is able to use their desired speech style.
To test the strength of my identity, I recorded two conversations with interlocutors that I have vastly different connections …show more content…
Within the framework of the conversation, I was able to shift identities between powerful and passive. Unlike my other conversation, I did not have to take into account the effects of my physical attributes on my identity. Bailey and I are in close contact with one another, so our physical attributes play second hand in the creation of an identity. Not being considering my physical traits gave me the freedom to change between the dominant identity and a passive one. In the beginning of the conversation, I framed the question, “So what do you want to talk about?” Creaky voice was used with words “you” and “about”. Bailey responded by saying, “I don’t know what do you want to talk about?” My use of creaky voice effected Bailey to pass the responsibility of choosing a topic and allowed me, a person in power, to choose the direction of the conversation. I answered that I wanted to talk about the game and gave my input on the loss. Finally, Bailey contributed to the conversation. She claims that, “Our team has so much potential, but obviously we have something missing”. In this case, Bailey used creaky voice with the words “so” and “obviously”. The use of creaky voice shows that she wanted to assert her opinion and this opinion should be heavily considered within the conversation. Additionally, this showed Bailey used her desired speech style of creaky voice to enforce power behind the words that she was saying. I subconsciously understood this effect and was able to change my identity to submissive and be ready to further prompt her to make a statement. In this case, I was flexible in my identity shift and assumed a more submissive role by saying “hmm I don’t know what’s missing either”. In this example, I did not use creaky voice, but my vocal pitch trailed off at the end of the sentence. This allowed for Bailey to continue her original statement of by providing
To test the strength of my identity, I recorded two conversations with interlocutors that I have vastly different connections …show more content…
Within the framework of the conversation, I was able to shift identities between powerful and passive. Unlike my other conversation, I did not have to take into account the effects of my physical attributes on my identity. Bailey and I are in close contact with one another, so our physical attributes play second hand in the creation of an identity. Not being considering my physical traits gave me the freedom to change between the dominant identity and a passive one. In the beginning of the conversation, I framed the question, “So what do you want to talk about?” Creaky voice was used with words “you” and “about”. Bailey responded by saying, “I don’t know what do you want to talk about?” My use of creaky voice effected Bailey to pass the responsibility of choosing a topic and allowed me, a person in power, to choose the direction of the conversation. I answered that I wanted to talk about the game and gave my input on the loss. Finally, Bailey contributed to the conversation. She claims that, “Our team has so much potential, but obviously we have something missing”. In this case, Bailey used creaky voice with the words “so” and “obviously”. The use of creaky voice shows that she wanted to assert her opinion and this opinion should be heavily considered within the conversation. Additionally, this showed Bailey used her desired speech style of creaky voice to enforce power behind the words that she was saying. I subconsciously understood this effect and was able to change my identity to submissive and be ready to further prompt her to make a statement. In this case, I was flexible in my identity shift and assumed a more submissive role by saying “hmm I don’t know what’s missing either”. In this example, I did not use creaky voice, but my vocal pitch trailed off at the end of the sentence. This allowed for Bailey to continue her original statement of by providing