Butter Island: A Conversation Analysis

The choice of words, syntax and pronunciation; within this conversation are not formal using terms like “man” seen in line 5; “kinda,” “cause,” seen in line 11; “b.s.,” seen in line 12 are evidence of an informal conversation. A conversation in which one has with friends or siblings, not a conversation one would have with a professor, boss, parents or clients. In formal conversations one doesn’t use slang, abbreviations, or even words which can be mistaken for profanity like the term “b.s.” seen in line 12. In this conversation, the participants are coworkers who use the reciprocal first name as a term of address, however; this is not shown within the transcript because the participants in this speech event use the nonverbal cue of eye contact …show more content…
The story is of interest to the audience, they start to ask inquire more about the vacation the participant Kiona took only days before this conversation occurred. As seen in lines 17 to 25, the audience tries to relate to the story and better by relating the vacation story to a movie seen; when Kiona had mentioned an island in New York which holds inmates that have a psychological issue such as the movie Shutter Island. Within this conversation there are six examples of overlapping speech; line 5 and 6, and line 16 and 17 were cooperative, the conversation simply flowed afterwards. While line 28 and 29, line 33 and 34, line 40 and 41 and line 50 and 51 were all competitive, the topic of conversation halted to a stop and switched over. In line 5 to 6 and line 16 to 17 Kiona overlaps Corina, in lines 28 to 29 and 33 to 34 Barbi overlapped Corina then in lines 40 to 41 and 50 to 51 Barbi overlaps Kiona. In neither of the overlapping examples was the overlap reciprocated, the participants who were overlapped simply attempted to keep the conversation flowing instead of allowing the interruption to stop the conversation. While analyzing the transcript, it became obvious that Kiona took the longest turn which was expected because of the initial topic of conversation, which invited her to take the