The communication or interaction is always a two way process. The listeners and speaker and then again the listener/s and speakers, this is the process of conversation. In our communication process, we use 55% non-verbal communication, 38% of tone of voice and the contribution of actual verbal communication is just 7%. Hence the tone of voice, pitch, stress pattern are the important attribute to make the conversation effective and fruitful. The non-verbal communication is no doubt important but the intonation and stress pattern in conversation is also required to study. The intonation is very important in communication. There are various functions of intonation such as attitudinal function, accentual function, grammatical function, and the discourse function. In attitudinal function, the intonation helps the speakers to express their emotions and overall attitude. The intonation also helps to understand the importance of stressed syllables. Intonation also facilitates know grammar as well as the structure of syntax. It conveys the new information.
The present paper is an analysis of a discourse in the day today talk. With the help of a transcript, the dialogues between high school peers are analyzed. The discourse is analyzed from the perspectives of tone, pitch and intonation and other aspects of tone of voice. The paper also focuses on the comparative analysis of Formal English and informal English.
(P articipants: NH = no hat, WH = white hat, BH = blue hat, RH = red hat,
NH: That’s weird (.) havin’ a gun pointed in your face
and you don’t even know >you don’t know if they’re going
OW: = That happened to ↑ you
NH: Last week
WH: Wha::[:t
OW: [Last week ↑oh my Go::d:: hah h
OW: [( )
WH: [You had a gun pointed in your face like thi::s?
NH: Not like that but like- from a distance
Analysis
The above discourse is happening between three people. NH is a story teller and WH and OW are the listeners in this dialogue. The conversation is an informal communication, taking place between the friends. NH, the narrator starts telling the story, and OW joins him and further asks NH about the conversation. The very first dialogue of NH is a shocking story where a gun has been pointed on his face. “That’s Weird” (.). Though the exclamation mark is not given in the sentences, it seems to be exclamatory, describing something incredible. The bracket with dot is an example of the short pause taken by the narrator.
havin’ a gun pointed in your face
As mentioned above it is an informal conversation, hence there are many contractions we find in such dialogues. Contraction is the shorten version of the written or spoken form. Have+in followed by apostrophe means having. Moreover the sentence is a pure statement. There is no interrogation or exclamation suggested.
and you don’t even know > is the sentence which seems to be the dialogue coming towards self. It is the person is saying to himself. That is why the sign > is used whereas in the next sentence
you don’t know if they’re going
the conversation turns to the listeners. To shoot at you. < is the sign of turning towards the listeners. After that there is a big pause. If we observe the first bracket (.) and the second ( ) we come to know that the size varies. In the first bracket there is a full stop which is not there in the second bracket. Full stop means the person has completed that particular expression and he/she is moving to the next expression. The pause is small, so as at the bracket. In the next bracket the pause is longer. The pauses are very important in conversation process. The pause makes the people understand that you have finished your speech and now it is his/her turn to speak. The pause plays a very important role in determining the communication ability of the person. Pause is a very tiny thing but that can also make lot of difference in the communication style of the person. Tannen gives example of the lady who takes a job in dormitory administration. She could not speak in the meeting because she was waiting for the other people to finish their conversations which never end up. In the above discourse, it is not actually the problem because of the content. The type of the content of this dialogue is narrative. The listeners are eager to listen what incident took place with NH, hence they are allowing him to speak more with the fillers of conversations and other discourses.
The dialogue contains some intonation pattern. The rate of speed, the tone of voice, intonations and loudness are some of the important aspect of conversation.
As said by Tannen, “conversation is a turn-taking game” (Tannen, 47). In the above discourse or any other such discourse, we can experience this turn-taking game. In the above piece of discourse, three persons are involved and they conversing each other.
If we observe the way of pronunciation, we find that while pronouncing the words, many letters are omitted by the speakers. In the expression of WH he exclaimed, “Wha::[:t”.
If we observe the way of pronouncing the word “what” we find that there is a rising pause after wha, and t is silence. It is not pronounced. The distance between wha and t is also extended.
The rising tone and falling tone are also very important to make the speech musical and rhythmic as well. Changing pitch on a word can change the meaning of the sentence hence changing pitch at a proper place and stressing the proper word is also important in conversation. Let’s look at the sentence from the discourse:
You had a gun pointed in your face like thi:::s”
In the sentence question is where and how had you a gun pointed? And the answer is ‘in your face like this’ The stress is on giving information about the last four letters of the sentence. Instead of that if the person had stressed on “You had a gun”, the meaning would have been totally different. The focus would have been on “Who” instead of “how” and where. Thus the proper pitch shifting is crucial in the conversation.
Vocalized Pauses are also one of the characteristics in the conversation which needs to be studied thoroughly. It’s a part of language though not spoken words. In linguistics, it is also called fillers. In our day today conversation, we take support from lot of such fillers unknowingly. Umm, err, hahhhh, are some of the vocalized pauses. Though they are meaningless, they make the conversation meaningful. Sometimes the verbal pauses are also used such as “like”, “you know”, “I mean” etc. Thus the vocalized pauses or the fillers are both verbal and non-verbal.
Like I went to um Massachusetts you know over the Easter vacation,
and they leave their cars open with the keys in[side =
??: [hhhhh
Let’s analyze the above dialogue. We find the fillers in the sentence such as ‘like’, ‘um’, ‘you know’ etc. The original sentence is ‘I went to Massachusetts over the Easter vacation’. This would be the plain sentence in writing, but in spoken language the sentence is said with so many vocalized pauses.
Tannen (57) has also discussed a lot about the use of questions in day today conversations. Generally the questions are asked to gain information about something. Tennen (57) has also mentioned the purpose of question; i.e. to show interest. This purpose of question is applied in the discourse of the discussion. Take the following example:
In the above question there are various purposes behind asking this question; first purpose is to gain information, second purpose is to show that the person is interested in the story of the narrator. Imagine, if the question had not come from the listener, how could have the narrator proceeded? So here the question functions as the tool to carry forward the conversation.
This is a close ended question and the answer of the question is either yes or no. From grammatical point of view, the question should have been like this;
Was your face like this?
But instead of that the question is asked in a statement manner. There are many such questions which are asked in a declarative sentence simple statement pattern. For example: instead of “are you leaving now?” in day today conversation we say “You are leaving now?” Sometimes the same sentence can be used in an assertive way if it is said firmly. “you are leaving now” it can also mean you must leave now.
Now let’s see some of the part of the discourse
NH: Naw this car
I was talking to my friend on the cor[ner =
BH: [Y(h)eah
NH: = in one nineteen:?
( ) (I gotta go) hot ‘cuz it’s like-
BH: It’s always: hot down[ there man
NH: [no but
?? [H[hhhhh
?? [hhhhh
RH: There’s always shots in the middle of the night man
NH: >And so< right on the corner
fr[om Juanita’s block right there =
NH: = I was lookin’ at my friend right there
and this car just pulled out on the corner?
(.) with like the windows were dark
and he just put them down a little- halfway
and when I looked at the car he was like
this ((extends right arm with imagined gun))
NH: Oh my-
WH: With his hand out like that
OW: Who he was aimin’ at?
NH: Huh?
WH: Like that
NH: I don’t know I think- he had me confused with
somebody ( ) my friend
I just looked at him like this
WH: I would’ve ducked
NH: I just looked at him like
OW: I would have been running down the block (.) like hey hh
Analysis
This is the next part of the discourse. The persons involved in the discourse are NH, RH, WH and OW. Let’s look at the following sentence:
I was talking to my friend on the cor[ner =
The word corner is said in a specific stress the first part of the letter that is “cor” is in high pitch and the second part “ner” is in a low pitch. The sentence (I gotta go) hot ‘cuz it’s like- has some informal expressions; such as gotta and ‘cuz. gotta means got to, in formal English the meaning is have to; ‘I have to go’, or cuz is because. In informal English and especially the spoken English, contractions are quite common. The contractions are also used to maintain the rhythm of the song. Recently I heard a Christian prayer “God Will Make the Way”. In this song, there was a line – “By Roadways and the wilderness, he’ll lead me.” If it had been a formal English, we would have avoided the contraction and would have said clearly he will. But for maintaining rhythmic pattern sometimes, it is necessary to omit some sounds. The singer does not say he’ll. But merely says ‘he lead me.’ Grammatically it sounds wrong, but to maintain rhythm some letters or sounds are usually used by the speakers in their day today conversation.
BH & RH has used the word man in their dialogues. The word man actually connotes NH, the narrator of the story. In casual English man, guys are the common word to call the person. In formal English these words are replaced by Mr. ., or Sir/Madam.
The analysis of the third piece of discourse is as follows:
NH: If you ↑run > they woulda said that’s him (.) shoot his ass =
RH: = Word.
NH: But if- if they see you close- face up close up
they be like > nah that’s not him <
WH: Can’t out run a bullet
NH: Yeah I know > so I just like- <
I just looked at him eye to eye I was like (.)
((pleading voice)) don’t shoot me
OW: hhhh
NH: If you shoot me make sure I’m dead
don’t make me suffer hhhhhh
OW: oThat’s fucked upo
Analysis
The discourse continues with the same incident of shooting. In this discourse four persons are involved, NH the narrator, RH, WH and OW. In the first line, there is a small pause and after run the pitch is rising. The narrator continues his story how he was dealing with the people who was attempting to shoot him. All the three people were just responding him by sentences and thus giving their responses.
There are many slang words used in this part of the discourse. For example the word woulda is actually “would”, “Shoot this ass” or “that’s fucked up” are also the slang phrases and they are commonly used in casual English. The language of the discourse reflects the relationship of the participants with each other. They are friends as they are using so many slang words in their speech.
The analysis of the three pieces of discourse was based on the intonation pattern, formality and informality of the language, attitudinal function, accentual function, grammatical function, and the discourse function. The overall conversational style of the discourse is analyzed through the pieces of discourse. The English used in the discourse will not be understandable to everyone, but only the native speakers. It is because normally, the non-native speakers were taught formal English. They learn casual English as well, but the English used in the discourse is too casual to learn for the non-native speakers. Moreover, the non-native speakers seldom are made familiar with pronunciation and intonation pattern of the language. The language must be taught with intonation and stress pattern of the language. For absorbing the informal style, the person needs to stay in the company of native speakers. The tone pattern, intonations are something that cannot be taught completely in the classroom. It is essential to be in the company of the people, observe them and learn their language.
Work Cited
Tannen, Deborah. Conversational Style, New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Print.
