Analysis of ‘Build a Robot’ – Zach and Halla Transcript
The genre of this text is a transcript. It has an informal
register as it has non standard use of language such as ‘doo doo doo dooo’
which is said by Zach. The audience of this transcript is Zach and Halla as
they are having a conversation. The mode of the text is spoken. It is a
dialogue which is spontaneous. The
purpose of this text is to discuss the project of building a robot which is the
subject of the transcript.
Throughout the transcript, Zach pauses a great amount within
his sentences. He is not very fluent. This may be because he is focussed on
what he is doing physically, building his robot. His main focus is the robot
and building it rather than speaking to his mum. ‘We don’t need breakfast (.) it’s
gonna take a little time now (2) cos it went wrong before (.) now we (.) then
it healed and now (.) it will take a little time (.) for the robot to heal
again (2). Because of his age he may need to think more about what he is
saying, meaning it takes him longer to get his words out, rather than if he was
older and more experienced, he would be more familiar with new words. Zach uses
adjectives in his speech such as ‘lots’ of sellotape, ‘long’ bit. Zach may have
recently become familiar with adjectives because of his age, meaning his speech
is broadening. Because Zach is learning new speech, it may cause for him to
take longer when speaking because he hasn’t known it for long enough to be
fluent with it. Zach uses many declaratives, in response to his mum’s
interrogatives. He also uses an exclamative ‘Tadah!’ which shows that from 13
months onwards, his speech has developed significantly. He recognises the use
of adjectives and also he uses interrogatives ‘Can you do it mummy?’. This may
be because of his surroundings, being with two adults who use this language,
his mum and his dad.
Throughout the first conversation, Zach brings up the topic
of the robot but his mum, Halla, sets the agenda by asking him interrogatives,
which leads to adjacency pairs of Zach responding. In the second half, Zach is
setting the agenda as he is dominating the conversation. He is saying to his
mum that they have to wait rather than get breakfast. ‘Yeah (.) it’s gonna be a
long time though (.) but we’re not gonna have breakfast still’. This supports
Zimmerman’s and West’s theory, the Dominance model, that men dominates the
conversation over women. It also contradicts the theory as Zach does not
interrupt his mum, the theory claims that men interrupt more than women. He
uses a declarative to tell his mum what they are going to do, rather than
asking her. Zach uses non standard speech. This may be because he is new to
more complex language so he hasn’t learnt that there are different ways of
using it ‘It got lots of hurt all the way down’.
