Language and representation task

Throughout the conversation I have spotted several factors which represent me as a speaker in a distinctive way. Paralinguistics such as the quiet tone of voice which I used during the conversation, creates an impression of me not being a very confident speaker. However, the tone of voice applied might have also been adapted, in order to make an impression of a calm and thoughtful speaker. I have also discovered that my voice during the conversation was not only quiet but also gentle, which helps the listeners interpret my personality and some of my personal features such as being very feminine. My accent, representing my national background can be easily noticed by the listener. Being a bilingual speaker also has an impact on the tempo of the conversation, as some of the utterances were pronounced slightly slower due to the longer thinking time. However, this may have also been caused by the uncertainty and lack of planning beforehand. Gestures and facial impressions are also a very important part of paralinguistics, as they enable the listener to identify the aspects of the speaker’s personality. For instance, I have not used any gestures whilst taking part in the conversation which may create an impression of me being quite clear on the topic and having the ability of enhancing the message just through the use compound sentences. The facial expressions which I used were focus and concentration, which can suggest that I was effectively listening to the information shared by the other participant in order to engage in the conversation later. Regarding the conversation and its content, I did not take a great amount of air time hence I did not feel confident enough to explore the topic further. Therefore I only briefly spoke about the jobs of my parents and asked the other participant a few interrogatives linking to her job and responsibilities. I mostly used the third person verbs such as ‘she’ and ‘he’ to avoid the repetition of the personal pronouns ‘mum’ and ‘dad’. I did not use any words of a certain lexical field or jargon as I did not focus on these aspects during the conversation. Colloquial language was not a part of the conversation, but the language used was quite informal as there was a limited number of words used. The reason for this use of less advanced language was the convergence of the language to suit the audience- teenagers. Whilst analysing the transcript of the conversation, I have also noticed that I used certain fillers throughout the conversation such as ‘um’ and ‘well’, which I might have used as a result of stress. These, allowed me to receive some more air time in order to remind myself what I was going to speak about next. However, the use of fillers as such, may come across as the lack of preparation and can make the listener think that they are a part of my idiolect. The conversation did partly support Shegloff’s conversational model, as it was easily flowing following it with one speaker at a time aspect. The transition was also quite quick and simple as both participants were ready to take over and explore the topic. There was no interruptions and clear signs of being an active listener through the use of interrogatives such as ‘’What are your responsibilities?’’