Trabajo Práctico Fonética III

Students: Marina Silva and Melina García Verón

Video link:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1m9nBtwYYuOol4jVFeM2jhKTXIAKrv0ru/view?
usp=sharing

Analysis of dialogue taken from “Four Weddings and a Funeral” movie.

The selected scene takes place at a wedding party in which six guests sit at a table
occupying previously assigned places. Not all the interactants know one another, so they
engage in some small talk while waiting to be served. Following Brazil we could say that
the conversation is linguistically symmetrical since all the participants have the same rights
as regards speaking roles. They all assert dominance at different times by making use of
some of the phonological resources at their disposal.

First exchange:

Alistair: / there are four hundred different kinds of tea /

/ and that's not including all these so-called fruit teas /

/ I took Veronica out to India at Christmas /

/ to look at the plantations /

Charles: / Excellent /

Alistair uses high key in the first tone unit to start the conversation and he uses a
succession of proclaiming tones in additive mid key. He ends in mid key and not low key to
show that he is done but probably expecting some sort of contribution or agreement and
Charles does so using mid key as well which expresses agreement on the topic.

Second exchange:

Alistair: / I believe you and her went there once /

Charles: / that’s right /

The use of the high key on “her” shows a contrast as regards the people involved. Charles
again acknowledges using a mid key confirming that Alistair’s belief is right.

Third exchange

Veronica: / Charles was vile / he insisted on cracking jokes / all the time I was ill /

Charles: / just trying to cheer you up /

The high key in vile, jokes and ill means that there she is emotional and angry about what
happened and she establishes a contrast between cracking jokes and being ill as if they
were mutually exclusive whereas Charles key is lower, calmer, unemotional, one of
reservation, and in this case he equals telling jokes as “cheering you up”. Lower key in this
case also means the speaker is offering a more circumscribed description of what went
before, thus being restrictive.

Fourth exchange

Nicky: /oh you’re that veronica /

Veronica: /which Veronica /Charlie /

The use of high key on “that” means comparison, that is to say the speaker singles out her
from the rest of the Veronica´s. It also means surprise on behalf of the speaker. The high
key on Charlie means that Charlie (used as a vocative) is being interrogated demanding
an involved answer on the mentioned matter.

Fifth exchange:

Charles: /remember Bombay /

Nicky: /when / Charles and I were going out / he told me he’d had this interesting journey
round India with vomiting veronica I... think that was it /

The low termination in the last unit closes the pitch sequence, manifesting her intention not
to go on.

Seventh exchange

Charles: / well I think that’s probably a bit of an exaggeration is it not /

Nicky: /it is not /

The use of high key in “not” shows contrast with what has been previously stated.

Eighth exchange

Martha: /I remember you going on about this girl / Helena was it /whose / mother made a
pass at you //

Veronica: / I remember this /you couldn’t work it out whether it would be impolite not to
accept her advances //

Nicky: // that’s right // Mrs Piggy // Helena was Miss Piggy so her mother was Mrs Piggy//

The use of high key on “I” is to highlight a contrast between the speaker and other
interlocutors.

Bibliography:
- Germani, Miriam P, & Rivas, Lucía I. (2011). Discourse Intonation and Systemic Functional Phonology.
Colombian Applied Linguistics Journal, 13(2), 100-113. Retrieved August 09, 2020, from
http://www.scielo.org.co/scielo.php script=sci_arttext&pid=S0123-46412011000200008&lng=en&tlng=en.