Topic: Discourse analysis of a conversation.

This assignment requires you to complete four basic tasks:

1. Record a conversation or discussion between at least two people.
2. Transcribe a two-minute section of the conversation as a sample for analysis.
3. Develop an analysis of the conversation as communicative event, using the terms of Hymes's SPEAKING model and sociolinguistics included in our readings and discussion.
4. Revise your paper and submit a typed report with at least three pages of analysis and one single-spaced page of transcription along with your research tape.

Subject: The discourse you record may be a conversation among friends, between a teacher and a student, or between you and a relative. You should not do such recording surreptitiously, but inform the participants of your intentions. The recording may also be a an interview on television or the radio that you record to use as a research sample. Any conversation has all kinds of interesting aspects, but possibly selecting an especially interesting exchange or event would help you work more productively on this assignment.

Goals: This writing should sensitize you to the forms, functions, rules, and strategies of discourse in a communication setting. It will also give you practice in using the conventions of transcription and linguistic writing. Mr. McGowan will be providing more instructions on transcribing, and in class, we'll be developing more terms and methods of discourse analysis.

Deadline: Noon, Friday, 28 April.

Here are a number of speech events that might work as subjects for this assignment: a discussion-type class, a television interview, the give and take of political debaters, the arguing on a television talk show or panel discussion, conversation in a dorm room, a radio preacher's performance, a career interview at the Peer Career Center, a "bull session" in a "watering hole," "troubles talk" among friends (Thomas & Tchudi 74).

One goal is to make a tape of the event so you can use it as a sample for analysis.

Another goal is to transcribe one section of the tape in a straightforward manner. Discourse analysts use all kinds of conventions to signal intonation changes and other characteristics of speech, but for the purpose of this assignment, we'll make a plain transcription without eye dialect attempts to show pronunciation and the more complicated typography of high level discourse analysis. These special characteristics are, however, good points to discuss in your analysis of the speech event.

The Hymes SPEAKING model can serve as a heuristic to help you uncover important aspects of the discourse as a speech event, but your paper should not slavishly follow these categories in your developing an effective written organization. Use Hymes's categories to get a start writing down ideas and evidence, but then revise this material into an organized paper with an introduction, a series of developed and connected paragraphs, and a conclusion.

Consider what speakers are doing to one another in the discourse. Consider what preconditions and presuppositions they make in the event.

Being able to work with a computer word processor will be a real help on this assignment; in fact, such a skill is important to all of you who will be writers in the twenty-first century.

This exercise will be due on Friday, 28 April. Tuesday, 11 April, will be an open day with no class meeting; students should be well into their projects by this date. Remember you can use both e-mail and in-person consultation during the development of this project.