Transcript Analysis

A: I was the project manager and I lost money (.) but the reason I lost money (.) and I could’ve made a fortune in that shopping centre this morning [ if we’d started this morning ]

AS: [ I could’ve (.) could’ve ]

A:   [ because im good at ]

AS: could’ve yeah could’ve would’ve should’ve yeah but ye didn’t right (.)

A: no sir alan I didn’t

AS: no ye didn’t yeah (4) I think ive heard enough to make a very very difficult decision here today

B: sir alan may I say one more thing please

AS: (4) if you insist

B: I think in this whole competition if you sit back and remain quiet and under the radar (.) people assume they’re safe (.) I’ve been bold and I know I’m vocal and [ that puts me (.) that puts me in a vulnerable position]

AS: [ oh you have been bold alright don’t worry about that ] (.) trouble is ya know (.) you never back off (.) you know what im gonna tell you what im gonna do with you (.) im getting sick and tired of you denying all of this you know (.) im sick of looking at you at the moment get out that door get back to the bloody house okay (.) get back to the house yeah (.) because you gonna be the next team leader im sick of looking at ye at the moment get out that door and get back to the house

In this transcript, it is clear that AS holds the instrumental power in this exchange due to the context of the conversation, and that persons A and B refer to him as ‘Sir’. Although ‘Sir’ is usually associated with upper class and being well-spoken, AS generally uses an informal register and is very dominant in this exchange due to his instrumental power. The informal register can be seen as AS saying the words ‘you’ and ‘ya’ and ‘ye’ and words like ‘bloody’ which shows AS’s accent/dialect affecting how he speaks. This informal register is typically inappropriate for this context but as this transcript is from a TV show it may be a deliberate choice to make it more entertaining for the audience.

AS uses a lot of interruptions, which neither persons A or B try to resist due to AS’s instrumental power. From AS’s choice of words (namely “bloody”) you can infer some of the paralinguistic features such as tone or mood of AS. From the use “bloody” you can tell that AS’s tone may be raised and that he might be getting annoyed, impatient and/or angry with A and B.

Twitter Investigation

Hypothesis:

Organisations use influential power via twitter to build interest in their site.

Methodology:

• Select every 10^th tweet from the organisations twitter feed.
• Selection of 16 tweets
• One organisation

Analysis:

Personal Pronouns = 4 times = Once every 4 tweets average

“We” – 75% = referring to the organisation, non-inclusive of the audience

“Your” – 25% =referring to the reader, non-inclusive of the organisation

Personal pronouns were featured but more infrequent than anticipated only appearing every 4 tweets on average. Further, only ¼ of the personal pronouns used refer to the reader whereas ¾ of the personal pronouns refer to the organisation but are non-inclusive of the reader. In a bigger sample the use of “we” may include the reader and the organisation but this wasn’t the case in my sample.

Hashtags = 15 times = Once every tweet average

Hashtags are largely more common throughout the sample as they serve to draw the reader from their timeline. Unlike pronouns, hashtags appear every tweet on average, but this average may be unreliable as the range of hashtags used in tweets in the sample ranged from 0 to 3. The relatively high number of hashtags can largely be attributed to the formulaic layout of the organisations tweets, which usually begin with a hashtag to set the topic of the tweet.

Conclusion:

The hypothesis was accurate to an extent as the sample of tweets contained a large amount of techniques that exercised influential power, mostly through the use of hashtags or personal pronouns. In a larger sample from multiple organisations this may not be the case as different organisations may find different methods of exercising influential power to be as effective in building support for their website/good/service.