Comment on the relationship between the participants - BUT HOW?

[angelababy]

Hello all, I'm wondering if anyone would be able to offer some tips on spoken language analysis, especially when the question asks for you to 'comment on the relationship between the participants'. What features are you meant to be searching for? Right now I just refer to everyone as friends, but that is clearly incorrect. :\

[nbhindi]

What to look for if a question directs you to comment on the relationship between participants:
-   Necessary/un-necessary communication and length of utterances which may reveal social distance.
-   Subject areas that may be personal.
-   Level of formality – informal may contain colloquialisms, fillers, frequent pauses, contractions and reductions – evidence of familiarity between participants.
-   Turn taking – might be clearly defined or somewhat unstructured with overlapping.
-   Simultaneous laughter.
-   Topic familiarity.

Please have a look at my guide to spoken language:
A Guide to Spoken Language

Hope that will help 

[angelababy]

- Necessary/un-necessary communication and length of utterances which may reveal social distance.

Does unnecessary communication indicate a close social distance? What about length of utterances?

Turn taking – might be clearly defined or somewhat unstructured with overlapping.

Does disorderly turn taking indicate a distant social relationship? Or does orderly turn taking indicate that?

[Bhootnike]

I think it can be either way for things like turntaking, it comes down to the context really.

e.g.

N: Hey, whats up man
A: Nothing bro
N: sweet, did you end up going to big day////////overlap\\\\\ out
M: ///overlap\\\\\ hahah,... yeah, i did it was amazing

VS

N- Hey, my names Bhootnike, and /overlap\
A: oh hi, uhh, the names roger
N: So, where are you from?
A: Box Hill mate
N: Oh yeah, haha heard its pretty cool over there

I think the above sorta shows the differences, i.e, both show overlappings, and thus you would have to read the whole thing to figure out whether they have a close or distant relationship.

[Starlight]

Politeness strategies often indicate social distance.

Turn taking strategies e.g. interruptions can indicate a strained relationship, as each participant is trying to speak their voice to the point they are cutting the other person off, may think their point is more important than the other persons, however interruptions can often play a supportive role as opposed to a competitive one, indicating the person has taken interest in what the other person is saying and actively engaging in the conversation. Things like rising pitch (i.e. posing questions- interrogatives, adjacency pairs), downward intonation (to indicate the end of an utterance) are also important here.

Slang indicates little level of formality, diminutives between friends show that they are comfortable with each other and not worried about sounding 'silly', indicating a close bond i.e. close social distance. Reductions etc.