Wednesday, 27 November 2013

Language and power task, video clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXr2kF0zEgI

In this scene Ross and Phoebe argue about evolution.

Ross begins by asking Phoebe questions like "You don't believe in evolution?" This asserts power as he is asking her interrogative questions and using the personal pronoun "you", this singles Phoebe out from the others and Ross makes her seem small and as if she should believe in it. Phoebe responds with Goffman's face threatening act. She begins to 'take the mick' out of Ross's intelligence about the subject of evolution for example "Monkey's, Darwin, it's a nice story i just think its a little too easy" this states that Phoebe is threatening Ross's face by saying that what he study's is easy and not important. Ross then responds with sarcasm as he begins to lose the floor but Phoebe still replies with face threatening responses and Ross begins to look defeated.

In the next part, you can tell that Phoebe holds the floor as she changes the topic by saying "Look at this funky shirt". This may also seem that she is perhaps losing the power as she doesn't know how to respond to Ross's interrogative questions. Ross then uses upwards divergence as he begins to use intellectual language and facts to get power over Phoebe. This doesn't prove successful as Phoebe again threatens Ross's face by dismissing his intelligence and making a joke about it.

1 comment:

  1. Good stuff Melissa - some really good use of the AO2 concepts here and some clear use of AO1 terms. Make sure you're using lots of examples in your writing about power - also, make sure you don't identify 'Goffman's Face Threatening Act' - look to identify a token and then interpret it using Face Theory. I also thought Ross's use of the tag question 'OK' was perhaps worth a comment here!

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