Questions on the barrister transcript:

1.       In the transcript, everyone is being called by their proper name. This is using proper nouns as each individual is referred to as their proper name, for example ‘Mr Neil’ this is typical for people who are in a court-room as it indicates formality which is important in this situation. By calling someone by their proper name makes he conversation sound more serious and may or may not make the person being judged feel comfortable because when someone is called by their first and full name the situation automatically becomes more serious as they address you fully rather than a nickname or your first name which is how you are approached by people you know rather than those you don’t. There isn’t many pronouns used throughout the transcript however the pronoun ‘you’ is frequently used to address Mr Neil whilst he is being questioned. This is done to manipulate him and address him in a manner that shows that he barrister has the authority in the transcript as he can address  Mr Neil as ‘you’ despite the formality of the situation.

 

2.       The end of the transcript seems more prepared than the start as at the start of the transcript there are many pauses which makes it seem as though they are thinking about what they need to say and how to say things to get their point across right as you need to be wary of what you say when you are in a court room. This is because in a courtroom you need to be very careful with what you say and the level of formality that you use. This to me makes it seem like the start of the transcript is more planned as the many micro-pauses illustrate thinking and hesitation, whereas the second half of the transcript has virtually no micro-pauses, only overlapping talk which means that the speakers are trying to answer the questions quickly and so that no more questions are asked of him and the text flows better in the second half, further illustrating that it was more of a natural and unplanned response. Also the barrister would of planned his questions for Mr Neil however Mr Neil’s’ response will be more spontaneous.

 

3.       In the transcript the person who has the most power is the barrister (Bar). I think this is because they ask many questions to Mr Neil about the incident such as ‘something to, to do with a gate he wanted you to repair a gate?’ This conveys power as they know a lot of information about the incident and therefore interrogates Mr Neil to get answers from him about the incident as he is suspicious as he already has some idea on what happened during the incident involving Mr Neil.  The barrister also shows authority by stressing certain words and phrases to make themselves heard and stress the importance of what he is saying as well as the importance he has in the court room. He says ‘…so many times Mr Neil’ referring to the many visits Mr Neil has received from the police. By stressing his name makes it clear who he is talking to but also stresses to the court room that he is saying true and that that should be known by the rest of the court.

 

4.       There is nothing in this transcript that is unusual to me; personally I think that it’s exactly how a courtroom would be. This is how I would imagine the language and atmosphere to be like in a court room and therefore was not surprised by anything in the text.  One thing that would most likely appear to be unusual to me would be the number of micro pauses at the start of the transcript this is because although the suspect would need to think about what they are going to reply in return they wouldn’t need to pause all the time as they should know what to say. The pauses to me illustrate nervousness and suspiciousness as there isn’t any need for several pauses unless you weren’t guilty as you would know what to say.