Computer Game (Boys) Transcript

The transcript has four participants: Ben, Andrew, David and Carl.
The boys are playing a computer game.
Andrew is playing, the others are watching.

The Transcript is a natural conversation.

In the first line of the transcript, we can see that on of the boys is slightly stressed out over his friends game play. Ben uses the imperative 'No' then shortly after 'now' to hint that he has played this game before, or has worked out what the aim is before the player. He pauses for 3 seconds in the first line, showing that an action has taken place before he continues his speech, despite that the person logging the transcript hasn't specified what has happened. Ben uses a jargon 'Light Sabre' to refer to the weapon in the game, this shows that Ben understands what he's talking about.

We can see by the way Andrew talks that he is quite arrogant and a show off. For example, he uses the imperative 'no' to contradict what his friend has said. He pauses before using another imperative 'observe' before he does an action on the screen. This 'observe' between two pauses would indicate that he has said this with an air of confidence about him, taking a short time before showing off his different ways of dying. However, from the actions described in the transcript '[sound of shooting and groans]' suggests that all didn't go as planned. This is followed by a four second embarrassed pause as he realised what happened.

We can tell that the transcript is from a natural conversation, as it features overlap. The overlap in this transcript occurs twice. Once between David and Andrew, with David laughing at his friends misfortune, and then again at the end when Carl makes his first appearance. There are features of repetition which also show that the conversation is natural. For example, 'throw your light sabre through (.) throw your light sabre through'  shows stress on the second repeat, and also picks up the pace of the conversation slightly.

The subject leader of the conversation flicks between Ben and Andrew, who both talk about the game at hand. The others listen and throw in their two cents every so often.