Analysis of Phonological Features in a Transcribed Conversation

Analysis of Transcription

The conversation that was transcribed is between a mother, Jan, and her daughter, Ama, talking about having dreadlocks and what it meant to them. A 2-minute portion of their conversation was transcribed, and it will be analysed below. The conversation displays a few linguistic concepts such as morphology, phonology, and semantics.

In terms of phonology, there is the use of the word “realise” which when spelled has an “s” before the last letter. Hearing the word being pronounced one would assume that it ends with a “z” but it is actually an “s.” The “s” sounds like a “z” and that is due to the placement of the syllables. The word “realise” is used a number of times, which makes it stand out. Also, there is the use of the word “dreadlocks” which ends with an “s.” The “s” sounds the way one would expect it to sound due to its placement at the end of the word. The other words where “s” is used and it sounds different depending on how the word is written are, such, frames, glorious, conversation, things, answer, and sister. Due to the way the spelling of the different words, the “s” sounds different. The other words that show phonology are a word such as “coincidence.” The word has three ‘c” and they all sound different. The first “c” sounds the way one would expect it to sound, but the other ones sound like an “s.” These are only a few examples of phonology as seen in the transcribed text.

The text also reveals aspects of morphology. There is the use of “actually,” which is formed by the free morpheme “actual” and the bound morpheme “ly.” Actual is a free morpheme because it can occur alone while a bound morpheme cannot occur alone. The formation of “naturally” is another example of morphology because the word has been formed from the word “natural” and the suffix “ly.” The word “dreadlocks” is a compound word which shows morphology because it has been formed from the two words “dread” and “locks” which leads to the word dreadlocks beings formed. While there are other aspects of morphology the ones listed above are the ones that most stood out.

The text also reveals semantics. In a statement said by Ama, she states, “…to people in the street who say sister or say mama Africa to me and they have an idea of me through my hair, and I think it is really interesting.” The people in the street call her “Mama Africa.” “Mama” apparently means mother. Looking at the statement, it does not mean that she is Africa’s mother. The people on the street are referring to her in such a manner to show that she has some African characteristics. In the conversation the word “locks” is used to mean dreadlocks but used in another manner it could mean a lock on a door. Those are the instances of semantics that stood out.

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