Roz chooses to ignore this comment from Frasier but from her next expressive utterance it clearly shows that she is annoyed, “… I just hate how this arbitrary point on the calendar has become so significant…” Her speech contains many unvoiced pauses that give her time to recall as well as building up her climax towards the end, “…(0.5) it was worth it, I partied my ass off like a brain damaged tass monkey” T his is an informal utterance from Roz in contrast to Frasiers, who takes sheer delight in commenting on Rozs choice of metaphor with, “I see (0.5) well allow me to congratulate you on your first science related metaphor” this utterance is typical of Frasiers pompous character, it is not only formal, but condescending to Roz through the way he has made himself the subject of the utterance and at the same time he appears to be questioning Rozs intelligence. Frasier makes sure that he does not offend Roz by making use of the filler, “I see” followed by a pause this softens the force of the statement, lessening its bluntness.
The sitcom then picks up pace and moves onto the scenes from the previous New Year. This scene involves Frasier, his brother Niles, Martin their father and Daphne their cleaning lady as well as Martins physical therapist.
The scene opens up with an imperative utterance from Niles, “Cancel the millennium (0.1) Chez Henri has burnt down” Niles is very similar to his brother Frasier with his outlook on life, but Niles is a much more relaxed person in contrast to Frasier who frequently explodes if things do not go his way, “Burnt down?” Frasier explodes in horror. Niles creates humour with his detailed description of Henri caramelising a huge Crème Brule when a sugar spark ruined it all. Niles is therefore flouting the maxim of quantity for he is creating laughter by saying too much about the incident with the use of metaphors to conjure up images in the viewers mind, “Ignited a thirty foot paper space needle…”
Frasier and Niles are lovely people but their outlook on life because of the way they have been brought up are completely the opposite of their father Martin. This becomes more evident as the dialogue progresses along. Frasier asks Niles, “What exactly are we going to do tomorrow night?” This interrogative utterance along with Frasier’s stress on, “We” suggests how worried he is and he further adds, “Every restaurant in town worth going to has been booked for months!” This exclamatory utterance displays his snobbery for the finer things in life yet he is still adorable to the viewers because he has such a loveable character.
Martin, the father is very down to earth unlike his sons. His speech is always informal and he is always contempt with the simple things in life, so when he attempts to involve his sons, “Oh you know you can join me and the boys at McGinnis…” they’re gonna dye the beard green” it creates humour because Martin flouts the maxim of relevance. For Martin to even suggest such a thing as that not only do Frasier and Niles not have a clue what he is talking about but they do not like the idea either, “Why would you want to do that?” Niles asks so Martin proceeds in telling him, “McGinnis is going in for a bypass next month and he’s afraid he might not make it out in time for St Patties Day” This is a disjointed construction that reflects spontaneous speech from Martin. Laughter is achieved from the audience, as Martin tone is very calm and unexpected as well as spontaneous,
When Frasier and Niles learn that they have secured a place at a wine tasting event on New Years Eve they are extremely excited with Frasier exclaiming, “On Niles that’s brilliant, Dad please, please” his repetition of, “Please” reinforces his happiness and this phrase is also an interrupted utterance, “Er you know what…” Daphne quickly explains that they will find it hard to find any places on a flight this late at which point Frasier who feels that because he has his own radio show everyone will do as he pleases, “Oh Daphne (0.2) they always set aside a few choice seats for Seattle’s travel Elite” this projects Frasier as big headed. The scene then moves on and shows Frasier, Niles and Martin driving to the wine event in Martins camper. This sets off the audience into an uproar of laughter realising Frasier could not secure seats on the flight and knowing it lowers Frasiers ego because he is such a snob.
Frasiers pompous character is again portrayed when Niles expresses his worries via an exclamatory utterance, “How are we going to explain to the wine club…” Niles stresses the pronoun “We” which emphasises his worries as well as hinting to Frasier that he is partly to blame too. Frasier clearly does not care anymore for he laughs when saying, “We’ll call it our van ordinaire” never the less he cannot help demonstrating his lack of knowledge of the,”Heart Land” which he does intentionally with, “I feel abit out of touch with the common man (0.5) it’s nice to reconnect” this shows his feelings of superiority no matter how good his intentions are by, “Reconnecting”
A feature of Martins informal language is the use of many contractions such as, “You’re”, “They’ll” and “That’s” this displays the level of informality he has with Frasier and Niles, “Yeah you’re the most important member of our group buddy” Martin also says this in response to Niles pleas to be allowed to drive the Winnebago. This forms laughter because Niles is clearly not what Martin describes him as, in fact he is useless as Martin ends up saying, “Oh (0.1) you’re not good with big cars Niles…” by emphasising, “Big Cars” it suggest Niles is too weak to handle such masculine things and lowers his ego on his driving skills and Martin reinforces this by adding, “I tried to teach you to drive my old savoury…” The personal pronoun, “I tried” personifies the utterance and gives the impression that Martin had put all his effort into teaching Niles how to drive and in the end he failed to do so.