Analysis of spoken language: Frasier

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Alienor Linden

        A2 Analysis of spoken language

                         

Frasier

When analysing the sitcom Frasier I will pay particular attention to how humour is created by the language throughout. The purpose of this sitcom is to entertain and appeals to an audience with a certain development and intellect as the humour is of an advanced standard for people to understand and appreciate. Frasier did not always use to be a popular sitcom. At the beginning it was originally shown on channel four quite late in the evenings at 11 o clock. Now it not only remains on channel four, but regular episodes are viewed on paramount comedy at an earlier time of 9.30pm. More viewers have been gained because of this, increasing its popularity.

The dialogue opens up with a phatic greeting from Roz, “Oh hey Frasier” this greeting already establishes an informal relationship between her and Frasier. Frasier responds with, “Oh hello Roz (laughs)” and quickly adds, “Happy New Year”. By this response Frasier has already created convergence, the social distance is reduced within the first opening sequence. Because of this we already know that the rest of the dialogue will be interactional.

Frasier immediately adds, “Or should I say, “Happy New millennium (laughs)” this is not only a repair, but a topic that has purposely been opened up for Roz to relate to almost straight away. Roz clearly knows what Frasier is trying to imply by his laughter and her retort in an expressive utterance, “Oh god (0.1) I’m so sick of talking about it” conveys this even more. The pause is an example of a prosodic feature and displays the relaxed friendship she and Frasier share as well as conveying her unwillingness to talk about the incident that happened. Unless the audience are regular viewers they will not know what Roz is referring to, so it would also be classified as a deictic expression. Humour is then created when Frasier seems to give the impression to comfort Roz with, “Oh now Roz let’s not…” but in fact he flouts Grices Maxim of quantity with, “Let’s not condemn the New Millennium just because you woke up with a hangover”. This is just one example of Frasiers pompous character. Frasier is subtly mocking Roz by revealing too much within this referential utterance about her personal life and emphasises this even more so by stressing, “You” making Roz the subject of the topic creating laughter as Roz feels everyone is looking at her. More laughter is created when he quickly adds, “That’s what ruined church for you” again this deictic remark refers to Roz being relatively easy and open about sex along with her wild nights out and this creates humour even for non regular viewers as Roz is not amused.

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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 ...

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