The Use of Features of Real Speech to Create Humour
Introduction
Features of real speech such as hesitation, fillers, pauses and false
starts are not common features in scripted material. The main reason
for this is that, in real life, these features serve the purpose of
giving the speaker time to think about what they are saying before
they continue talking. In scripted material this is rarely necessary
because characters are only expected to say things that are relevant
to the story in some way. Therefore each character knows exactly what
they need to say and can say it without using any features of real
speech at all. However, there are some examples of scripted material
that will deliberately use these features to create an effect. I have
decided to look specifically at instances of scripted material using
these features to create a comedic effect. The reason for this is that
I have a strong interest in comedic writing and find this subtle form
of humour quite intriguing. I want to be able to find the line between
using features of real speech unnecessarily and using them to create
humour. I hope that by finding this I will be able to understand more
about how these features work and when they are most likely to be used
in scripted material. I plan to do this by looking in detail at
comedic transcripts, particularly one from the TV sitcom, “The Office”
as the context of this comedy is likely to contain features of real
speech.
Methodology
The data I have collected is a series of transcripts from TV shows and
sitcoms. I decided that this would be the best approach as I will be
able to analyse how the features of real speech are used and the
effect that this creates. I will be looking at the use of real speech
in terms of pragmatics, semantics and grammar in all of the
transcripts that I need to analyse. I think these analytical
frameworks will be the most appropriate frameworks to analyse as it’s