Apprentice transcript and analysis

A: I was the project manager I lost money (.) but the reason I lost money and I could’ve made a fortune in that shopping centre this morning|

B: |yep|

A: | if we’d started this |morning

C: |could’ve |could’ve

A: | because I’m good at

C: could’ve yeah could’ve should’ve would’ve yeah but ya didn’t right (.)

A: no sir I didn’t 

C: no ya didn’t yeah (3) I think I’ve heard enough for me to make a very very difficult decision here today

B: Sir Alan may I say one more thing please

(3)

C: if you insist

B: I think in this whole competition if you sit back and remain quiet and under the radar (.) people assume they’re safe (.) and I’ve been bold and I know I’m vocal and that puts me|

C: | oh you have been bold alright don’t worry about that (.) I’m sick and tired of you denying all this you know (1) I’m sick of looking at ya at the moment get out that door (3) get back to the bloody house okay (.) get back to the house yeah (.) because you're gonna be the next team leader I'm sick of looking at ya at the moment get out that door and get back to the house


Notes
Despite person Cs instrumental power by the other people calling him 'sir', he doesn’t use very formal language and instead replaces 'you' with “ya”, possibly as an accent. You would expect someone who is in high power to speak formally so this is unusual to the situation. He also repeats what he says a lot as shown in his final turn where he tells person B to get back to the house a total of 3 times. Compared to person A and B who use formal language throughout excluding person Bs “yep” at the beginning of the transcript.

We can apply Brown and Levinson's politeness strategies with the bald on record strategy that person B could be implementing and how that is usually a form of power but they are sing it as someone who doesn't have instrumental power. You can also include Fairclough's unequal encounter theory as person C has more power over person A and B from the star (or when person c starts talking). You can also tentatively argue that person C is slightly flouting the maxim of manner from Grice's maxims as he repeats himself and says phrases such as, “could’ve yeah could’ve should’ve would’ve yeah” which doesn't make much sense but can be understood if you have the pragmatic understanding that it is a phrase that someone uses.

As this transcript is from a television show, we could get a recording from an actual meeting room and compare it to the language used here and see if there are any similarities. We can assume that they won't follow the exact same patterns as the television version would’ve been changed to make it more interesting but there could be similarities to explore.

You could investigate in this how someone in a position of instrumental power uses imperatives. You can compare this to the features he uses which is less formal to show how much power he has that person A and B still follow his orders.