conversation contemplation

Reflection:

I had told Adam a little about the classes I was taking and the assignment about the conversation transcript, but had originally planned to tape a different interchange between my landlady/coworker/adopted momma Christie. However, being a sixth grade school counselor does not allow much time to sit down and chat during the day, and since we typically discuss school stuff at school (although very informally) I didn't want to have to alter our natural style for the sake of the transcript (confidentiality, blah blah blah). Instead I thought I'd capture the unique repoire of two friends having a beer before going to see a movie.

This was a pretty typical conversation between my best friend Adam and me. I see that most people taped other people talking, and I knew I was taking a risk in making myself a participant. I thought I might not really be myself, knowing I was taping myself and would be analyzing myself and having others analyze the conversation later, but luckily Adam just carried on, completely natural, even though he didn't know beforehand he would be taped. His nonchalant attitude put me at ease as well, and I really didn't even think about the recorder as we talked.

Similar to writing, taping a conversation (and transcribing it) take what is private, between two people, and makes it public and out of context. Looking over the transcript, I became more aware of my own style, how much I laughed, how much I swore, how much I encouraged with "yeahss" and "uh huhs." I also examined what our quasi-familial friendship sounded like to others, knowing that the tone, the inside jokes, etc would not be explainable from a transcript. Adam and I (and David, mentioned in the conversation) often skip the formality points we've talked about in class--we don't knock on the door of each other's houses, we don't always even say hello or goodbye. David and I would have entire phone conversations made up of weird noises and laughing. We make fun of each other a lot and don't hesitate to criticize when we need to, but very rarely have an actual disagreement. It's sort of an Elaine/Jerry type situation, even to the point of using each other's respective gender knowledge at times to aid in dating.

I think spending so much time over the last 6 or so years with these two boys/brothers has had a definite effect on my conversational style, and I tend to speak and think more like a male than a female at times, so gender differences in speech patterns interests me. I noticed in our conversation that the usually-female tendency to end statements with a raised, questioning tone showed itself in both my and Adam's longer stories, especially when Adam was talking about his tax return. I also noticed that I did the "um, like" thing a few times, which I really can't stand. I also realized I cut Adam off, talking about the cost of printer ink, but he didn't try again to make his lesson about pickles. I think it would be interesting to study conversations in families and among friends or acquaintances and look at the differences. I would feel offended if someone else criticized my fridge space or implied I couldn't put in a new faucet by myself (which is true) but I don't with him, because he's like family. Obviously the context of the conversation plus the parameters of our friendship allow for not following "the rules" of speaking. Pauses, turn-taking, and topic shifts all seemed natural, even during what would have been a conversation of elevated self-consciousness.