Svitlana Chaykivska
Dr. S. Chandler
English 3029
04/18/2012
Discourse Analysis
Essay “Chat Room”
One of the
method of research analysis is the discourse analysis method
which gives an opportunity to evaluate dialogue in a meaningful way.
Everyone
who analyzes a transcript will reach conclusions based on his/her own perspec-
tive. By
analyzing an interview one can learn much about the interviewee and
something about the
interviewer. I found that “Chat Room” is an interesting,
challenging and funny transcript. An interviewee talks about her life experien-
ces using technology. Person A
the interviewee tells person S the interviewer
that her technology experiences began in 5th grade when she and her
friends
would “ go in chat rooms and chat…, exchange pictures with people that lived
in our area that
was our age…” This type of activity continued through high
school.
I shall
discuss in my Discourse Analysis essay the question: How does
person A grow through her experiences, positive and negative, by using
tech-
nology, language and her social life skills? The conversation between person
S and person A goes
from one topic to another, from the unfamiliar and “scary”
to the unusual and funny in excerpt
two. Person A shows that she is humorous,
friendly, curious, more knowledgeable about
computer use, protective of sib-
lings, trusting, yet afraid in excerpt one. Also I found that
person S, had a good
strategy, using questions, comments and humor made Person A feel comfort-
able
and confident “ we’ll be careful if we publish this(laughing)”, “oh you did
(laughing)you
did”.
In the
transcript “ Chat Room” person A tells the interviewer about her
first
experience with technology called “web tv”. This statement shows it was
long time ago probably in nineties. Also as I mentioned it began in 5th grade
and
continued to high school. During these years person A developed her tech-
nology skills. In the family nobody but
she was able to understand “web tv”. The
interviewee was able to “check email and also chat
strangers’, which shows that
person A was brave enough to explore, yet it “was dangerous cause I
think I talk-
ed to a pedophile”. The absence of parental controls gave her more freedom
“ My
parents didn’t know how to put restrictions, they weren’t too familiar with
it”. Yet she
was scared. In 5th grade she gave a stranger her “phone number” while
chatting. Then when he
called she “hung up”. What made her to do this? It shows
that person A was curious and she
wanted to find out what is going to happen.
But, “… as soon as I heard a deep voice I was like,
that is not a kid…, I’m wearing
pajamas – bye”. She was frightened because she said that “
Oh my gosh, he’s going
to find where I live, my mom’s going to kill me, so I didn’t go on WebTv
for a long
time”. However, looking through her experiences nobody and nothing could stop
her
from exploring technology further in both excerpts. This shows that she was
courageous. Her
negative experience partially changed the way she used in life.
She became more knowledgeable, less
frightened at the end of excerpt one. She
was “careful” and able to control her
siblings. Person A said “… when my sister
started going online I would check up on who she’s talking
to, I would look over,
I would check the history, see what websites she went on”.
Person A
continued growing in her use of technology in middle school and
high school “by that time I was able to email who ever I wanted, and
research, very
familiar with the internet”.
In excerpt
two person A shows her big improvement in continuing to develop
her computer use skills and social skills by going into chat
rooms to “chat with our
friends, exchange pictures with people that lived in our area that was our
age.” But
did she remember her old story that caused her to see the danger in chat rooms?
Her
“adventure with technology” in excerpt two, shows that she did not consider this
to be as dangerous as
she did in excerpt one. She willingly sent pictures to her friends.
Then she sent a picture to a
stranger. If this had not happened to be her pastor’s son
who recognized the photo, this could have
been very dangerous. In the end of excerpt
two person A admitted that it “…was a weird story”
which both she and interviewer
turned humorous. Her chat room experiences show that she
developed from a naïve
to a more knowledgeable participant. She could handle danger lurking
in cyberspace
more easily.
No comments:
Post a Comment