Two old friends meet up again Activity English has a system of tags which speakers can put at the end of what they say. For example: You're French, aren'tyou? He's coming tonight, is he? What do you think these tags are for? Make notes and/or discuss with a partner why you think speakers use tags. Are there other types of tags apart from the two types in the examples above? Speakers and setting male (40s) male (40s) Two old friends who haven't seen each other for a few years are 'catching up' with each other. They are in a village pub garden on an exceptionally hot summer's evening, talking about 's children. Transcript 1 2 3 4 Are you still playing er 1-Gui-tar Irish music, yeah No I don't play very much now, no, not at all Mi I I 6 country at one point 7 [laughs] No, I er... we go, we listen to it quite a lot, every time we 8 go to Ireland we erm, you know, seek out good musicians and er do 9 quite a lot of listening and of course we still buy a lot of records, 10 bought a lot of records over the last few years, but erm, there's not I I actually anybody to play with around here, you know [ mm] 12 there's a there's a session every Sunday night in Cambridge in a pub 13 and that's erm about it... do you still listen to Scottish music? 14 Ver... since this pair have arrived [ mm] very very little, cos 15 you just don't have the time, and with the new house, and with the 16 garden [ Mm] occasionally I take fits of putting stuff on, not as 17 much as before 18 They do I s'pose take up a lot of time, don't they, kids? 19 1-They take up a lot 20 of, I mean, normally, you get, if you're lucky they're all tucked up in 21 bed by eight-thirty [ mm]... that's if you're lucky, and then er 22 Do they sleep all night without erm waking up, did they wake up last 23 night, they didn't [ no] did they, no, [ no] didn't hear 24 a thing 25 Jamie normally, you put him in his cot and he's ... he's gone 26 [ mm] he sleeps he's very good at sleeping [ mm] 27 Thomas is a bit of a pain [ ah] all sorts of things frighten him, 28 you know [ yeah] wakes up with nightmares and that 29 [ does he] yeah some nights we change beds about three or 30 four times, he comes into our bed and there's not enough room and 31 so I go into his bed and he comes back in so to my bed and his bed 32 and chopping and changing 33 It's extraordinary to think they have bad dreams, well, I suppose they 34 dream of images they've seen during the day, probably dream of that 35 bloomin' duck or something 36 Or it just might be a car, noisy car going past the window or 57 something, wakes them up )8 Mm ... it's going to be hot tonight... in bed, isn't it 39 Mm