Cooking rice Activity The text examined in this unit was recorded in the kitchen of a family home; all the participants are members of the same family. Here are some brief conversational exchanges. Would you expect to find conversations such as this in a family kitchen?: A: Would you like a biscuit? B: I beg your pardon. A: Would you like a biscuit? B: Oh, yes please. Thank you very much. A: I didn't know you used boiling water to make rice. B: You don't have to use boiling water but it is reckoned to be quicker. Write short notes explaining why you would or would not expect to find such styles of conversational exchange in the text examined in this unit. Speakers and setting female (45) male (19) male (46) male (49) is and 's son is 's brother This extract takes place in , and 's house. is visiting them. Transcript 1 2 3 [4 sees] 4 5 6 7 [17 sees] 8 9 I0 I I 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 [9 sees] 19 20 21 [10 sees] 22 23 24 25 26 [5 sees] 27 28 29 30 31 32 <5 02> 33 34 35 36 37 Now I think you'd better start the rice Yeah ... what you got there? Will it all fit in the one? No you'll have to do two separate ones Right... what next? Foreign body in there It's the raisins Oh is it oh it's rice with raisins is it? I-No no no it's not supposed to be [laughs] erm There must be a raisin for it being in there D'you want a biscuit? Erm Biscuit? Er yeah All right Yeah Didn't know you used boiling water Pardon Didn't know you used boiling water Don't have to but it's erm ... they reckon it's erm quicker Tony was saying they should have the heating on by about Wednesday Just gonna put the er butter on What you making Ian? Mm What's that? Oh er just gonna do some rice Mm Doing some rice in the micro So you put margarine with it Pardon yeah little bit don't know why cos otherwise it'll ^ Separate it Mm not sure actually doesn't erm don't have to do it when you put ;t on the er on the stove How long does it take? Erm Oh that'll make a noise I-Takes about thirty-five minutes yeah that'll that that'll destroy your tape Thirty-five minutes Yeah Yeah I thought the microwave did everything in about two minutes You may as well turn it off now then Yeah you can do it on the cooker for thir, in thirty-five minutes Then if you have to watch it... you just ignore it Mm You don't have to wash the saucepan either do you? You don't have to wash the saucepan after [laughs] [ mm] yoi don't have to erm don't have to drain the water off either I didn't know that microwaves ran that long Yeah you don't have to erm drain the water off either cos er I'll switch it off when you turn that on When Sahib used to come out and make rice and your saucepan used to be it'd be thick about an inch thick on the bottom it would and that was the best part of the rice [laughs] I'll turn this off General commentary The family are cooking rice for a family meal. Different activities are involved: cooking, helping, or simply acting as an onlooker. But the main focus of the talk at this point in the recording is on the cooking of the rice and on the procedures involved in its cooking. In this respect the language activity is essentially one of language-in-action: language used in the execution of a task in which the participants are directly and materially involved. It is noteworthy, however, that during this process the members of the family feel free to introduce other more incidental topics which may or may not be elaborated upon. 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 Line-by-line commentary What you got there? In this recording ELLIPSIS is pervasive. The ellipsis takes, as we shall see, many different forms. In this example the main auxiliary verb have is ellipted. Ellipsis is pervasive for a number of reasons: chief among these i easons are that the speakers, as members of the same family, normally i onduct conversations with one another which are highly informal. Ellipsis is •i linguistic concomitant of informality and easy-goingness in conversation. More specifically, the speakers are performing actions or are making references which are easily visible and apprehensible by all the participants. This kind of grammatical shorthand is perfectly appropriate, therefore, as the -peakers have no need to elaborate; indeed, if they were to elaborate, much in i heir discourse would become unnecessarily redundant. 1.4 in the one: In most standard written grammars this structure does not occur. One is not normally cited as allowing an immediately preceding definite article. ()ther examples of the same usage from authentic data are: (at an airport check-in) Airline check-in stewardess: Is it just the one bag you're checking in, sir? Male passenger: Just the one, yes. (woman to man standing waiting outside toilet in a restaurant) Is there just the one toilet? In all cases, the object referred to is immediately visible to the speaker and listener. We can only conclude, since the encounters are public and since none of the speakers was speaking in a non-standard dialect, that such examples are examples of standard spoken English and simply have not been observed or codified before. This structure also occurs with other numbers: (supermarket assistant to customer) Is it just the three boxes? 1.6 what next?: Verbs are ellipted here: either the verb 'to be' or an auxiliary verb, e.g. what's next?; what do we do next?). [17 sees]: Note the long silences throughout the transcript, when people are - busy doing things. In the context of interchanges between members of a family silences are common. They are neither as disturbing nor perceived as impolite or as unsettling as they might if a stranger or someone from outside the family were in their company. For your convenience we have omitted some of the longer silences on the tape. This also applies to Unit 13, where long silences occur while a customer is having her hair washed at the hairdresser's. ■Foreign body in there: Another example of ellipsis; on this occasion it is likely that the dummy subject there and the verb to be are ellipted (There's a foreign body in. there.). The phrase foreign body means here 'strange-looking object that should not be there'.