lunes, 2 de marzo de 2009

Entry nº 43: Conversation Analysis

This interaction fits into the characteristics of an anecdote, one of the genres of story tellig, because we can identify all the stages of this type of narrative text like Abstract, Orientation, Remarkable Events, Reaction and Coda.
The interactans are two close friends so they are supposed to share some background knowledge about themselves and the topic of conversation. The purpose of Frankenstein, the one who holds the floor in order to tell the anecdote, is to share with his friend the aim of his work and how he realized it. So that it can be said that the pragmatic function of the conversation is to share information about a particular topic.
From the beginning Frankenstein is trying to give clues to Clerval about his work. The four first interactions are part of the abstract of the story. Frankenstein trys to awake Clerval’0s schemata about lightning and electricity and the purpose of his work. But Clerval cannot relate the information given to his knowledge about science, in fact he relates it to music.The abstract is provided more clearly when Frankenstein explains the experiment of Galvani with a frog.
The orientation of the topic is provided by Frankenstein in his sixth interaction. At the end of the same interaction he shares his reaction with Clerval using a reported thought in order to involve him in the story. The use of present and future tenses in the reaction helps to create a greater sense of immediacy with the story.
Within the same interaction, the coda is present through Frankenstein’s evaluation of the intencity of the storm because it will provide a relation, a bridge, between past and present.
Finally, Clerval’s last interaction can be taken as a coda because he is establishing a relation between the past events just told and the present work of his friend.

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