Analysis of Transcript Between Piers Morgan and Cheryl Cole
The interview I have chosen to analyse is a television interview by Piers Morgan with Cheryl Cole. It took place in a studio in front of a live audience. The interview is to gain knowledge over Cheryl’s personal life, and Piers obviously has vivid background knowledge of her life along with some pre-prepared questions to ask.
The main topic is a contestant who was in Cheryl’s group during the famous show ‘The X-Factor’ and we can tell this as Piers refers to her directly as the proper noun, ‘Gamu.’ As mentioned before, Piers had some questions ready to ask, but Cheryl’s responses are all spontaneous, which we can tell by her constant pauses which is a non-fluency feature and so indicates it’s unscripted. The relationship between the speakers is fairly informal and personal as colloquialisms such as ‘readin’ are used. They do not address each other, they both jump straight into the conversation, Piers starting with ‘what are the most hurtful things you’ve had to read about yourself?’ This is an open question and shows they are both fairly familiar with each other as they avoid phatic talk and both get straight to the point.
Cheryl tends to talk for a lot longer than Piers, which is what can be expected as the purpose is to gain knowledge of Cheryl’s personal life. Cheryl gets interrupted often, which is typical of interviews as Piers is trying to stay on topic. She says ‘that’s what I mean is that/’ before being interrupted by Piers who finishes her sentence with ‘She was judged purely on her singing ability…’ which is a leading question and is almost as if Piers is trying to force Cheryl to respond a certain way, however he does it by being fairly polite, hinting that they have known each other for quite some time.
Because this extract is from the middle of the interview, it does not show us the opening or greeting used. Cheryl uses a lot more colloquialisms than Piers, and also speaks using her Geordie accent. She uses elision such as ‘d’you know I’m not like
The main topic is a contestant who was in Cheryl’s group during the famous show ‘The X-Factor’ and we can tell this as Piers refers to her directly as the proper noun, ‘Gamu.’ As mentioned before, Piers had some questions ready to ask, but Cheryl’s responses are all spontaneous, which we can tell by her constant pauses which is a non-fluency feature and so indicates it’s unscripted. The relationship between the speakers is fairly informal and personal as colloquialisms such as ‘readin’ are used. They do not address each other, they both jump straight into the conversation, Piers starting with ‘what are the most hurtful things you’ve had to read about yourself?’ This is an open question and shows they are both fairly familiar with each other as they avoid phatic talk and both get straight to the point.
Cheryl tends to talk for a lot longer than Piers, which is what can be expected as the purpose is to gain knowledge of Cheryl’s personal life. Cheryl gets interrupted often, which is typical of interviews as Piers is trying to stay on topic. She says ‘that’s what I mean is that/’ before being interrupted by Piers who finishes her sentence with ‘She was judged purely on her singing ability…’ which is a leading question and is almost as if Piers is trying to force Cheryl to respond a certain way, however he does it by being fairly polite, hinting that they have known each other for quite some time.
Because this extract is from the middle of the interview, it does not show us the opening or greeting used. Cheryl uses a lot more colloquialisms than Piers, and also speaks using her Geordie accent. She uses elision such as ‘d’you know I’m not like