The Wire Spoken Language Plan

The features of spoken language often changes depending on a number of factors; one of which includes the location and of whom they are speaking with. In the popular TV series, The Wire, the audience is introduced to the first transcript set in a deprived area of Baltimore where many of the street jargon slang and social accent is prominent. In comparison, language that is used in a courtroom of the second transcript is far more formal than street language.
In the first transcript the purpose of the detective whom is communicating with the witness is in charge because he starts the conversation off as he speaks first, and to show control he asks a question “So your boy’s name is what?” – This shows the control, but another purpose is to ask question to solve the crime that has been committed. The purpose of the witness is to show the behavior of how he responds to the detective and uses accent, dialect, sociolect (The dialect of a particular social class.) to show that he is from a background where he has less intelligence than the detective by responding in short answers and grunts to the questions asked, when the detective, McArdle, asks “So your boy’s name is what?” the witness replies with a short answer, which is also a statement “Snot.” A reason why the witness is replying in short answers may be because that he is refusing to give away too much evidence and go to court when the detective says “…even after the rollers and the ambo got here… you were still here waiting ‘cause you got something to tell me, right?” In this quote the detective also uses idiolect ‘rollers’ for ‘Police vehicles’ and ‘ambo’ for ‘ambulance’, the witness replies with a shock “I ain’t going no court.”
The witness uses a variety of dialect, he may use dialect because he uses it in his everyday vocabulary or because he was bought up with it or he is less intelligence, he uses word such as ‘naw’ which stands for ‘no’. But his dialect may change completely when he explains ‘shoot crap’