Grace and Frankie: Conversation Analysis
By Sophie Zelony
Introduction
Grace and Frankie is a comedic sitcom that follows the lives of main characters Grace and Frankie, mortal enemies turned roommates, after the realization that their husbands are gay for one another. Grace is a former cosmetic icon who is now 80 years old and adheres to modern fashion codes, strict diets of kale and martinis, and is not a risk taker. In stark contrast, Frankie is a free-spirited hippie who speaks her mind freely, eats ice cream for breakfast, and makes decisions on a whim. Frankie’s husband, Sol, and Grace’s husband, Robert, are business partners at a law firm. The opening scene of the six-series show is a dinner scene in a public restaurant in which Robert and Sol tell their wives they are leaving them for one another. This brief, sit-down meal is full of performatives and speech acts, or “utterances that are used to do things rather than declare or state something,” or “speech acts which in themselves constitute an action” (McCabe 20). In this essay, I will analyze how Robert and Sol communicate their separation from their wives at this dinner conversation, and how they use Grice’s Cooperative Principle, different speech acts and different responses to face-threatening acts to foreshadow their personalities and relationships with others in the rest of the show. The data was transcribed from the first episode of the first season of the television series. This conversation is especially interesting because Sol and Robert take very diverse approaches to perform the same utterance, which is a reflection of their personalities and relationships.
Analysis
After initial greetings, the scene skips forward in a sort of time lapse to show Grace, Frankie, Robert, and Sol with their food eating in silence. Sol breaks the silence initially to progress the conversation to the point of the dinner meeting.
T1 Sol: These mussels are delicious. And the crab, so fresh. And they give you three sauces! Look at this oyster. Do you think they realize they live in their own spoon? (laughs)
T2 Frankie: We’ve only had this seafood platter 700 times.
T3 Robert: [Sol’s a little anxious tonight.
T4 Grace: [Something happen at the office?
T5 Robert: Actually, we do want to talk to you two about something. Right Sol?
Sol initiates the conversation with a nonsensical question, and rather than adhering to the question-answer adjacency pair structure, Frankie responds in T2 with a declarative statement. Through failing to follow the structure of Grice’s Cooperative Principle, she flouts the maxim of relevance to create conversational implicature to show sarcasm. The statement’s illocutionary act states a fact, and the intended perlocutionary effect is a request for Sol to change the topic and avoid small talk. As Sol’s wife, Frankie knows Sol’s stalling tactics in efforts to avoid awkward conversations, so her response in T2 shows her desire for him to get to the point.
On the contrary, Robert is more frank than Sol. In the side sequence initiated by Robert in T3 and T4, Robert comprehends Frankie’s impatience shown by her conversational implicature in T2 and thus tries to proceed with the purpose of the dinner before further aggravating her. In T5, the discourse marker “actually” signals a shift in topic of conversation. T5 is a preferred second-pair part to the question-answer adjacency pair that Grace initiates in T4. Robert does not hesitate to answer the question, and although he flouts Grice’s maxim of manner through the ambiguity of his answer, he successfully initiates a turn in conversation in response to Grace’s question. Additionally, the question at the end of T5 constitutes an indirect speech act – although it appears interrogatory, it is actually intended to command Sol to redirect the conversation. The conversation continues:
T6 Sol: Okay: (.5) Well (.3) um (1) As you know, we’re getting better with age. And this can be a very exciting chapter we’re about to open in the book of life. It feels alive with possibility. And (.5) change. And Frankie herself says change is ALWAYS good. Especially when starting this new chapter of our lives.
T7 Grace: [This new chapter of our lives is gonna be over if you don’t get to the point.
T8 Robert: I’ll do it.
T9 Sol:No.
T10 Robert: It’s okay.
T11 Sol: Robert.
T12 Robert:Please, Sol.
In T6, Sol utilizes several discourse markers and pauses that show topic change, nervousness, and hesitance in addressing the second-pair part to Robert’s first-pair part of question-answer adjacency pair. The discourse markers highlight Sol’s dispreferred response to T5 by failing to be brief and orderly. “Okay,” “well,” and “um” serve as fillers to collect his words and opt out of committing the face-threatening act that ensues for as long as he can. His lengthy reaction to Robert’s question displays his reluctance to address whatever topic that now Frankie, Grace, and Robert have all clarified they want to talk about. The discourse marker “you know” signals that he is trying to establish common ground between himself and the others, and thus the information that he is about to give is already in accordance to the values the others have. The highlighted sentence shows his acknowledgement that he is about to threaten Frankie’s positive face, and foreshadows his reluctance to do so. He does not want to impose on Frankie, his wife, but he is about to do something that threatens her negative face, or drastically change her life, so he is being evasive.
As displayed by the next few turn allocations, both Grace and Robert are annoyed with his dispreferred response that avoids Robert’s question in T5 as well as Grace’s from T4. Turns 9-12 are brief and occur at a rapid pace compared to how slow the dinner conversation has been going. In T12, Robert uses a direct speech act as a request for Sol to stop talking. The locutionary act in the utterance is that of a request, and the perlocutionary effect is that Sol stops saying nonsense. The conversation continues:
T13 Robert: (clears throat) What Sol is trying to say is (.5) (looks at Grace) I’m leaving you. (.5) (looks at Frankie) And he’s leaving you.
T14 Sol: (.5) For this (.3) next chapter of our lives.
Finally, in T13, Robert gets to the crux of the conversation, or the purpose of the entire dinner meeting. The verb “leaving” serves as a performative – through this utterance, Robert is ending an entire marriage. The lack of discourse markers to signal awkwardness, hesitance, or even reluctance to perform this utterance is symbolic of Robert’s personality as well as his relationship with Grace. As indicated through taking a series of 13 turns to finally uncover the purpose of the dinner, Robert’s performative utterance in T13 has a negative connotation in respect to ending both his marriage and Sol’s. Although this statement threatens both Grace and Frankie’s positive face because ending a marriage threatens someone’s desire to be liked, Robert performs this face-threatening act bald-on-record with no attempt to redress. The failure to use positive or negative politeness strategies reflects his blunt character as well as his relationship with Grace. Although the utterance in T13 is addressed to Grace and Frankie, Sol interjects in response to the awkward silence and thus in T14, he attempts to use upshot to clarify the pragmatic meaning of Robert’s use of “leaving” to indicate that the utterance is not temporary but in the context of the situation of their marriages, it is permanent. The following turn allocations seek further understanding for the pragmatic meaning of “leaving.”
T15 Grace: [You’re leaving me?
T16 Robert: [Yes.
T17 Grace: (.3) Who is she?
T18 Robert: Oh it’s not what you think. (.). It’s a he.
T19 Grace: up arrow. [Excuse me?
T20 Robert: And it’s Sol. (.) I’m in love with Sol. Sol and I are in love.
T21 Frankie: My Sol?
T22 Sol: Your Sol.
[(Grace laughs)
T23 Frankie: You mean you’re gay? And this is who you’re gay with?
T24 Sol: This is who I’m in love with.
In T15, Grace seeks more understanding of the pragmatic meaning of the utterance in T13 through initiating a question-answer adjacency pair. In T16, Robert’s straightforward, preferred second-pair part adheres to Grice’s Cooperative Principle through giving the exact amount of information required of the question without qualifying his answer in any manner. The falling-rising contour pattern in T15 indicates Grace’s questioning of the pragmatic meaning of the context and also implies shock. Again, Robert’s preferred response in T16 is performed bald-on-record with no attempt for mitigation or redress, which foreshadows his relationship with Grace in his lack of desire to protect her face.
In T17, Grace’s initial pause followed by the initiation of another question-answer adjacency pair has a falling contour pattern, which implies she now understands the pragmatic meaning of the verb “leaving” in T13, and her closed tone is meant to sound rude and harsh as she crosses her arms in disgust rather than disbelief. In T18, the discourse marker “oh” expresses that Robert needs to clarify something (particularly his sexuality) in order to answer Grace’s question. Again, Robert continues to address this new piece of information bald-on-record with no attempt at mitigation. The second-pair part response in T18 to the first-pair part question asked by Grace in T17 is interrupted by Grace in T19. In T18 and T20, Robert is answering the question posed in T17 through self-initiated repair because he anticipates Grace’s confusion at the new information about his sexuality. Again, he threatens Grace’s face and chooses to confront the face-threatening act bald-on-record with no attempt at mitigation. His qualified answer adheres to Grice’s Cooperative Principle because although it addresses Grace’s question it also anticipates further confusion and thus he performs self-initiated repair in his response by clarifying he is leaving Grace for Sol in three brief in T20.
Frankie and Sol reenter the conversation in the next turn allocation. This time, Frankie attempts to clarify the pragmatic meaning of “Sol” used by Robert in T20. Her question in T21 is answered immediately by Sol, who gives a preferred response through lack of qualification and brevity of his response. This is the first time in the conversation that Sol threatens Frankie’s face baldly-on-record with no mitigation or redress and by not flouting any maxims in the process. However, in T24, Sol flouts the maxim of manner by not directly answering the question if he is gay. He is ambiguous in his answer. Frankie’s question in T23 is another example of a performative utterance in this conversation. The illocutionary act is questioning Sol’s sexuality, but in doing so, the perlocutionary act is seeking clarity on whether or not the marriage is null and void. The conversation continues:
T25 Grace: [Oh my god
T26 Frankie: No: This makes no sense: You’re business partners, you’re not lovers. FRIENDS (1) How long has this been going on?
T27 Sol: Well it’s been (.3) I don’t know exactly.
T28 Robert: [20 years.
In T25, Grace’s utterance serves as a discourse marker of her finally understanding exactly what the men are doing through their utterances – ending their marriages and simultaneously declaring a change in their sexualities. Frankie, on the contrary, still needs clarification, as she attempts to gain further understanding and engages in self-initiated repair in T26 as she first fails to acknowledge Sol’s declaration of love for Robert, but then after a pause, she questions how long the affair has been going on, which shows her acceptance of the situation and self-initiated understanding. In T27, Sol gives a dispreferred response to the question asked in T26. The first discourse marker, “well,” is an attempt to mitigate a face-threatening act by drawing out the conversation. The discourse marker, “I don’t know,” provides a filler and is again an act of avoidance to try to opt out of the face-threatening act. He flouts the maxim of manner by being ambiguous and failing to be brief. Thus, he is opting out of the face-threatening act at hand. However, in T28 Robert interrupts Sol, and gives a preferred second-pair part to the first-pair question that Frankie inquires about in T26 through adhering to Grice’s Cooperative Principle and also performing the face threatening act bald-on-record with no mitigation.
Overall Conclusion About the Conversation Analysis
As evidenced through the above conversational analysis, both Robert and Sol approached the disclosure of their newfound sexualities and yearning to leave their wives, performatives that threaten both Grace and Frankie’s positive and negative faces, in extremely different ways.
Thomas Holtgraves (1986) studied perceptions of direct and indirect speech acts with the assumption that the relative status of the interactants, their liking for one another, and the closeness of their relationships determine how one approaches a face-threatening act. Through experimentation, he concluded that evasive replies are more polite than a direct reply when the situation is face threatening (Holtgraves 309). In the observed conversation, Sol’s replies tended to be more evasive and less frank than Robert’s, which implies that Sol was more concerned with threatening Frankie’s face. Sol’s common use of dispreferred responses were efforts to avoid the face-threatening act. Likewise, Sol’s conversational implicatures were further attempts to avoid face-threatening acts. According to Brown and Levinson (1987), an off-record strategy for face threatening acts is to violate Grice’s maxim of manner by being vague or ambiguous. One example of Sol doing this occurs when he is ambiguous about how long he has been in love with Robert in order to perform the face-threatening act off record. Additionally, Sol utilized more discourse markers as fillers to show reluctance in confronting the face-threatening act. Fraser (1988) classified discourse markers as a type of commentary pragmatic marker, or containing a separate message based on the speaker’s comment on the underlying message. Fraser wrote, “the absence of the discourse marker does not render a sentence ungrammatical and/or unintelligible. It does, however, remove a powerful clue about what commitment the speaker makes regarding the relationship between the current utterance and the prior discourse” (Fraser 22). Thus, the power of discourse markers that are shown in this spoken language further symbolize to viewers that Sol is uncomfortable with threatening Frankie’s face. However, the lack of discourse markers in Robert’s speech, or the use of discourse markers particularly to transition topics, show that he is not phased by threatening Grace’s face.
In contrast to Sol’s utterances, Robert tends to give more preferred responses, adheres to Grice’s Cooperative Principle, and confronts face-threatening acts baldly, on-record, and without redress. According to Brown and Levinson (1987), normally a face-threatening act is approached in this manner only if the speaker does not fear retribution from the addressee. Additionally, by going on record, a speaker can avoid being misunderstood. Robert’s responses and utterances show that he is ready to “rip off the Band-Aid” and does not have as much regard for threatening Grace’s face as Sol does for Frankie’s. For example, one positive politeness strategy that Brown and Levinson (1987) address is being optimistic and including the person whose face is threatened in the activity, which occurs when Sol includes Frankie’s rationale that change is good in his elongated and convoluted manner of addressing “coming out.”
Through this conversation analysis, one can infer what Grace and Robert’s relationship is like as well as Frankie and Sol’s if interpreted correctly. After this initial scene, the four always stay in one another’s lives. However, Grace and Robert do not have a friendship – they coexist peacefully, but they do not offer anything of value to one another. On the contrary, Frankie and Sol remain best friends. They continue to watch their favorite television shows together and do their favorite activities. This in-depth conversation analysis shows how important pragmatic meanings of utterances are in the spoken language. In the future, more research could compare how Robert confronts other face-threatening acts with various individuals to see if he confronted this face-threatening act because that is his personality or if he did this because of a distinct relationship with Grace. Likewise, one could study further conversational analyses involving Sol in the same manner to further interpret the light that conversational analysis of the spoken language shines on both one’s personality and relationships with others.
Works Cited
Brown, P. & Levinson, S.C. (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fraser, B. (1988). TYPES OF ENGLISH DISCOURSE MARKERS. Acta Linguistica Hungarica, 38(1/4), 19-33. Retrieved from www.jstor.org/stable/44362602
Holtgraves, Thomas. (1986). Language Structure in Social Interaction. Perceptions of Direct and Indirect Speech Acts and Interactants Who Use Them. Journal of personality and social psychology. 51. 305-13. 10.1037/0022-3514.51.2.305.
Link to Video: Grace and Frankie Season 1, Episode 1 “The End” Begin at 2 minutes, 33 seconds
https://www.netflix.com/watch/80017360?tctx=1%2C1%2Cef5d8d32-df31-4895-9405-9c755c91f0b9-31757881%2C4cb36397-0628-455f-8773-eae97187a41c_49281546X3XX1582710012401%2C4cb36397-0628-455f-8773-eae97187a41c_ROOT&trackId=14170286
Introduction
Grace and Frankie is a comedic sitcom that follows the lives of main characters Grace and Frankie, mortal enemies turned roommates, after the realization that their husbands are gay for one another. Grace is a former cosmetic icon who is now 80 years old and adheres to modern fashion codes, strict diets of kale and martinis, and is not a risk taker. In stark contrast, Frankie is a free-spirited hippie who speaks her mind freely, eats ice cream for breakfast, and makes decisions on a whim. Frankie’s husband, Sol, and Grace’s husband, Robert, are business partners at a law firm. The opening scene of the six-series show is a dinner scene in a public restaurant in which Robert and Sol tell their wives they are leaving them for one another. This brief, sit-down meal is full of performatives and speech acts, or “utterances that are used to do things rather than declare or state something,” or “speech acts which in themselves constitute an action” (McCabe 20). In this essay, I will analyze how Robert and Sol communicate their separation from their wives at this dinner conversation, and how they use Grice’s Cooperative Principle, different speech acts and different responses to face-threatening acts to foreshadow their personalities and relationships with others in the rest of the show. The data was transcribed from the first episode of the first season of the television series. This conversation is especially interesting because Sol and Robert take very diverse approaches to perform the same utterance, which is a reflection of their personalities and relationships.
Analysis
After initial greetings, the scene skips forward in a sort of time lapse to show Grace, Frankie, Robert, and Sol with their food eating in silence. Sol breaks the silence initially to progress the conversation to the point of the dinner meeting.
T1 Sol: These mussels are delicious. And the crab, so fresh. And they give you three sauces! Look at this oyster. Do you think they realize they live in their own spoon? (laughs)
T2 Frankie: We’ve only had this seafood platter 700 times.
T3 Robert: [Sol’s a little anxious tonight.
T4 Grace: [Something happen at the office?
T5 Robert: Actually, we do want to talk to you two about something. Right Sol?
Sol initiates the conversation with a nonsensical question, and rather than adhering to the question-answer adjacency pair structure, Frankie responds in T2 with a declarative statement. Through failing to follow the structure of Grice’s Cooperative Principle, she flouts the maxim of relevance to create conversational implicature to show sarcasm. The statement’s illocutionary act states a fact, and the intended perlocutionary effect is a request for Sol to change the topic and avoid small talk. As Sol’s wife, Frankie knows Sol’s stalling tactics in efforts to avoid awkward conversations, so her response in T2 shows her desire for him to get to the point.
On the contrary, Robert is more frank than Sol. In the side sequence initiated by Robert in T3 and T4, Robert comprehends Frankie’s impatience shown by her conversational implicature in T2 and thus tries to proceed with the purpose of the dinner before further aggravating her. In T5, the discourse marker “actually” signals a shift in topic of conversation. T5 is a preferred second-pair part to the question-answer adjacency pair that Grace initiates in T4. Robert does not hesitate to answer the question, and although he flouts Grice’s maxim of manner through the ambiguity of his answer, he successfully initiates a turn in conversation in response to Grace’s question. Additionally, the question at the end of T5 constitutes an indirect speech act – although it appears interrogatory, it is actually intended to command Sol to redirect the conversation. The conversation continues:
T6 Sol: Okay: (.5) Well (.3) um (1) As you know, we’re getting better with age. And this can be a very exciting chapter we’re about to open in the book of life. It feels alive with possibility. And (.5) change. And Frankie herself says change is ALWAYS good. Especially when starting this new chapter of our lives.
T7 Grace: [This new chapter of our lives is gonna be over if you don’t get to the point.
T8 Robert: I’ll do it.
T9 Sol:No.
T10 Robert: It’s okay.
T11 Sol: Robert.
T12 Robert:Please, Sol.
In T6, Sol utilizes several discourse markers and pauses that show topic change, nervousness, and hesitance in addressing the second-pair part to Robert’s first-pair part of question-answer adjacency pair. The discourse markers highlight Sol’s dispreferred response to T5 by failing to be brief and orderly. “Okay,” “well,” and “um” serve as fillers to collect his words and opt out of committing the face-threatening act that ensues for as long as he can. His lengthy reaction to Robert’s question displays his reluctance to address whatever topic that now Frankie, Grace, and Robert have all clarified they want to talk about. The discourse marker “you know” signals that he is trying to establish common ground between himself and the others, and thus the information that he is about to give is already in accordance to the values the others have. The highlighted sentence shows his acknowledgement that he is about to threaten Frankie’s positive face, and foreshadows his reluctance to do so. He does not want to impose on Frankie, his wife, but he is about to do something that threatens her negative face, or drastically change her life, so he is being evasive.
As displayed by the next few turn allocations, both Grace and Robert are annoyed with his dispreferred response that avoids Robert’s question in T5 as well as Grace’s from T4. Turns 9-12 are brief and occur at a rapid pace compared to how slow the dinner conversation has been going. In T12, Robert uses a direct speech act as a request for Sol to stop talking. The locutionary act in the utterance is that of a request, and the perlocutionary effect is that Sol stops saying nonsense. The conversation continues:
T13 Robert: (clears throat) What Sol is trying to say is (.5) (looks at Grace) I’m leaving you. (.5) (looks at Frankie) And he’s leaving you.
T14 Sol: (.5) For this (.3) next chapter of our lives.
Finally, in T13, Robert gets to the crux of the conversation, or the purpose of the entire dinner meeting. The verb “leaving” serves as a performative – through this utterance, Robert is ending an entire marriage. The lack of discourse markers to signal awkwardness, hesitance, or even reluctance to perform this utterance is symbolic of Robert’s personality as well as his relationship with Grace. As indicated through taking a series of 13 turns to finally uncover the purpose of the dinner, Robert’s performative utterance in T13 has a negative connotation in respect to ending both his marriage and Sol’s. Although this statement threatens both Grace and Frankie’s positive face because ending a marriage threatens someone’s desire to be liked, Robert performs this face-threatening act bald-on-record with no attempt to redress. The failure to use positive or negative politeness strategies reflects his blunt character as well as his relationship with Grace. Although the utterance in T13 is addressed to Grace and Frankie, Sol interjects in response to the awkward silence and thus in T14, he attempts to use upshot to clarify the pragmatic meaning of Robert’s use of “leaving” to indicate that the utterance is not temporary but in the context of the situation of their marriages, it is permanent. The following turn allocations seek further understanding for the pragmatic meaning of “leaving.”
T15 Grace: [You’re leaving me?
T16 Robert: [Yes.
T17 Grace: (.3) Who is she?
T18 Robert: Oh it’s not what you think. (.). It’s a he.
T19 Grace: up arrow. [Excuse me?
T20 Robert: And it’s Sol. (.) I’m in love with Sol. Sol and I are in love.
T21 Frankie: My Sol?
T22 Sol: Your Sol.
[(Grace laughs)
T23 Frankie: You mean you’re gay? And this is who you’re gay with?
T24 Sol: This is who I’m in love with.
In T15, Grace seeks more understanding of the pragmatic meaning of the utterance in T13 through initiating a question-answer adjacency pair. In T16, Robert’s straightforward, preferred second-pair part adheres to Grice’s Cooperative Principle through giving the exact amount of information required of the question without qualifying his answer in any manner. The falling-rising contour pattern in T15 indicates Grace’s questioning of the pragmatic meaning of the context and also implies shock. Again, Robert’s preferred response in T16 is performed bald-on-record with no attempt for mitigation or redress, which foreshadows his relationship with Grace in his lack of desire to protect her face.
In T17, Grace’s initial pause followed by the initiation of another question-answer adjacency pair has a falling contour pattern, which implies she now understands the pragmatic meaning of the verb “leaving” in T13, and her closed tone is meant to sound rude and harsh as she crosses her arms in disgust rather than disbelief. In T18, the discourse marker “oh” expresses that Robert needs to clarify something (particularly his sexuality) in order to answer Grace’s question. Again, Robert continues to address this new piece of information bald-on-record with no attempt at mitigation. The second-pair part response in T18 to the first-pair part question asked by Grace in T17 is interrupted by Grace in T19. In T18 and T20, Robert is answering the question posed in T17 through self-initiated repair because he anticipates Grace’s confusion at the new information about his sexuality. Again, he threatens Grace’s face and chooses to confront the face-threatening act bald-on-record with no attempt at mitigation. His qualified answer adheres to Grice’s Cooperative Principle because although it addresses Grace’s question it also anticipates further confusion and thus he performs self-initiated repair in his response by clarifying he is leaving Grace for Sol in three brief in T20.
Frankie and Sol reenter the conversation in the next turn allocation. This time, Frankie attempts to clarify the pragmatic meaning of “Sol” used by Robert in T20. Her question in T21 is answered immediately by Sol, who gives a preferred response through lack of qualification and brevity of his response. This is the first time in the conversation that Sol threatens Frankie’s face baldly-on-record with no mitigation or redress and by not flouting any maxims in the process. However, in T24, Sol flouts the maxim of manner by not directly answering the question if he is gay. He is ambiguous in his answer. Frankie’s question in T23 is another example of a performative utterance in this conversation. The illocutionary act is questioning Sol’s sexuality, but in doing so, the perlocutionary act is seeking clarity on whether or not the marriage is null and void. The conversation continues:
T25 Grace: [Oh my god
T26 Frankie: No: This makes no sense: You’re business partners, you’re not lovers. FRIENDS (1) How long has this been going on?
T27 Sol: Well it’s been (.3) I don’t know exactly.
T28 Robert: [20 years.
In T25, Grace’s utterance serves as a discourse marker of her finally understanding exactly what the men are doing through their utterances – ending their marriages and simultaneously declaring a change in their sexualities. Frankie, on the contrary, still needs clarification, as she attempts to gain further understanding and engages in self-initiated repair in T26 as she first fails to acknowledge Sol’s declaration of love for Robert, but then after a pause, she questions how long the affair has been going on, which shows her acceptance of the situation and self-initiated understanding. In T27, Sol gives a dispreferred response to the question asked in T26. The first discourse marker, “well,” is an attempt to mitigate a face-threatening act by drawing out the conversation. The discourse marker, “I don’t know,” provides a filler and is again an act of avoidance to try to opt out of the face-threatening act. He flouts the maxim of manner by being ambiguous and failing to be brief. Thus, he is opting out of the face-threatening act at hand. However, in T28 Robert interrupts Sol, and gives a preferred second-pair part to the first-pair question that Frankie inquires about in T26 through adhering to Grice’s Cooperative Principle and also performing the face threatening act bald-on-record with no mitigation.
Overall Conclusion About the Conversation Analysis
As evidenced through the above conversational analysis, both Robert and Sol approached the disclosure of their newfound sexualities and yearning to leave their wives, performatives that threaten both Grace and Frankie’s positive and negative faces, in extremely different ways.
Thomas Holtgraves (1986) studied perceptions of direct and indirect speech acts with the assumption that the relative status of the interactants, their liking for one another, and the closeness of their relationships determine how one approaches a face-threatening act. Through experimentation, he concluded that evasive replies are more polite than a direct reply when the situation is face threatening (Holtgraves 309). In the observed conversation, Sol’s replies tended to be more evasive and less frank than Robert’s, which implies that Sol was more concerned with threatening Frankie’s face. Sol’s common use of dispreferred responses were efforts to avoid the face-threatening act. Likewise, Sol’s conversational implicatures were further attempts to avoid face-threatening acts. According to Brown and Levinson (1987), an off-record strategy for face threatening acts is to violate Grice’s maxim of manner by being vague or ambiguous. One example of Sol doing this occurs when he is ambiguous about how long he has been in love with Robert in order to perform the face-threatening act off record. Additionally, Sol utilized more discourse markers as fillers to show reluctance in confronting the face-threatening act. Fraser (1988) classified discourse markers as a type of commentary pragmatic marker, or containing a separate message based on the speaker’s comment on the underlying message. Fraser wrote, “the absence of the discourse marker does not render a sentence ungrammatical and/or unintelligible. It does, however, remove a powerful clue about what commitment the speaker makes regarding the relationship between the current utterance and the prior discourse” (Fraser 22). Thus, the power of discourse markers that are shown in this spoken language further symbolize to viewers that Sol is uncomfortable with threatening Frankie’s face. However, the lack of discourse markers in Robert’s speech, or the use of discourse markers particularly to transition topics, show that he is not phased by threatening Grace’s face.
In contrast to Sol’s utterances, Robert tends to give more preferred responses, adheres to Grice’s Cooperative Principle, and confronts face-threatening acts baldly, on-record, and without redress. According to Brown and Levinson (1987), normally a face-threatening act is approached in this manner only if the speaker does not fear retribution from the addressee. Additionally, by going on record, a speaker can avoid being misunderstood. Robert’s responses and utterances show that he is ready to “rip off the Band-Aid” and does not have as much regard for threatening Grace’s face as Sol does for Frankie’s. For example, one positive politeness strategy that Brown and Levinson (1987) address is being optimistic and including the person whose face is threatened in the activity, which occurs when Sol includes Frankie’s rationale that change is good in his elongated and convoluted manner of addressing “coming out.”
Through this conversation analysis, one can infer what Grace and Robert’s relationship is like as well as Frankie and Sol’s if interpreted correctly. After this initial scene, the four always stay in one another’s lives. However, Grace and Robert do not have a friendship – they coexist peacefully, but they do not offer anything of value to one another. On the contrary, Frankie and Sol remain best friends. They continue to watch their favorite television shows together and do their favorite activities. This in-depth conversation analysis shows how important pragmatic meanings of utterances are in the spoken language. In the future, more research could compare how Robert confronts other face-threatening acts with various individuals to see if he confronted this face-threatening act because that is his personality or if he did this because of a distinct relationship with Grace. Likewise, one could study further conversational analyses involving Sol in the same manner to further interpret the light that conversational analysis of the spoken language shines on both one’s personality and relationships with others.
Works Cited
Brown, P. & Levinson, S.C. (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fraser, B. (1988). TYPES OF ENGLISH DISCOURSE MARKERS. Acta Linguistica Hungarica, 38(1/4), 19-33. Retrieved from www.jstor.org/stable/44362602
Holtgraves, Thomas. (1986). Language Structure in Social Interaction. Perceptions of Direct and Indirect Speech Acts and Interactants Who Use Them. Journal of personality and social psychology. 51. 305-13. 10.1037/0022-3514.51.2.305.
Link to Video: Grace and Frankie Season 1, Episode 1 “The End” Begin at 2 minutes, 33 seconds
https://www.netflix.com/watch/80017360?tctx=1%2C1%2Cef5d8d32-df31-4895-9405-9c755c91f0b9-31757881%2C4cb36397-0628-455f-8773-eae97187a41c_49281546X3XX1582710012401%2C4cb36397-0628-455f-8773-eae97187a41c_ROOT&trackId=14170286