Thinking About Dialogue

Discuss the dialogue that you over heard:

1.) Talk about the process of eavesdropping:

i. Where did you go?

Around the school; hallways, classrooms,  the gym, the cafeteria, windowseats, wherever we could find groups of people. 

ii. How long did you listen to conversation?

As long as we could, they were usually just small talk trying to break the awkward silence while the small groups walk the halls. 

iii. Who was it between?

We walked around following quite a few different groups, they were all different kids but all most involved guys, with the random addition of a girl or two.

iv. How did it feel to be recording the conversation?

I felt kinda awkward because I know I wouldn't like it if someone was doing it to me, and you never know what someone is going to be talking about. Yet I wish we found someone talking about something more interesting. We got nothing. 

2.) What insights did you gain about the way people speak?

People are rude, the way they speak to each other sounds awful if I guess you don't know them well enough to know they are just kidding around with their friends. They also have terrible language, every second word out of every guys mouth seemed to be a swear. 

3.) How can you apply this to your writing?

I could apply this to my writing in the way that every different age group has different tones and language choice when talking to each other, and that would help me to choice what to use depending on the characters in my writing. 

4.) How is personality and character revealed through conversation/dialogue?

I believe personality and character is revealed through conversation/dialogue with:

- tone

- word choice

- body language

- conversation topic

5.) What happens when more than two people participate in a conversation?

From all the conversations I saw that involved more than two people, two people still did most of the talking, the other just kinda followed, maybe laughed everyone and a while, that's about it. 

6.) What was the most surprising thing you learned about the way people converse?

I wasn't really surprised about anything, I know the way highschool kids talk to each other. I think I maybe would have been more surprised if I was to go somewhere, such as the mall, and listened to conversation of people in all different age groups and were to compare. 

7.) What are the differences and similarities between written and spoken conversation?

The differences between written and spoken conversation to me would be:

- spoken: body language, facial expression can be seen

              : tone can literally be heard

              : usually much more casual, less thought put into word choice and language choice

- written: tone and mood have to be expressed through words

             : expressions and body language have to be described 

             : much more thought and description

             : word choice is more thought out

The similarities between written and spoken conversation to me would be that they both have equal opportunities of telling a story just as well, word choice and mood choice are equally important, tone and mood can be expressed, and insight on characters of the story can be reached.