The Topic about Feather
In the context of K’s turn in line 4, K’s turn in line 1 is probably designed to pave the way for his presentation of ‘a better present’ (i.e. ‘feather’) for Forrest Gump, the main character of the film. In other words, K’s opening in line 1 seems intended to reserve K an extended turn to create a context for his presentation of his new gift idea as he does in line 4. K introduces this new gift in lines 4—5, and goes into detail about it till line 10 when J gets the floor and challenges K with a query: why don’t you give give him a bird (lines 11-12), a question prefaced by so which suggests that J has been closely monitoring and assessing K’s topic of ‘feather’, which has served to MBT Shoes On Sale touch off for her a further related matter, ‘bird’. We can see that although this matter raised by J (i.e. ‘bird’) is something different from ‘feather’, it is referred to in the middle of the prior long turn by K.
The general topic is thus that of ‘feather’, and J continues this theme but with a ‘sub-topic’, ‘bird’. This sub-topic is actually topicalized by K and H in the following turns, which culminate in negative commentaries about ‘bird’. Consequently, lines 11 to 17 constitute a sub-topic sequence in which the focus of the talk is seemingly about the matter of ‘bird’. But this sub-topic sequence is still associated with ‘feather’ in the sense that K and H are speaking in defense of the ‘feather’ topic.
As in Excerpt 1, a key observation in Excerpt 2 is that there is competition for chances to speak, and use of floor-holding strategies like fillers, sound stretches, and latched utterances and repetitions is very common. Without waiting for H to complete his utterance in line 18, J makes another challenge (lines 19-20): But the feather has no life (.2) and Jenny has life hah, which MBT Chapa overlaps with part of H’s utterance in the prior turn. This second query from J marks that she is no longer pursuing the topic of ‘bird’ and is now shifting to a ‘life’ matter. K responds to this ‘life’ matter through lines 21 to 23. The short pause at the end of his utterance, and a Yes that follows, show that K’s clarification of the ‘life’ matter is finished. The further 0.2 second silence within the group indicates that J is probably now satisfied with K’s clarification. The whole sequence of ‘feather’ thus comes to a close.
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