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Politeness and characterisation
Task B – Our answer
Jeeves interrupts the Captain three times and the Captain
only interrupts him once:
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Turn 6 – Jeeves interrupts
the Captain (cf. the incomplete structure and ‘. . .’
at the end of turn 5, and the stage direction at the beginning of
6).
-
Turn 8 – Jeeves interrupts
the Captain (cf. the incomplete structure and the dash at the end
of 7).
-
Turn 16 – Jeeves interrupts
the Captain (cf. ‘. . .’ at the end of turn 15). Note
that Jeeves also interrupts the Captain when he is complaining in
15 about the fact that he had not finished what he wanted to say when
Jeeves ‘stole a turn’ in 14.
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Turn 23 – the Captain interrupts
Jeeves (cf. the incomplete structure and ‘. . .’ at the
end of turn 22 and the stage direction at the beginning of 23).
It would appear that as Jeeves interrupts the Captain three times when
he only has 13 turns (interruption rate: roughly once per 4 turns), he
is using interruption in a strategic way to interfere with the Captain’s
‘conversational flow’, as well as to be negatively impolite.
The Captain, on the other hand, only interrupts once, and after Jeeves
has performed all his interruptions. Moreover, his interruption is to
try to sort out what he thinks is a misunderstanding on Jeeves’s
part in turn 22. Actually Jeeves has not misunderstood at all, but is
being deliberately obtuse, but we will come to that later (Task E).
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