Homework Analysis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZpOY-bymZA

I decided to use this clip because it is one of my favourite episodes of FRIENDS as well as it does have some good language features to analyse.

At the beginning of the clip the comedy comes from Ross trying to give a serious lecture in a very obviously fake British accent. As well as the accent, Ross starts out using a formal register to talk to the students by saying "image his consternation" but when he realizes his friends are there he changes the register by saying, "Oh, bloody hell." Once the lecture has finished one of the professors is there and Ross continues his fake accent allowing the others to join in. The different accents they use from across the world allows for stereotypical phrases to be uttered allowing for more comedy. Monica says "Top of the morning to you laddies." and Rachel says "Yes, yes, Bombay is very, very nice this time of year." The comedy also derives from the fact that Ross and Monica are related and yet have different accents and Rachel talks in an accent which makes it unlikely to believe she is from there or been there long enough to pick up a strong accent.

The connotations you would expect from this clip would be education, paleontology, serious, possible boring. However, by playing with the accents the connotations change to being more stereotypical of different accents, funny, taking the serious nature out of being a professor at a university which seems to be an ongoing thing throughout the show when Ross becomes a professor.

When Rachel prank calls Ross saying "Hi, Ross, this is Dr. McKneely from the fake accent university, we would like you to come on board with us full time." It particularly plays with the language because no university professor would greet someone about to take the position with "Hi" as the greeting as it is very informal as well as calling them by their first name.

At the end of the clip we see Ross phasing out his accidental British accent. He does this by saying certain words or part of words in a different accent rather than changing the words and phrases he would say to reflect which dialect he was speaking in. The register changes when he is caught out by his students for speaking in a fake accent, he changes from formal register to informal and he does this throughout the clip. At the very end of the clip we see Ross put the accent back on even though his students know it's fake because Rachel comes in yelling at him for not getting the divorce, making Ross' image more tainted than ever.