In the dialogue, Deltoid shows a very close involvement, he goes as far as to reveal to Alex that he is “being a good friend to you as always, the one man in this sore and sick community who wants to save you from yourself”, and from this newly-regained friendly position he tries to understand and uncover possible handicaps, problems and questions that might exist in Alex’s mind asking: “Is it some devil that crawls inside you?”.
Hence, Mr. Deltoid shows solidarity to Alex. As we have already indicated, his social distance varies, during the conversation he often switches codes. When he speaks from the position of a parent/teacher, he uses forms of address such as “Alex boy, little Alex” (signs of involvement), while when taking the role of the authority he tries to warn: “I’m warning you, little Alex, to keep your handsome young proboscis out of the dirt”, he even threatens with a prison: “it’s not going to be the corrective school anymore. Next time it’s going to be the barry place.”
It might be also important that while Deltoid tries to achieve a contact with Alex, the boy, on the other hand, tries to keep a distance from the social adviser. Alex is detached from the dialogue, and because he gets into the position of a victim, he attempts to liberate from this pre-given role. As a “weapon” he uses, similarly like Mr. Deltoid, forms of address: “brother”, but most often “sir”, he uses sarcasm and irony: “to what do I owe the extreme pleasure?”, or he evades answering the question: “just a manner of speech”, or “the millicents have nothing on me, brother, sir I mean.” He also shows detachment via impersonal constructions such as: “nobody’s got anything on me, sir.”
What is, however, most evident when analyzing Alex’s speech is the use of Nadsat. Alex’s Nadsat vocabulary is another thing which shows his distance from Mr. Deltoid. This reality is observable not only in the dialogue, but also in Alex’s inner monologue, where he uses words of Russian origin, or onomatopoeic words that does not exist in contemporary English: “goloss, shlapa, gulliver, domy, chai, millicents, rookers, zooby”. The boy’s vocabulary is therefore another “weapon” he uses, when he does not want to play the role of the being-accused any longer.
Generally, the level of formality in our text inclines to be rather informal. This is of course again closely connected with Nadsat, because whenever language users start to speak a kind of slang and not the standard anymore, the language style degrades into an informal one. Mr. Deltoid in the dialogue tends to be more impersonal, while Alex, on the other hand, tends to be more personal – informal. This division is, however, not so clear when considering the forms of address.