Hi vanHorck,
Originally Posted by vanHorck
By adding "Là" if taken on it's own it is almost an expression of non-responsability in the sense of "don't ask me" (!!) or at the very least a form of very casual talk, not likely in this situation.
Is this explanation correct?
In French "Là ... et Là ..." is often used to point at different subsequent things.
It could, but this is not correct in this context, as you seems obviously not used to hear this kind of talk which is completely informal. "Là" is used in such talk as a pointer meaning "now, at this point". It is very common talk and everybody I know speaks like that in real life, including the PF:
- "
Là c’est bon
là, on serait revenu les ailes à plat [
là]..." => now (at this point) it is good, now we are back to wings level...
- "je suis entrain de descendre
là?" ) => Am I descending now?
- "
là je monte okay alors on descend [
là]..." => Now I'm climbing... okay then now we'll go down...
If one want to point at something (an instrument), he will very likely use "çuilà" (celui-là) or "çuici" (celui-ci):
- çuilà (celui-là) monte = this one is rising
- çuici (celui-ci) descend = that one is falling
or even more undefined, "ça":
- ça monte, ça descend...
but you could find also "là ça" as an attention getter:
- là ça monte, là ça descend
It is obvious from the conversation that the crew is talking freely and that there is no formality between each others, including the captain.