THEME 5.

ORAL COMMUNICATION. ELEMENTS AND RULES GOVERNNING SPOKEN

LANGUAGE. USUAL FORMULAE IN SPOKEN ENGLISH. SPOKEN LANGUAGE
STRATEGIES.

OUTLINE.

1. INTRODUCTION.

2. ELEMENTS AND RULES GOVERNING SPOKEN LANGUAGE.

2.1. Planning and execution.
2.2. Planning speaking as problem solving.
2.2.1. Knowledge of the listener.
2.2.2. The cooperative principle.
2.2.3. The reality principle.
2.2.4. Social context.
2.2.5. Linguistic devices available.
2.3. Structure of discourse: the thematic structure.
2.3.1. Given and new information.
2.3.2. Subject and predicate.
2.3.3. Frame and insert.
2.4. Differences between spoken and written language.
2.5. Formal characteristics of spoken language.
2.6. The constructional principles of spoken language.

3. USUAL FORMULAE AND ROUTINES IN SPOKEN ENGLISH.

3.1. Tags.
3.2. Interjections.
3.3. Response signals.
3.4. Response elicitors.
3.5. Response forms.
3.6. Greetings and farewells.
3.7. Discourse markers.
3.8. Various polite speech-act formulae.
3.9. Expletives.
3.10. First person imperatives ‘Let’s’

4. SPOKEN LANGUAGE STRATEGIES.

4.1. Discourse plans.
4.2. Turn Taking.
4.3. Adjacency Pairs.
4.4. Grice’s cooperative principle.
4.5. Opening conversations.
4.6. Closing Conversations.

5. CONCLUSION.

6. BIBLIOGRAPHY.

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1. INTRODUCTION: ORAL COMMUNICATION.

Communication is widely understood as the exchange and negotiation of meaning between at

least two individuals through a common code. A useful distinction can be drawn between two
basic language functions. These are the transactional function, which is primarily concerned with
the transfer of information, and the interactional function, in which the primary purpose of
speech is to maintain social relationships. Therefore, we are faced with a two-sided phenomenon:
on the one hand, communication as the exchange of meaning, and on the other,
communication as a means of social interaction.
Talking seems to require little thought or effort, but the effortlessness of speaking is deceptive.
This becomes obvious when people attempt something difficult, like telling a story, explaining a
joke, instructing someone on how to tie a tie, etc. Then they find themselves planning where to
start, what to include and what to omit, what words to use and what route to take. Speakers
may hesitate mid-sentence to pick just the right word, pause between sentences to plan what to
say next, and correct phrases they have just spoken. What at first glance appears so effortless and
automatic is in fact riddled with complicated processes of decision, articulation and correction.

2. ELEMENTS AND RULES GOVERNING SPOKEN LANGUAGE.

2.1. Planning and execution.

Speaking is fundamentally an instrumental act. It appears to be divided into two types of activity:
planning and execution. Speakers first plan what they want to say, based on how they want to
change the mental state of their listeners. They then put their plan into execution, uttering the
segments, words, phrases and sentences that make up the plan. The division between planning
and execution, however, is not a clean one, since, at moments, speakers are usually doing a little
of both. They are planning what to say next while executing what they had planned moments
before. It is impossible to say where planning leaves off and execution begins.

2.2. Planning speaking as problem solving.

In planning what to say speakers implicitly have a problem to solve, namely, what linguistic
devices should be selected to affect the listener in the way that the speaker intends to. The
solution to this problem is not easy. It requires a battery of considerations:

2.2.1. Knowledge of the listener: Depending on what speakers think listeners know, they will
refer to a third person as she, my next door neighbour, or the woman over there.

2.2.2. The cooperative principle: Speakers expect their listeners to assume that they are trying
to be cooperative, that they are trying to tell the truth, be informative, be relevant, and be clear.
They can, therefore, say what a glorious day out! on a rainy day, for example, and be confident
that their listeners will catch the irony.

2.2.3. The reality principle: They expect their listeners to assume they will talk about
comprehensible events, states and facts. Thus, the invented compound alligator-shoes will be
interpreted as ‘shoes made from alligators’, not as ‘shoes for alligators’, an unreal possibility
analogous to the legitimate horse-shoes.

2.2.4. The social context: Different social contexts lead to different vocabularies. Depending on
the formality of the situation, they will refer to police as policemen or cops.

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2.2.5. The linguistic devices available: Many things speakers may want to talk about have no
ready linguistic expressions. Planning is a process with choices and a goal to be accomplished. It
is viewed as a kind of problem solving.

2.3. The structure of discourse: thematic structure.

To be effective in conversations, speakers have to pay attention to their listeners: to what is new
and given information, to select the subject and predicate of their sentences, and to choose
the frame and insert of their utterances.

2.3.1. Given and new information. Speakers must tailor their sentences to fit what they think
their listeners know. Sentences signal given and new information by stress on particular
words. Take the following examples:

2.3.1.1. “It was your BROTHER who stole the money”. The speaker would expect the listener to
know that someone had stolen the money, but not that someone was his brother. This sentence is
therefore said to have two parts:
Given information: “Someone stole the money”.
New information: “That someone was your brother”.

2.3.1.2. “It was the MONEY that your brother stole”. This sentence, with different given and
new information, is appropriate to different circumstances, even though it also expresses the idea
that the listener’s brother stole the money.
Given information: Your brother had stolen something.
New information: That something was money.
Sentences signal given and new information by stress on particular words, as the capital letters
indicate. The word with focal stress, or a phrase containing it, always conveys the new
information.

2.3.2. Subject and predicate. When people talk, they also tailor their sentences to suit
themselves. They have something they want to talk about, and something they want to say about
it. These functions are conveyed, respectively, by the subject and the predicate, two grammatical
categories. These functions can be illustrated in the following sentences: “The police investigated
the robbery” and “The robbery was investigated by the police”.
In most sentences, the subject is given information and the predicate new information. Normally,
listeners know what speakers are talking about (the subject) but not what they are saying bout it
(the predicate). However, this need not be the case: Take the next sentence: “The OWNERS
investigated the robbery”. In English, and perhaps in most other languages, the functions served
by given and new information and by subject and predicate are signalled separately. In English,
given and new information are signalled by stress, and subject and predicate by position
and other relations within the sentence.

2.3.3. Frame and insert. When speakers place a particular phrase at the beginning of a sentence,
they are deliberately trying to orient their listeners towards a particular area of knowledge- to
give them a point of departure for their sentence. For this reason, the first phrase can be called a
frame, and the remainder of the sentence an insert for the frame. These two notions are illustrated
in the following sentences, with the frame in capital letters:

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2.3.3.1. “ON THE FILM SET Mr. Fields was delightful”;

2.3.3.2. “HARDLY EVER did Mr. Fields crack a smile”;

2.3.3.3. “DOWN HIS GULLET went the last nip of gin”;

2.3.3.4. “MR. FIELDS was a good juggler”.

The point of departure in 1 is being set on the film. It is the frame within which the fact that Mr.
Fields was delightful is to be inserted. Similarly, the point of departure for 2 is the rarity of the
event, for 3 the swallowing of things and for 4 Mr. Fields himself.
In the simplest sentences the frame coincides with the subject and is part of the given
information. In “Sam broke my glasses”, Sam is not only the subject and part of the given
information, but also the frame. The point of departure that speakers plan for an utterance (the
frame) is normally the same as what they are talking about (the subject), and that in turn is
usually information known to their listeners (the given information). Yet, the frame can be
separated from both the subject and the given information, as in the next sentence: “Sam she
met”.
A final note of warning. The notions of frame and insert have been very difficult for linguists to
characterize and so have been surrounded by controversy and confusing terminology. What some
authors call given and new information, Halliday called theme and rheme.

2.4. Differences between spoken and written language.

2.4.1. Speakers have a much greater range of possibilities at their command than writers. Apart
from the actual words they use, they can vary their intonation and stress, which helps them to
show which part of what they are saying is most important. By varying the pitch and intonation
in their voices, they can clearly convey their attitude to what they are saying, too.
At any point in a speech event, speakers can rephrase what they are saying, and in a face to face
interaction the speaker can use a whole range of facial expressions, gestures and general body
language to help to convey the message.
Not all speakers have the benefit of such immediate listener feedback, however. Speakers on the
telephone, for example, have to rely on the words and the use of intonation, pitch and stress only.
Perhaps the single most important difference between writing and speaking, however, concerns
the need for accuracy. Native speakers constantly make ‘mistakes’ when they are speaking.
They hesitate and say the same thing in different ways.

2.4.2. A piece of writing, however, with mistakes and half-finished sentences, would be judged
by many speakers as illiterate since it is expected that writing should be ‘correct’. From the
point of view of language teaching, therefore, there is often far greater pressure for written
accuracy than there is for accuracy in speaking.
The writer also suffers from the disadvantage of not getting immediate feedback from the
reader. Writers can not use intonation or stress, and facial expression, gesture and body
movement are denied to them. These disadvantages have to be compensated for by greater clarity
and by the use of grammatical and stylistic techniques. Perhaps most importantly there is a
greater need for logical organization in a piece of writing than there is in a conversation.

2.4.3. When teaching writing, therefore, there are special considerations to be taken into
account which include the organizing of sentences into paragraphs, how paragraphs are joined
together, and the general organization of ideas into a coherent piece of discourse.

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2.5. Formal characteristics of spoken language.

The following can be considered the most typical features of spoken English, which, at the same
time, differentiate it from written English:

2.5.1. First person narration, involvement of the speaker in the speech.

2.5.2. Preference of the active voice over the passive.

2.5.3. Much coordination parataxis: The use of main clauses side by side, with or without a
connecting word like and, and without the use of subordinate clauses: Jim bought a car from
Sally. Sally sold the car to Jim.

2.5.4. Contractions: A short way of pronouncing a word or a sequence of words: can’t, she’ll,
won’t, she’d (had or would), o’er.

2.5.5. Slurring (‘kinda’ kind of; wanna, ’want to)

2.5.6. Discourse fillers (um…, er…, well.., you know..) hesitation devices.

2.5.7. Repetition of lexical words, reformulation, redundancy.

2.5.8. Expressive interactions, tag questions, intonation emphasizers, body language.

2.5.9. Verb tense shifting.

2.5.10. Use of hedges (kind/sort of, just) and vague terms (thing), enabling the speakers to carry
on the conversation during times of difficulty.

2.5.11. False starts, reformulation, topic changes.

2.5.12. Deictic ‘this/that’ instead of ‘the’.

2.5.13. Greater number of function words than lexical words leading to more grammatical
complexity and less lexical density. (See theme 6).

2.5.14. Use of ellipsis in replies: Where did you guys park? –right over there.

2.6. The constructional principles of spoken grammar.

There are certain strategies which can be highlighted in reference to the grammar used in
conversational English, which can be seen as to some extent a different system with different
rules from the grammar or written English. These strategies would explain the formal
characteristics which have been signalled in the previous section.

2.6.1. Spoken language takes place in real time, thus three principles of online production for
spoken English can be stated briefly:
-Keep talking: the obvious need to keep the conversation moving forward. There are three main
repair strategies to retrieve the situation: to hesitate and give yourself more time to plan, to

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backtrack and re-start, leaving your rejected piece of discourse incomplete, or to yield the floor
to another person, without attempting to complete it.
-Limited planning ahead: speakers suffer from limited planning time derived from the
limitations of human memory (working memory).
-Qualification of what has been said.

3. USUAL FORMULAE IN SPOKEN LANGUAGE.

In this section, we are going to consider different ‘formulae’ which are characteristic of spoken
language. Some of them could also be considered as strategies used by speakers in order to
compensate for the indefiniteness typical of spoken language.

3.1. Tags:

-Retrospective comment clauses: And then they’re open seven days a week you say.
-Question tags: You had a nice trip though yeah?

3.2. Interjections.

They are inserts with an exclamatory function, expressive of the speaker’s emotion.
-Oh: to introduce utterance or to respond to the utterances of others: Oh yeah, Oh yes, Oh no, Oh
well, Oh God, Oh I see.
-Ah and wow: less common and conveying a greater intensity of feeling.
-Oops and Whoops: when a minor mishap occurs.
-Ugh (to express a degree of disgust), aargh and urgh (more generalised to express pain and
displeasure).

3.3. Response signals.

To attract the attention of addressees: Hey, Say.

3.4. Response elicitors.

Seeking a signal that the message has been understood and accepted: huh?, eh?, alright?, okay?.

3.5. Response forms:

Brief and routine responses to a previous remark by a different speaker: yes, no, okay, uh, huh,
mhm, yeah, yep, nope, unh.

3.6. Greetings and farewells.

They are typically reciprocal in a ‘symmetrical’ exchange: Hi, Hello, Good morning, Morning,
Bye, See you, Bye bye, Good bye, See you later, Good night.

3.7. Discourse markers.

To signal a transition in the evolving progress of the conversation and to signal an interactive
relationship between speaker, hearer and message: well, right, now.

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3.8. Various polite speech-act formulae.

They are inserts or formulae used in conventional speech acts, such as thanking, apologising,
requesting, and congratulating: Please, thank you, Thanks, No problem, Sorry, That’s okay, Beg
your pardon, Pardon me, Congratulations, Good luck.

3.9. Expletives.

They are taboo or semi-taboo expressions used as exclamations, especially in reaction to some
strongly negative experience:
-Taboo expletives: God, Jesus, Dams, Goddammit, Shit, Bloody hell, Goddamn asshole, Fuck.
-Moderated expletives: My gosh, Geez, gee, Heavens, Good grief, Good Lord.
3.10. First Person imperatives with ‘Let’s’: A quite flexible construction to propose a joint
action by speaker and hearer, with a quasi-imperative meaning for second person: Let’s go home.
You all have something to do for Ms. Peters? Let’s do it, please.

4. SPOKEN LANGUAGE STRATEGIES.

We will now analyze certain pragmatic strategies which should be considered in the study of
spoken language.

4.1. Discourse plans.

Each participant in a conversation comes to it with a particular goal in mind. The problem is how
to coordinate their speech so that they can jointly reach their respective goals. The process leads
us to consider turn-taking, adjacency pairs, the cooperative principle, opening conversations, and
closing conversations.

4.2. Turn-taking.

The planning of conversations is complex. Each participant comes to a conversation with a

particular goal in mind and is aware that the other participants have goals of their own. The
problem they have to solve is how to coordinate their speech so that they can jointly reach their
respective goals, that is to say, how to take turns. The major requirements are obvious: each
participant should have a chance to talk; only one person should talk at a time; the gaps between
turns should be brief for efficiency. Together, these requirements lead to a system of turn taking,
the orderly passing of the conversational ball from one person to the next.
Speakers must agree implicitly on an orderly method for talking. The problem of coordinating
talk is solved by the conventions captured in these three rules:
1. The next turn goes to the person addressed by the current speaker.
2. The next turn goes to the person who speaks first.
3. The next turn goes to the current speaker, if he resumes before anyone else speaks.

4.3. Adjacency Pairs.

A significant proportion of turn taking is coordinated by rules 1, where one speaker addresses a
second and the second responds. Together the two turns constitute an adjacency pair. These
adjacency pairs come in many varieties, a few of which are listed with examples:

4.3.1. Question-answer: A: What do you want for dinner? B: Steak will be fine.

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4.3.2. Greeting-greeting: A: Hi. B: Hi.

4.3.3. Offer-acceptance/rejection: A: Let’s go to the movie tonight. B: Okay! Sorry, I’d rather
not. I’m so tired now.

4.3.4. Assertion-acknowledgement: A: Bill didn’t even come home the next night, B: Oh,
really?

4.3.5. Compliment-acceptance/rejection: A: I’m glad I have you for a friend. B: Your words
honour me! Ah, go jump in a lake.

4.3.6. Request-grant: A: I don’t want to see ‘Gone with the Wind’ again. B: Okay, Let’s go to
the opera, then.

4.4. Grice’s Cooperative Principle.

In order to communicate accurately and efficiently, speakers and listeners try to cooperate with
one another. They observe conventions in what is said and how it is expressed. These
conventions are expressed through four maxims:

4.4.1. Maxim of quantity: Make your contribution as informative as required, but not more
informative than is required.

4.4.2. Maxim of quality: Try to make your contribution one that is true. That is, do not say
anything you believe to be false or lack adequate evidence for.

4.4.3. Maxim of relevance: Make your contribution relevant to the aims of the ongoing
conversation.

4.4.4. Maxim of manner: Be clear; try to avoid obscurity, ambiguity, wordiness and
disorderliness in your use of the language.
It is easy how communication can break down when speakers do not adhere to these maxims.
Take a violation of the maxim of quantity:
A: -Wilfred is meeting a woman for dinner tonight.
B: -Does his wife know about it?
A: -Of course she does. The woman he is meeting is his wife.
When A described the woman as a woman, instead of his wife, he was not being as informative
as he could have been, and B took him to mean that the woman was not Wilfred’s wife. By
violating the maxim of quantity, A misled B.

4.5. Opening conversations.

One person must get another’s attention and signal the desire for a conversation, and the other
person must show willingness to take part. For this purpose there is the summons-answer
sequence. One person says ‘Hey, Bill’, and the other says ‘yes?’. Or the first says ‘Pardon me,
sir’ to a stranger, and the stranger says ‘What?’
In such summons-answer sequences, it is the summoner who is obliged to provide the first topic
of conversations.

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Telephone conversations, like all other conversations, begin with a summons-answer sequence,
but here the telephone ring is the summons and the ‘Hello’ or ‘Extension 2889’ or ‘Clark Kent
speaking’ is the answer.

4.6. Closing conversations.

It is still more complicated to close a conversation. In a simple telephone conversation, the

participants A and B have to figure out some way to coordinate their conversations so that it ends
by mutual agreement. To solve this problem they close in two main steps. First, A and B agree to
close. Second, they actually close. It is the first step that poses the most difficult problem, and,
once again, adjacency pairs play a central role in the solution of how to get a conversation to
work.

5. CONCLUSION.

Our aim as teachers is to help our students to become communicatively competent in the foreign
language. In order to achieve this, we should make them aware of the different formulae and
strategies used in oral communication, while at the same time help them to be familiar with
listening and speaking activities.

6. BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Some of the books I have checked to elaborate this unit, all of them published in the 2nd half of
the 20th century, are the following:
HARMER, J. The Practice of English Language Teaching. Longman. 1991.
RICHARDS,J.C. Dictionary of Language Teaching & Applied Linguistics. Longman. 1985.
BYRNE, Donn. Teaching Oral English. Longman 1976.
BIBER, D. LEECH,G. Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Longman. London 1999.