~MASTERING~

ADVANCE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

SPOKEN
LANGUAGE
 ~SPOKEN LANGUAGE~
Modern Linguists Traditional Linguists

Oral medium emphasized Written medium emphasized

Longman  British National Corpus Lancaster/ Longman Corpus

Parameters Sources

*gender *spontaneous conversation *literature

*age *business meetings *magazines
*social status *lecturers *newspapers
*region *speeches *leaflets
*frequency *chat shows *packing
of usage *everyday situations

Speech & Writing Differences

Acknowledges the PHATIC
Establish
importance of COMMUNICATION atmosphere/ create
social contact

Spoken Language Dominant mode

Variety of contexts
Various
registers
Range of purposes
•Lexical
• Grammatical Distinctive
• Stylistic characteristics
• Structural

Cultural Expectations Dictate

+ speakers’ role
Shared values

Constant process
of EVALUATION PARALINGUISTICS
 Spoken Written
- Composed by sounds - Composed by letters/signs
- Produced effortlessly- no - Produced with effort-
tools required tools required
- Transitory - Relatively permanent
- Addressee present - Addressee absent
- Perceived by the ear - Perceived by the eye
- Immediate feedback - Feedback delayed
- Spontaneous - Not spontaneous
- Associative - Logical
- Meaning helped by context, - Meaning must be clear
body movements, gestures within the context

Wide range of purposes

Phatic (inf. conversation) Referential (informative)
Transactional (request)
Expressive
 Features of Spoken Language
 Manner: status of participants FORMAL
INFORMAL

 The Speakers: their relationship & their fixed status

 Topic and Goal are directly related to the manner and participants

Formal Speech Spontaneous Inf. Conversation

o Predetermined content o Random topic
o No evidence of conscious planning

 Topic Shift
 Topic Placement
 The end of the Topic Linguistic signals
 New topics
 New form
 Interruptions
 Topic Management
 The Structure

 Formal Discourse Structural devices typical of written language

 Informal Speech Distinctive structural features

o Adjacency Pairs Recognisable structural pattern

o Turn-Taking Participants are skilful in manipulating turns
o Transitions Smoothly
o Overlaps Rarely lasts for long
o Opening & Closing Using a neutral starting point
o Hospitality Tokens Customary social acts

 Body of a Dialogue Speaker Moves

o Frame
o Initiate
o Focus
o Support or Follow up
o Challenge
 Prosodic Features  Lexis

 Intonation  Conversational lexis

 Pitch  Colloquial idiom

 Stress  Hyperbole
o Tone units

 Loudness and Pace  Phatic communication

 Pauses  Vocalisations
o Voiceless hesitation, Voiced Pauses,
Word searching
 Abbreviations
 Vocal Effects
o Giggling, Coughing, Throat clearing
 Ambiguity
o Paralinguistics
 Grammar

 Informal  Formal

o Minor sentences o Conforms standard

patterns
o Co-ordinated clauses
o Less erratic
o Phrasal verbs
o Contracted forms

 Non-fluency features

 Hesitancy: Voiced hesitations or filled pauses

 Slips of the tongue

 Simultaneous speech

 Overlaps: quite common in conversation Minimal Responses

 Problems Temporary interruptions can be dealt with in many
ways

 Repair  aims at restoring a conversation

 Topic Loops  reintroducing an earlier topic

 Listener Response  speaker’s way of encouraging the

listener to acknowledge that
communication is effective

 Silence - answers are not given quickly

- greetings are not returned
- lack of response
Types of Spoken Language