SPOKEN AND

WRITTEN
GRAMMAR
SPOKEN GRAMMAR
Spoken grammar is the grammar of everyday interaction.

It is informal and natural.

Spoken Grammar is flexible in its word order.

Spoken grammar is more dynamic and immediate

Spoken grammar is more communicative as it presents ideas

lower-level engagement.
ASPECTS OF SPOKEN GRAMMAR

Unplanned
Less structured
Interactive
CHARACTERISTICS OF SPOKEN GRAMMAR
 Ellipsis
 Dislocation
 Tails
 Fillers
 Backchannels
 Phrasal Chunks
ELLIPSIS
is the omission of elements normally part of a
certain structure and is found in either spoken
or written English.
DISLOCATION

Dislocation is a sentence structure in which a consistent

occurs outside the clause boundaries, either to its left or to
its right.
Heads, also known as left-dislocation, are a way to introduce
and orient listeners to a topic before giving information on
the topic.
TAILS
Tails, also known as right-dislocation, are comments
that are added to the end of a phrase.
Are comments that are added to the end of a phrase.
FILLERS
Fillers are words and utterances like “er”, “well”, “hmmm”,
and “um” that do not have a specific meaning.
They don’t have a specific meaning but rather fill time and
allow the speaker to gather or her thought.
BACKCHANNELS

Backchannels are words and utterance like “uh-uh”,

“oh” “yeah”, and “I see”.
They serve as an important communicative and
interpersonal function, and it would be both different
and awkward to have a conversation without them.
PHRASAL CHUNKS

Phrasal words or phrase that can combine with

others elements but can as ready-made lexical units
of language.
Are fixed words or phrase that can combine with
other elements but act as ready-made lexical units of
language.
WRITTEN GRAMMAR

Written grammar is more formal and flexible.

Written Grammar tends to be more complex and
intricate than speech with longer sentences.
ASPECTS OF WRITTEN GRAMMAR

Planned
Organized
Transactional
CHARACTERISTICS OF WRITTEN GRAMMAR

Final drafts status

Density of content
Grammar
Punctuation
Writing is usually permanent ad written texts cannot usually
be changed once they have been printed/written out.
A written grammar can communicate across time and space
for as long as the particular language and writing system is
still understood.
Writers can make use of punctuations, headings, layout,
colors and other graphical effects in their written texts. Such
things are not available in speech.
 Written grammar

“Would you like to go out to lunch?”

 Spoken Grammar

“You wanna go out for lunch?

 Grammatically

 Oral communication uses words with fewer syllables than the written
language

 Written English consists of neat, correct sentences. Speech usually consists

of idea units.