Chapter Four Spoken vs Written Language.doc

Lecture Two Spoken versus written languageDifferences:Spoken language happens in time, and must therefore be produced and processed on line. There is no going back and changing or restructing our words as there is in writing. There is often no time to pause and think and while we are talking or listening, we do not stand back and view the discourse in spatial or diagrammatic terms. There are many discourse types which are between writing and speech: spoken language which is read or learnt from a script (like news bulletins and plays) or based on written notes (lectures). The contexts for using written language are very different from those in which spoken language is used. Written language is used to communicate with others who are removed in time and space, or for those occasions on which a permanent or semi-permanent record is requiered. While most people in other cities or countries could be communicated with by telephone, certain types of message are more appropriate in written form- postcard greetings to family and friends. Halide suggests that written language is used for action (public signs, product labels, television and radio guides, bills menus telephone directories, ballot paper, computer manuals); for information (newspapers, current affairs magazines, advertisements, political pamphlets); and for entertainment (comic strips, fiction books, poetry and drama, -these different purposes will, be reflected in the features of the texts themselves: letters have different characteristics from newspaper editorials, from poems. When we consider the concept of genre, these differences can be observed within the sentences at the level of grammar, and beyond the sentence at the level of text structure.Linguistic features Spoken WrittenSparsely-dotted lexical words dense-dottedSmall words grammatically structuredLoose structure formalInformal complete sentencesIncomplete structures big wordsMinor sentences punctuationProsodic Speech Writing6.emphasis(intonation) word order7.pauses,interjections,fillers (real time) punctuation8.face-to face editing9.dialogic isolated10.feedback individual,monologicMore nouns or noun phrases in writtenMore clauses in spokenContractions informalityOne of the frequent words in spoken is THING STUFF, a lot of,do,nice,place,and things like that.(vague)-To be too precise sounds authorative,rudeCF. Pass that glass to me that Differences in three aspects will be explored in detail: Grammar; lexical density; and situationLinguistically, written language tends to consist of clauses that are internally complex, whereas with spoken language the complexity exists in the ways in which clauses are joined together. This is illustrated in the following extracts1a being the written text 1b being the spoken one.1a.Like VincentdIndy, a disciple of Cesar Frank, Chausson shares with them a dreamy, even idle poetry, sumptuous but precise orchestration, and an energy that is intimate rather than powerful, ascetic rather than importance.1b11)This morning Associate Professor Dean Wolfe will talk about the sconce of music at half past eleven, and well hear some fascinating things such as musicians playing music backwards-but most of it will be played forwards. (This morning at half-past eleven, Associate Professor dean Wolfe will present program entitled the science of Music, in which the listener will experience a number of fascinating things, including music played backwards although most will be played forwards!).We can see that the written text 1a seems to have more information packed into it. This text contains only one main clause, in contrast with the spoken text in which there are several clauses chained together in an additive fashion. In a sense spoken language is unedited. If the speaker above had had the opportunity to present the same content in written form, he may have produced something along the following lines:1c. This morning at half past eleven, Associate Professor Dean Wolfe will present a programmed entitled: The Science of Music, in which the listener will experience a number of fascinating things, including music played backwards-although most will be played forwards!Lexical density: Differ in the ration of content words to grammatical or function words. (Content or lexical words include nouns and verbs, while grammatical words include such things as prep. Ronan articles) the number of lexical or content words per clause is referred to as lexical density. I the following example, there are twelve content words in a single clause and therefore it ahs a lexical density of 12.1d.The use of this method of control of unquestionably leads to faster and faster trains running in the most adverse weather conditions.A spoken version of the above text may be as follows:1e. You can control the trains this wayAnd if you do that, you can be quite sure that theyll be able to run more safely and more quickly Than they would otherwise, no matter how bad the weather getsIn 1e, there are 10 content words (control, trains, way ,sure,run,safety, quickly,bad.weather,gets) distributed between 5 clauses. The lexical density is 2.The density of written language is also reinforced by the tendency to create nouns forms This is called nominalization.or grammatical metaphor. Spoken WrittenGood writers reflect on what they write. Reflection is a characteristic of good writers. These linguistic differences between spoken and written language are not absolutes. As I have already pointed out, some written texts share many of the characters of spoken texts, and vice versa. The linguistics shape of text will be determined by a range of factors relating to the context and purse for which it was produced in the first place. I. Identify which of the following sentences is spoken English and which is written English?12)A) Opinion in the colony greeted the promised change with enthusiasm. B) The people in the colony rejoiced when it was promised tha5t things would change in the way.13)A) Every previous visit had left me with a sense of the futility of further action on my part.B) Whenever Id visited there before, Id ended up feeling that it would be futile if I tried to do anything more.Discussion: There tend to be more clauses in spoken discourse; written language is dense, spoken language is sparse.II.What fascinates me with that is the way it s rolled.(Wh-clefts) thematic equatives are more widespread in spoken English.III.Identify which sentence is spoken or written, and turn it form spoken mode into written mode or vise versa.1)A gray-faced Dr Coffin unlocked the door.(Dr Coffin unlocked the door, and as he did so his face was gray.)Guy Cook 115 McCarthy 12-26;118-170Models of Analysis.One influential approach to the study of spoken discourse is that developed at the university of Birmingham, where research initially concerned with the structure of discourse in school classrooms(Sinclair and Coulthard).This model is a relatively simple and powerful model-study of speech acts, also try to capture larger structures. They found in the language of native speaker school classrooms a rigid pattern. Teachers and pupils spoke according to very fixed perceptions of their roles and the talk could be seen to conform to highly structured sequences.extract (1)(T =teacher P=any pupil who speaks)T: Now thenIve got some things here,too.Hands up.Whats that, what is it?P: Saw.T:Its a saw, yes this is asaw.What do we do with a saw?P: Cut wood.T: Yes.You is shouting out though. /What do we do with a saw? Marvelette.P:Cut wood.T: We cut wood./And, erm, what do we do with a hacksaw, this hacksaw?P:Cut trees.T:Do we cut trees with this?P:No.NO.T: Hands up. What do we do with this?Picot wood.T: Do we cut wood with this?P:No.T: What do we do with that then?P:Cut wood.T: We cut wood with that.What do we do with that?P: Sir.T:Cleveland. P:Metal.T: We cut metal. Yes we cut metal. And, er, Ive got this here.Whats that? Trevor.Pan axe.T:Its an axe yes.What do I cut with the axe?P:Wood,wood.T:Yes I cut wood with the axe.RightNow then,Ive got some more things here(etc) Things notices:1)although it is only a part of a larger discourse9a lesson. It seems to have completeness. Begins with “Now then” and ends with” Right.Now then”.the teacher in his planning and execution of the lesson decides that the lesson shall be marked out in spome way;he does not just run on without a pause from one part of the lesson to another.In fact he gives his puples a clear signsl of the beginning and end of this mini-phase of the lesson by using the words now then and right in a particular way.(with fsalling intonation and a short pause afterwards)that make thme into a sort offrameon either sede of thhe sequence of questions and answers. Framing move is precisely what Sinclair and Coulthard call the function of such utterances.The two framing mocves ,qtogether with the question and answer sequence that falls between them, canbe called a transactiondiferent from the transaction in a shop.Transactions with framing moves of this kind arw common in a number of other settings too: telephone calls ar perhaps the most obvious ,espacialppy when wewish to close the call once the necessary business is done; a job interview is another situation where various phrases of the interview are likely to be marked by the chirperson or main interviewer sayings things like:rightwell now orokay,rather in the way the teacher does.2)If we returnto our piece of classroom d