Differences between Differences between Spoken and Written Spoken and Written DiscourseDiscourseLecture # 24

Discourse as a System of Discourse as a System of functions ? (Review)functions ? (Review)

e.g. “what’s the time?” Phatic function (opens a contact) Emotive function (conveys the need of the speaker) Conative function (asks something of the

addressee) Referential function (makes reference to the world

outside the language) PROBLEM:

Discourse analysis may turn into a more general and broader analysis of language functions.

Objects of discourse Objects of discourse (Review)(Review) ‘Discourse’ refers to any utterance which ismeaningful. These texts can be: - written texts - oral texts (‘speech’/’talk’) - mixed written/oral texts (e.g. Internet chat)Discourse does not depend on the size of a text (“P” and “Ladies” can both be analysed asdiscourse)

The scope of discourse analysis The scope of discourse analysis (Review)(Review)Discourse analysis is not a discipline which exists

on its own. It is influenced by other disciplines and influences them as well. It is a two-way process …

For this reason discourse analysis examines spoken and written texts from all sorts of different areas (medical, legal, advertising) and from all sorts of perspectives (race, gender, power)

Discourse analysis has a number of practical applications - for example in analysing communication problems in medicine, psychotherapy, education, in analysing written style etc.

Approaches to Discourse Approaches to Discourse (Review)(Review)

Deborah Schiffrin “Approaches to Discourse” (1994) singles out 6 major approaches todiscourse: the speech act approach; interactional sociolinguistics; the ethnography of communication;pragmatic approach;conversation analysis;variationist approach.

Summary of approaches to Summary of approaches to discoursediscourse

Approaches to Studying Discourse Focus of Research Research Question

Structural CA Sequences of talk Why say what at what moment?

Variationist Structural categories within texts

Why that form?

Functional Speech Acts Communicative acts How to do things with words?

Ethnography of Communication

Communication as cultural behaviour

How does discourse reflect culture?

Interactional Sociolinguistics

Social and linguistic meanings created during communication

What are they doing?

Pragmatics Meaning in interaction What does the speaker mean?

ReviewHow do you analyse discourse?

Various ways. Depends on what sort of discourse you’re interested in.

Constituting an object vs realising a social action

Types of Discourse (Lecture 24)Types of Discourse (Lecture 24)There are many ways to classify discourse:According to whether it is written or

spokenAccording to the register (level of formality)According to the genre (communicative

purpose, style, audience)According to whether it is monologic (one

speaker/writer produces an entire discourse)/ or dialogic/ multiparty (two/more participants interact/ construct discourse together).

Distinction between Written and Spoken Distinction between Written and Spoken DiscourseDiscourse

The distinction between speech and writing is often referred to as channel (D. Hymes) or medium as speaking and writing involve different psychological processes.

Distinction between Written and Spoken Distinction between Written and Spoken DiscourseDiscourse

Spoken and written discourse differ for many reasons. Spoken discourse has to be understood immediately; written discourse can be referred to many times

I. General DifferencesI. General Differences1. Grammatical intricacy2. Lexical density3. Nominalization4. Explicitness5. Contextualization6. Spontaneity7. Repetition, hesitations, and

redundancy

1. Grammatical Intricacy1. Grammatical IntricacyView:Written discourse is more

structurally complex and more elaborate than spoken discourse .

In other words, sentences in spoken discourse are short and simple, whereas they are longer and more complex in written discourse.

1. Grammatical Intricacy1. Grammatical IntricacyBut Halliday argues that spoken

discourse is NOT less organized. He claims that spoken discourse has its own kind of complexity.

In spoken discourse clauses are long and spread out => Spoken discourse can be grammatically intricate as well.

2. Lexical Density2. Lexical DensityLexical density refers to the ratio of

content words (i.e. nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs) to grammatical or function words (e.g. pronouns, prepositions, articles) within a clause.

View: Spoken discourse is less lexically dense than written discourse. Content words tend to be spread out over a number of clauses, whereas they seem to be tightly packed into individual clauses.

3. Nominalization3. NominalizationNominalization refers to presenting

actions and events as nouns rather than as verbs.

View:a.Written discourse has a high level

of nominalization: i.e. more nouns than verbs.

b.Written discourse tends to have longer noun groups than spoken discourse.

4. Explicitness4. ExplicitnessView:Writing is more explicit than

speech.

Rebuttal:-This is not always true.-It depends on the purpose of text.A writer/speaker can state

something explicitly or infer it depending on many variables.

5. Contextualization5. ContextualizationContextualization refers to the

extent knowledge of context is needed to interpret a text.

View:Writing is more decontextualized

than speech: Speech is more attached to context than writing because speech depends on a shared situation and background for interpretation.

5. Contextualization5. ContextualizationRebuttal:This may be true of

conversations, but not in all types of spoken discourses. Some types of written discourse may show high dependence on shared contextual knowledge, e.g. personal letters between friends.

6. Spontaneity6. SpontaneityView: a.Spoken discourse lacks organization and

is ungrammatical because it is spontaneous, whereas written discourse is organized and grammatical.

b.Spoken discourse contains more uncompleted and reformulated sentences.

c.Topics can be changed.d.Speakers may interrupt and overlap Rebuttal:Spoken discourse is organized, but it is

organized differently from written discourse.

7. Repetition, Hesitation, and 7. Repetition, Hesitation, and RedundancyRedundancyView:a.Spoken discourse contains more

repetition, hesitations, and redundancy because it is produced in real time (i.e. on the spot).

b.Spoken discourse has many pauses and fillers, such as ‘hhh’, ‘er’ and ‘you know’.

Some more distinctionsSome more distinctionsSpoken and written discourse differ

for many reasons. Spoken discourse has to be understood immediately; written discourse can be referred to many times

Features of spoken discourse:Variations in speed, but it is generally

faster than writing.

Loudness/quietness.Example 1Announcer: an the winner ↓iz:s

Spoken discourse:Gestures/ Body language (Mr.

Bean)Intonation.Pitch range: ↑ - the shift to the higher

pitch; ↓ - the shift to the lower pitch, V - a fall rise.

Stress: underlined words in transcription: good.

Rhythm.Pausing and phrasing: (.) – a tiny

gap, difficult to be measured, (7.1) – a pause of 7.1 seconds,a longer pause like (..)

Grammatically?Spoken discourse –

fewer subordinate clauses fewer that/to complement

clauses fewer sequences of prepositional

phrases fewer attributive adjectives more active verbs.

Lexical characteristics? Spoken discourse

longer, more repetitions

the percentage of different words is below 40% (written discourse – above 40%)

shorter, less complex words and phrases (contractions, fewer nominalizations, more verb-based phrases, more words that refer to the speaker, less abstract words, more quantifiers).

Lexical characteristics? Spoken discourse has:

More verb-based phrases: having treatment (W) – being treated (S)hospital care (W) – go to the hospital (S)

More predicative adjectives:misleading statistics (W) –

statistics are misleading (S)frightening news (W) – news is

frightening (S)

Lexical characteristics? Spoken discourse has:

More pronouns (it, they, you , we).More lexical repetitions.More first person references.More active verbs.

In written discourse we often use passive when we don’t want to specify the agent. In spoken discourse we would use a subject like “people”, “somebody”, “they”, “you”.

Structurally?Spoken discourse is more

fragmented. It contains more simple sentences and coordination words (and, but, so, because, etc.)

Written texts exhibit a bewildering variety and richness of different structural forms.

Written discourse can be divided into chapters, sections, units, headings, subheadings, quotations, etc.

Where the original text exploits typographical variety, a reproduction of the same text may lack the qualities of the original.  (eg ad on back of bus)

Halliday compares a sentence from a written text with a typical spoken equivalent:

Written form:The use of this method of control unquestionably leads to safer and faster train running in the most adverse weather conditions.

A typical spoken variant:If this method of control is used trains will unquestionably (be able to) run more safely and faster (even) when the weather conditions are most adverse.A more natural spoken version:

You can control the trains this way and if you do that you can be quite sure that they’ll be able to run more safely and more quickly then they would other wise, no matter how bad the weather gets.

Brown and Yule: We use speech largely for the establishment and maintenance of human relationships (or we use it for interaction), whereas we use written language for working out and transference of information (primarily for the purpose of transaction).

Writing and speech interrelate (e.g. the doctor writes your symptoms, you write a telephone number).

We can have written discourse that is intended to be spoken, and spoken language that is designed to be read.

Marginal discourses: e-mails, SMS, texts, chats

A Continuum View A Continuum View (Summing up)(Summing up)

McCarthy (2001) argues for a continuum view rather than simple, one-dimensional difference between spoken and written discourses.

In other words, differences are viewed as being on a continuum:

A. Grammatical ComplexityA. Grammatical ComplexityTightly packedTightly packed and integrated --------------------------------------------------------------- and integrated ---------------------------------------------------------------FragmentedFragmented

B. Detachment/inter-personal B. Detachment/inter-personal involvementinvolvementDetached-------------------------------------------------------------Detached-------------------------------------------------------------Interpersonally-Interpersonally-

involvedinvolved

I. General DifferencesI. General Differences1. Grammatical intricacy2. Lexical density3. Nominalization4. Explicitness5. Contextualization6. Spontaneity7. Repetition, hesitations, and

redundancy

Biber’s(1988) corpus-based study: No absolute difference between speech

and writing in English There are dimensions of variation for

different kinds of texts (i.e. genres).Considerable variation may occur even

within particular genres.