Differences between Differences between Spoken and Written Spoken and Written DiscourseDiscourseLecture 3:Source: Paltridge, p.p. 13-19

ObjectivesObjectivesStudents should be able to:1.List the differences between

spoken and Written discourse2.For each difference, explain the

commonly held view and its rebuttal, if any.

3.Explain McCarthy’s view of a continuum.

OutlineOutlineI. General Differences between

Spoken and Written Discourse (Slides 4-13)

II. A Continuum View (Slides 14- 19)

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 IntricacyRebuttal: 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. (See extracts p. 15)

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. (See extracts bottom of p. 15 and the second extract on p. 16)

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’.

(See extract on p. 18)

II. A Continuum ViewII. A Continuum View

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

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.