Spoken Language - Genres of Speech

·         Expressive Interaction – ‘This porridge tastes like cardboard’ - When we want to express       how we feel

·         Referential – ‘So the reason we call spoken language temporally bound is because it takes       place at a particular moment in time.’ - When we want to supply information

·         Transactional Exchange – ‘Do you have this in a size 10?’ responded by ‘yes I think so, let       me just check.’ - When we want to get something done

·         Phatic Utterances – When we want to make contact with people so say things like ‘hello’.       They don’t mean much in themselves but are used as a social gel

·         Interactional Exchanges – When we want to exchange ideas and social information with         friends. They help us form relationships

Speech

• ·         When you have a normal conversation it's not usually recorded – so it remains only in the memory of yourself and those who heard it. – There is no permanence
• ·         When we talk, we use facial expressions, different tones of voice and body language to convey our feelings
• ·         When you talk to someone, you do this during a particular time period – another way of expressing this is by saying that it is ‘temporally bound'.
• ·         In addition to being temporally bound, speech is also ‘context bound'. That is, it takes place in a particular situation with all the participants aware of who is talking to whom about what. This can lead to speakers not needing to be precise about certain details.
• ·         Speech is usually an interactive process between two or more people – it's active. Writing, on the other hand is not dynamic in this way – the audience is more distant.

Written

• ·         Writing can be re-read and remains a permanent record for as long as the text is kept. It's this feature of writing that has made the written mode so valued as societies developed.
• ·         Writing relies on expressive words, on punctuation and graphological features to try to convey feelings. For example, if you want to convey surprise, shock or an outburst of emotion in writing, you'll probably use an exclamation mark.
• ·         When you read something, the chances are that you weren't present at the time that the writing was produced. Therefore the spoken mode has an immediacy that the written mode rarely possesses.
• ·         A written text cannot easily get away with using these expressions and needs to explain more precisely who or what it is referring to
• ·         To try to achieve more interaction with the reader, writers have to use different approaches. For instance, using the interrogative mood and/or the second person.

The most free-flowing, informal conversations we have are with people we know well and feel comfortable with. The example of unplanned speech is the first you will hear when you click the audio button. In unplanned speech:

• ·         The register is informal
• ·         There’s a lot of interaction
• ·         There are a number of deictic expressions
• ·         There are interruptions

Planned talk is almost always written down first with the intention of being spoken later. The example of planned speech is the second you will hear when you click the audio button. Here are some of its characteristics:

• ·         Fewer non-fluency features
• ·         In ‘conversations' there are fewer overlaps and interruptions
• ·         The words that are used are very carefully chosen
• ·         In many cases the register is more formal

Summary

• ·         We encounter many different types of spoken language every day.
• ·         We learn how to use language differently in these situations and have expectations about what is appropriate in a variety of contexts.
• ·         The most natural and free-flowing speech is casual conversation. There are other situations which are not entirely planned but where speech is used in a more predictable way. To one extent or another, speech in all these situations contains non-fluency features.
• ·         Planned or scripted speech is much more ‘crafted' and non-fluency features are often absent. This speech contains many of the features of the written mode.

Typical features of planned speech

• ·         The use of the inclusive, first person plural possessive pronoun draws in the audience to identify with the speaker.
• ·         Listing in a pattern of three is another effective rhetorical technique.
• ·         Antithesis (there's a lot of it in this speech). This is where there is a sense of opposites or contrasts – here in the words ‘many' and ‘few'.

Rhetoric

• ·         The art of public speaking – or rhetoric – has been an important way of influencing opinion since the ancient Greeks. A lot of the terms we use to describe rhetorical features were invented by them. The precise context and purpose for the speech will influence its style
• ·         Rhetorical questions can be asked – there's no reply expected and the answer is usually obvious.
• ·         The speaker can also ask a question and then follow it up with an answer, thereby driving home a point.
• ·         Emotive language – powerful language with strong connotations – is designed to provoke an emotional response from the audience.
• ·         A sudden outburst of emotion – usually a single exclamatory statement – also makes the audience feel that the speaker is serious and concerned about the topic.
• ·         Hyperbole – or extravagant exaggeration – can also help to emphasise the speaker's point.
• ·         The use of listing (often in threes) adds weight to the line of argument and can often have the effect of building up to an important point. It can also act in a similar way to repetition by further emphasising an idea by accumulating more examples.
• ·         Carefully chosen metaphors and similes can help to enrich the message by leaving the audience with effective images.
• ·         Many political speeches emphasise, in some way or another, the speaker's credentials and his or her trustworthiness and ability to do a good job. Use of the first person singular pronoun (I) is particularly important here and will be placed very carefully in the speech for maximum impact.
• ·         Many political speeches involve criticism of the opposing viewpoint. There are numerous ways in which this can manifest itself.