Prepared by Norazlina Binti Jaafar
Read the two texts carefully and answer the question that follows.
Text 1
And then, in the blowing clouds, she saw a band of faint iridescence colouring in faint shadows a portion of the hill. And forgetting, startled, she looked for the hovering colour and saw a rainbow forming itself. In one place it gleamed fiercely, and, her heart anguished with hope, she sought the shadow of iris where the bow should be. Steadily the colour gathered, mysteriously, from nowhere, it took presence upon itself, there was a faint, vast rainbow.
(D. H. Lawrence, The Rainbow, chapter 16)
Text 2
normally after + very heavy rain + or something like that + and + you’re driving along the road + and + far away + you see + well + er + a series + of +stripes + + formed like a bow + an arch + + very very far away + ah + seven colours but + + I guess you hardly ever see seven it’s just a + a series of + colours which + they seem to be separate but if you try to look for the separate colours they always seem + very hard + to separate + if you see what I mean + +
(Postgraduate student speaking informally)
+ indicates pauses
Analyse the texts above and comment how the two texts are different based on Paltridge’s (2006) argument for the differences between spoken and written discourse.
Answer.
The message or content in Text 1 and Text 2 are similar but they differ greatly in the way they were delivered or conveyed. The first one is in a written form and the second one is in spoken form.
In Text 1 , the rich lexis and well-organized structure are indications that the writer has taken time in the construction, and possibly reconstruction after several rewritings, of the final product. There are complete sentences, containing subordination, frequent modifications via adjectives and adverbs, and more than single predicates per referential expression. In Text 2, there are frequent pauses, often interrupting major syntactic units, repetitions, incomplete sentences, generalized vocabulary, fillers, and one example of a tongue-slip. The speaker planning in the here-and-now, possibly threatened with his interlocutor wanting to take a turn, typically repeats himself a good deal, using the same syntactic structure, the same lexical items, using the first word that comes to mind rather than hunting for the appropriate word or expression, filling in pauses with ‘fillers’. The overall effect is of information produced in a much less dense manner than is characteristic of written language.
Based on the elaboration above of the both text, there are a number of important differences between spoken and written language, which have implications for discourse analysis. The first one is grammatical intricacy. Writing is more structurally complex and elaborate than speech. Halliday (1989) argues that speech is no less highly organized than writing. Spoken discourse, he argues, has its own kind of complexity. He presents the notion of grammatical intricacy to account for the way in which the relationship between clauses in spoken discourse can be much spread out and with more complex relations between them than in writing, yet we still manage to keep track of these relations.
The syntax of spoken language is typically much less structured than that of written language. Spoken language contains many incomplete sentences, often simply sequences of phrases. But still it is comprehensible as illustrated in the extract taken from Text 2 below:
normally after + very heavy rain + or something like that + and + you’re driving along the road + and + far away + you see + well + er + a series + of +stripes + + formed like a bow + an arch + + very very far away + ah + seven colours but + + I guess you hardly ever see seven it’s just a + a series of + colours
Read the two texts carefully and answer the question that follows.
Text 1
And then, in the blowing clouds, she saw a band of faint iridescence colouring in faint shadows a portion of the hill. And forgetting, startled, she looked for the hovering colour and saw a rainbow forming itself. In one place it gleamed fiercely, and, her heart anguished with hope, she sought the shadow of iris where the bow should be. Steadily the colour gathered, mysteriously, from nowhere, it took presence upon itself, there was a faint, vast rainbow.
(D. H. Lawrence, The Rainbow, chapter 16)
Text 2
normally after + very heavy rain + or something like that + and + you’re driving along the road + and + far away + you see + well + er + a series + of +stripes + + formed like a bow + an arch + + very very far away + ah + seven colours but + + I guess you hardly ever see seven it’s just a + a series of + colours which + they seem to be separate but if you try to look for the separate colours they always seem + very hard + to separate + if you see what I mean + +
(Postgraduate student speaking informally)
+ indicates pauses
Analyse the texts above and comment how the two texts are different based on Paltridge’s (2006) argument for the differences between spoken and written discourse.
Answer.
The message or content in Text 1 and Text 2 are similar but they differ greatly in the way they were delivered or conveyed. The first one is in a written form and the second one is in spoken form.
In Text 1 , the rich lexis and well-organized structure are indications that the writer has taken time in the construction, and possibly reconstruction after several rewritings, of the final product. There are complete sentences, containing subordination, frequent modifications via adjectives and adverbs, and more than single predicates per referential expression. In Text 2, there are frequent pauses, often interrupting major syntactic units, repetitions, incomplete sentences, generalized vocabulary, fillers, and one example of a tongue-slip. The speaker planning in the here-and-now, possibly threatened with his interlocutor wanting to take a turn, typically repeats himself a good deal, using the same syntactic structure, the same lexical items, using the first word that comes to mind rather than hunting for the appropriate word or expression, filling in pauses with ‘fillers’. The overall effect is of information produced in a much less dense manner than is characteristic of written language.
Based on the elaboration above of the both text, there are a number of important differences between spoken and written language, which have implications for discourse analysis. The first one is grammatical intricacy. Writing is more structurally complex and elaborate than speech. Halliday (1989) argues that speech is no less highly organized than writing. Spoken discourse, he argues, has its own kind of complexity. He presents the notion of grammatical intricacy to account for the way in which the relationship between clauses in spoken discourse can be much spread out and with more complex relations between them than in writing, yet we still manage to keep track of these relations.
The syntax of spoken language is typically much less structured than that of written language. Spoken language contains many incomplete sentences, often simply sequences of phrases. But still it is comprehensible as illustrated in the extract taken from Text 2 below:
normally after + very heavy rain + or something like that + and + you’re driving along the road + and + far away + you see + well + er + a series + of +stripes + + formed like a bow + an arch + + very very far away + ah + seven colours but + + I guess you hardly ever see seven it’s just a + a series of + colours
(D. H. Lawrence, The Rainbow, chapter 16)
From the extract, we can understand that the speaker is trying to tell about the formation of a rainbow after the rain.
In written language and extensive set of metalingual marker exists to mark relationships between clauses such as: that – complementisers, when / while – temporal markers, so-called ‘logical connectors’ like besides, moreover, however, in spite of, etc. In spoken language the largely practically organized chunks are related by ‘and’, ‘but’, ‘then’ and, more rarely, ‘if’. The speaker is typically less explicit than the writer is: “I’m so tired (because) I had to walk all the way home”. In written language rhetorical organizers of larger stretches of discourse appear, like firstly, more important than and in conclusion. These are rare in spoken language.
Written discourse tends to be more lexically dense than spoken discourse. Lexical density refers to the ratio of content words to grammatical, or function words, within a clause. Contents words include nouns and verbs while grammatical words include items such as prepositions, pronouns, and articles. In spoken discourse content words tend to be spread out over a number of clauses rather than being tightly packed into individual clauses which is more typical of written discourse as illustrated in the extract from Text 1. The content words in this extract are in italics. There are many more content words than function words in this extract.
And then, in the blowing clouds, she saw a band of faint iridescence colouring in faint shadows a portion of the hill.
As compared to the spoken form as illustrated below that showed fewer used of content words than in the previous example of written text. The content words are italicized:
normally after + very heavy rain + or something like that + and + you’re driving along the road + and + far away + you see + well + er + a series + of +stripes + + formed like a bow + an arch + + very very far away
(Postgraduate student speaking informally)
There is also a high level of nominalization in written texts; that is, where actions and events are presented as nouns rather than as verbs. Halliday (1989) calls this phenomenon grammatical metaphor; that is, where a language item is transferred from a more expected grammatical class to another. Written texts also typically include longer noun groups than spoken texts. This leads to a situation where the information in the text is more tightly packed into fewer words and less spread out than in spoken texts. The analysis from Text 1 illustrates this. It shows the use of long noun groups that are typical of much written discourse. Another example includes an example of grammatical metaphor. Here, the verb ‘hover’ is changed into the noun hovering (clouds), an example of nominalization:
And then, in the blowing clouds, she saw a band of faint iridescence colouring in faint shadows a portion of the hill. And forgetting, startled, she looked for the hovering colour and saw a rainbow forming itself. In one place, it gleamed fiercely, and, her heart anguished with hope, she sought the shadow of iris where the bow should be. Steadily the colour gathered, mysteriously, from nowhere, it took presence upon itself, there was a faint, vast rainbow.
Whereas, Text 2, is an example of the typically low level of nominalization and shorter noun groups in spoken discourse. The noun groups in this extract are simpler and less dense than in Text 1 and there is no example of grammatical metaphor.
Writing is more explicit than speech. This depends on the purpose of the text and, again, is not an absolute. A person can state something directly, or infer something, in both speaking and writing, depending upon what they want the listener or reader to understand, and how direct they wish to be.
Furthermore, writing is more decontextualized than speech. This view is based on the perception that speech depends on a shared situation and background for interpretation whereas writing does not depend on such a shared context. This is generally true of conversation but is not true of speech and writing in general (Tannen : 1982). Spoken genres, such as academic lectures, for example, do not generally show a high dependence on a shared context, while written genres such as personal letters or memos do. Both written fiction and non-fiction may also depend on background information supplied by the reader and an active role of the reader to enter into the world of the text.
Speaking is disorganized and ungrammatical, whereas writing is organized and grammatical. As we have seen, spoken discourse is organized, but it is organized differently from written discourse. Spoken discourse does, however, contain more half-completed and reformulated utterances than writing discourse. This is because spoken discourse is often produced spontaneously and we are able to see the process of its production as someone speaks. This is not to say that written discourse is not at some stage half-completed or reformulated. It is just that the text we see (apart from synchronous online chat and discussions boards) is simply the finished product and as Halliday (1989 : 100) points out, ‘a highly idealized version of the writing process.’ With spoken discourse, topics can also be changed and speakers can interrupt and overlap with each other as they speak. Speakers can ask for clarification and they can correct what they have said. Misunderstandings, further, can be cleared up immediately. Also, spoken discourse is able to use intonation, gesture and body language to convey meaning, whereas written discourse is more constrained in that ways of conveying meaning are more limited.
Speaking also uses much more repetition, hesitation and redundancy than written discourse. This is because it is produced in real time, with speakers working out what they want to say at the same time as they are saying it. A further characteristic of spoken discourse is the use of pauses and ‘fillers’ like ‘hhh’, ‘er’ and ‘you know’. Speakers da this to give them time to think about what they want to say while they are speking. They also do this to hold on to their turn in the conversation while they are thinking about what they want to say, and how they will say it. Text 2 illustrates the use of pauses and’fillers’ like ‘er’ and ‘ah’. Here ‘+’ indicates pauses and the number of it indicates the length of the pause in seconds:
you see + well + er + a series + of +stripes + + formed like a bow + an arch + + very very far away + ah + seven colours but + +
To sum up, there can be no doubt that spoken discourse, even though, conveying same message as in written discourse, differ greatly in many aspects. The differences are in the form of grammar and syntax, nominalization, explicitness, contextualization, repetition, hesitation and redundancy.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brown, Gillian and Yule, George. (1983). Discourse Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Nunan, D. (2000). Introducing Discourse Analysis. London, Penguin Books.
Paltridge, Brian. (2006). Discourse Analysis. MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall.
Paramasivam, Dr. Shamala. (2006). Introduction to Discourse Analysis. Language
and Language Use. Directions and development of a BA Enlish Programme.
PEARSON. Prentice Hall
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