Spoken English

Spoken English

1. Grice's Maxims

   • Quality
     • be truthful
   • Quantity
     • don't say too much or little
   • Relevance
     • keep to the point
   • Manner
     • clear? orderly way?

2. formal and informal

   • hedge terms
   • words & phrases which soften the force of smth is said
   • rhetorical devices
     • to evoke an emotional response in the audience
       • hyperbole, personification, metaphor
   • repetitions
     • to emphasis
       • scripted
     • to buy time
       • unscripted/ spontaneous
   • tag question
     • turning a declarative sentence into a question
       • it's a bit expensive isn't it?
   • colluqual idiom
     • phrases that don't serve any function
       • As far as I can see, the thing is

3. tone/register

   • formal
     • scripted speech
       • pragmatic
         • an approach that focus more on contexts and purposes of people talking to each other rather than structures
       • prosodic features
         • features to mark out key meanings in a message
           • rhythm, pitch, tempo, stress and intonations
       • paralinguistic features
         • body language
           • to add meaning o the speaker's message beyond spoken words
         • non-verbal
           • laughter
     • courtesy terms
       • please, thank you
   • informal
     • unscripted speech/ spontaneous
       • fillers
         • no conversational meaning usually to buy time to think
           • um, ah, er
       • phatic talk
         • conversational utterances that have no concrete puposes
           • to maintain relationship
             • small talk
               • how are you?/ fine; cold isn't it/freezing
       • pace/ timing
         • non-fluency features
           • overlaps, interruptions, hesitations, pauses
       • conversational speech
         • in- slang or in-jokes, daily convo.
       • contractions
         • can't and she'll instead of cannot and she will
       • unfinished sentences
       • overlaps
       • topic shifts
     • back-channel features
       • give feedback to show conversation is being followed or understood
         • I know, yeah, really

4. dialect

   • distinctive grammar and vocabulary (regional)

5. idiolect

   • distinctive accent by individual

6. groups of words

   • lexicon
     • same field of study
       • tyre, oil, engine
   • jargon
     • similar profession or group
       • medical jargon