English Language - Spoken Language QRT

English Language - Spoken Language QRT

1. Non fluency features

   • Hesitations - the length of a pause is indicted in brackets, speaker takes a breath
   • False Starts - when the speaker begins to form an utterance but then stops to think, self correcting him/herself
   • Filler - when the speaker things what they want to say next and disguises through the use of utterance (Um/Erm)
   • Elision - when the speak leaves letters or syllables from words
   • Ellipsis - leaving out whole words or grammatical structures from speach
   • Pauses - a gap in speech, indicated by a number inside a set of brackets
   • Backtracking - Interrupting the current topic to introduce information in a topic discussed previously

2. Grice's Maxims

   • Maxim of quantity - the amount of information
   • Maxim of quality - the quality of the information (false or not)
   • Maxim of relevance - being on topic of the convocation
   • Maxim of manner - speaking in an easy-to-understand way
   • Flouting the maxims - the rules are not followed

3. Features of spoken language

   • Discourse marker - the change of direction in a conversation
   • Adjacency pairs - the exchange of speech between speakers
   • Turn taking - the way in which each member of the party speaks in turn
   • Accent - the way in which the words are pronounced based upon geographical features
   • Idiolect - the speech habits of a particular person
   • Dialect - form of language that is particular to specific regions/ social groups

4. Gender and language

   • Status Vs Support - Men see language as having to assert their dominance whereas women see language as a way of confirmation and supporting ideas
   • Independence Vs. Intimacy - Men are heavily concerned about status and generally focus more in their independence, when women speak, they often talk in terms of closeness and support, struggling to preserve intimacy
   • Advice Vs. Understanding - Many men who complain use it as a challenge in order to seek a solution whereas women are said to seek sympathy with complaints
   • Information Vs. Facts - Males are generally more concerned with data of facts and figures whereas women are mostly concerned about opinions and emotion
   • Orders Vs. Proposals - Men may prefer to use and to hear direct imperatives compared to woman as they like to ask for things in a more indirect and polite manner
   • Conflict Vs. Compromise - Women refuse to oppose the will of tother openly, sometimes its far more effective for a woman to assert herself, even at the risk of conflict whereas men often resist vocally
   • Colour theory - Lakoff suggested when describing colour, men are known to describe it in a much more blunt way compared to the descriptive ay that women tend to describe them
   • Lady like theory - Lakoff suggested that if women were to speak like men, they'd be ostracised and made fun of, this is because it's thought that women should speak in a lady like mannor
   • Genderlect theory - Lakoff suggested the thought that men and women have two very different lexical expertise, for instance, men are more likely to know more about sports, and women, more about clothing