Conversational Analysis

Definition:
In pragmatics, the term, Conversational analysis' is used to mean the investigation
into and analysis of natural conversation so as to reveal what the linguistic features
of conversation is and how conversation is used in ordinary life. That is,
conversational analysis studies three things. Those are:

1. Firstly, the techniques that the speaker employs in deciding when to speak during a
conversation, such as rules of turn-taking,
2. Secondly, the ways in which the utterances of more than one speaker are related, for
instance, conversational maxims, adjacency pair, inserted sequence, etc, and
3. Thirdly, the different functions that conversation is used for, for example,
establishing roles, communicating politeness, etc.
These things regarding conversational analysis are described below:
Turn-Taking
For authentic conversations, turn-taking is a basic component. It refers to the
phenomenon of changing the roles of the speaker and the listener when they are
engaged in conversations. This happens with remarkably little overlapping speech
and remarkably few silences.

However, turns to speak typically occur successively without overlaps or gaps

between the speakers. But there are obviously instances of short pauses and short
overlaps. Overlapping is dealt with by one speaker ending his/her to quickly, gaps
between turns by another speaker beginning his/her turn or simply indicating that
his/her turn has begs and, incorporating the silence into it.

Within a conversation, the current speaker can exercise three degrees of control over
the next turn. Firstly, s/he can select which participant will speak next, either by
naming her/him or by alluding to him/her with a descriptive phrase ‘the Right
Honorable Member for Bexley South'. Secondly, s/he can constrain the next
utterance, but not select the next speaks. Thirdly, s/he can select neither and leave it
to one of t] other participants to continue the conversation by selecting
herself/himself.

Besides, speaker change usually takes place at the end of utterances or sentences. If
the next speaker or next action has been selected, the next speaker will, take over at
-the end of the utterance or sentence during which the selecting was done. If the
current speaker has not selected a next speaker in a conversation involving more
 than two speakers, a self-selecting speaker beginning at a possible completion may
well overlap with the current speaker who has decided to continue, or with a second
self-selecting speaker. The problem is usually remedied quickly by one of the
speakers yielding the floor. That is, a speaker is vulnerable at every utterance or
sentence completion whether he/she selects the next speaker or action or not. And
even if he/she gets past one utterance or sentence completion he/she is equally
vulnerable at the end of the next utterance or sentence.

Preference Organization
The term, 'Preference organization' refers to the phenomenon that son first pair parts
allow for alternative seconds, for example, Thanks’ is preferred after
'congratulations'. Preference organization has been developed from the notion of
‘adjacency Pair’ by work by Pomerantz (1978, 1984), Atkinson and Drew 1979) and
Levinson (1983). When one invites other one, the other person usually accepts the
invitation and it is termed preferred organization. But when the invitation is not
accepted and the other person expresses regrets, it is ‘dispreferred organization’.
This distinction may have a psychological basis and explanation, but also has
linguistic realizations: ‘preferred seconds are unmarked- they occur as structurally
simpler turns; in contrast dispreferred seconds are marked by various kinds of
structural complexity’ (Levinson 1983: 307).
For example:
A: Why don't you come up and see me some/ /times.
B: I would like to.
C: Uh if you'd care to come and visit a little while this morning I'll give you a cup
of coffee.
D: hehh well that's awfully sweet of you
(DELAY) (MARKER) (APPRECIATION)
I don't think I can make it this morning
(REFUSAL OF DECLINATION)
hh uhm I'm running
An ad in the paper and uh I have to stay near the phone (ACCOUNT)
Levinson (1983) observes that dispreferred seconds are distinguished by
incorporating a substantial number of the following features:
(a) Delays:
1. by pause before delivery;
2. by the use of a preface;
3. by displacement over a number of turns via use of repair initiators or insertion
sequences.

(b) Prefaces:
 1. the use of markers or announcers dispreferreds like Uh and well;
2. the production of token agreements before disagreements;
3. the use of appreciations if relevant ;
4. the use of apologies if relevant;
5. the use of qualifiers;
6. Hesitation in various forms, including s editing.
(c) Accounts:
Carefully formulated explanations for why dispreferred act is being done.
(c) Declination component:
Of a form suited to the nature of the first part of pair, but characteristically indirect
or mitigated.
However, Schegloff et al. (1977) argues that conversationalists prefer the speaker to
correct his/her own mistakes rather than have to correct them for him/her and that
he/she therefore use a series of 'repair initiator devices ranging from pausing to
return question, to actual, frequently mitigated, correction:
A: But y’ know single beds are awfully thin to sleep
B: What?
A: Single beds. / / they’re -
C: Y’ mean narrow?
A: They're awfully narrow yeah.

Then, we can also now see a general explanation for 'pre-invitations', 'pre-requests'
and 'pre-arrangements'– they are psychologically motivated structures to avoid loss
of face for one or both participants resulting from a dispreferred second having to be
preformed.
Pre-invitation:
JACK: Say what ya do in?
JUDY: Well, we're going out. Why?
JACK: Oh, I was just gonna say come out and come over here and talk to the people.
Pre-request:
1. Can you fix this needle?
2. Sure.
Request:
1. Will you?
2. I’m busy.
3. I just wanted to know if you can fix it.
Adjacency pair:
 In pragmatics, a branch of linguistics, an adjacency pair is an example of
conversational turn-taking. An adjacency pair is composed of two utterances by two
speakers, one after the other. The speaking of the first utterance (the first-pair part,
or the first turn) provokes a responding utterance (the second-pair part, or the second
turn). Together the two turns constitute an adjacency pair. For example, a question
such as "What's your name?" requires the addressee to provide an answer in the
following turn, thus completing the adjacency pair. A satisfactory response could be
"I'm James".
Cook (1989:156) holds: “two types of conversation which typically occur together
form an adjacency pair”. Sacks (1967) also observe that, a conversation is a string
of two turns. Some turns are more closely related than others, and isolates a class of
sequences of turns called adjacency pair. However, Sacks proposes a number of
features of ‘Adjacency pair’, which has been given below:
1. They are two utterances long,
2. The utterances are produced successively produced by different
speakers;
3. The utterances are ordered- the first must belong to the class of first
‘pair parts’, the second to the class of ‘second pair parts’;
4. The utterances are related, not any second pair can follow any first pair
part, but only an appropriate one;
5. The first pair part often selects next action- it thus sets up’ transition
relevance’ and expectation which the next speaker fulfils; in other words, the
first part of a pair predicts the occurrence of the second: given a question,
regularly enough an answer will follow.
6. There is a class of first pair parts which include questions, greetings,
challenges, acknowledgements, requests, offers, complaints, invitations,
announcements etc; for some first pair parts the second pair part is reciprocal
(greeting-greeting), for some only there is only one appropriate second
(question-answer), for some more than one (complain-apology/justification).
For example:
1. greeting → greeting
2. "Heya!" → "Oh, hi!"
3. offer → acceptance/rejection
"Would you like to visit the museum with me this evening?" → "I'd love to!"
 request → acceptance/rejection
"Is it OK if I borrow this book?" → "I'd rather you didn't, it's due back at
the library tomorrow"
 question → answer
"What does this big red button do?" → "It causes two-thirds of the universe to
implode"
 complaint → excuse/remedy
"It's awfully cold in here" → "Oh, sorry, I'll close the window"
 degreeting → degreeting
"See you!" → "Yeah, see you later!"

But looking at conversations we often find that a first pair part (eg a question) is
sometimes followed by something that is clearly not an 'answer' in the required sense
- it might be a refusal to answer, a redirection to somebody else, a challenge to the
questioner's right or competence to ask that question, and so on.
If we look at a collection of 'unexpected' responses we'll find that they are done
differently from 'expected' ones. They are not so prompt, and will have a hedge, or
a request for clarification, or an account, or something that alludes to a difficulty or
an excuse.
A: "why don't you come to our party on Saturday?"
(Pause)
B: "Well I'd like to but it's Hannah's birthday" [marked rejection]
This latter is an example of what is called a 'dispreferred' response. The rejection is
(it is empirically found) marked by hesitation and hedging and an account of why
the preferred response wasn't given. The mark is so powerful that it alone will suffice
as a rejection:
A: "why don't you come to our party on Sunday?"
(pause)
B: "Well ..."
And A knows that B is declining the invitation.
But what will happen if it gave the dispreferred reply without marking it:
A:"why don't you come to our party on Sunday?"
B: "No"

That would look strange and rude. We would infer something about what B was
saying (e.g. that they were sulking). The in formativeness of such deviation shows
us that the substance of the dispreferred SPP (e.g. that it is a rejection) and its
markers (e.g. a pause, a hedge) normally go together.

So there are four possibilities: (commonly) expected and unexpected answer which
can be either marked or unmarked. Commonly expected answers tend strongly to be
unmarked.
 Psychological or statistical:
It is important to appreciate that 'dispreferredness' is not a psychological evaluation
of the response. It's purely a frequency judgment. The more frequent response to a
greeting inquiry about your health is 'fine, thanks, and you?'. But it's not meant to be
an accurate report. It's just a feature of the system that it has 'standard' responses. It's
useful because if someone wants to communicate that he is not fine, then all he need
to do is hesitate and delay. The listener will work out that he is giving the 'non-
standard' response (and, in this case, are therefore not well).
In this example we can see a speaker calculating what her or his listener's silence
means:
A: So I was wondering would you be in your office in Monday by any chance
(2.0)
B: Probably not

A is explicitly recognizing that the other speaker has not done the proper thing
(replied quickly), but A does not simply pass over it; s/he assumes that B has some
reason not to respond quickly, that not-responding-quickly means something. Given
(as we noted in the last lecture) that preliminary pauses are generally used as markers
of dispreferred responses. A infers that what is coming is a rejection and moves to
deal with it.
Moreover, adjacency pairs are in the basic structural units in conversation. They are
employed for closing and opening conversations, and are very important in
conversations both for operating and turn taking system by enabling a speaker to
select the next action, and next speaker, and for enabling the next speaker to avoid
both gap and overlap. In fine, adjacency pairs of the structure of conversation and
are studied in conversational analysis.

Insertion sequence:
An insertion sequence is a sequence of turns that intervenes between the first and
second parts of an adjacency pair.
The person towards whom the first part of an adjacency pair has been directed may
want to undertake some preliminary action before responding with the second part
.a request for clarification by the recipient will take place after the first pair part but
before the second pair part .this is an insertion sequence. Here turn 1 and 4 make up
one adjacency pair inserted between the two parts of the first pair.
1. P: Martin would you like to dance
2. M: Is the floor is slippery?
3. P: No its fine.
4. M: then I’d be happy to dance
Moreover, it can be defined as, the phenomenon of embedding; of one pair occurring
inside another is noticeable in conversations. Schegloff (1972) terms this type of
embedded pairs Inserted sequence. Cook (1989:156) holds: insertion sequence: one
set of related conversational turns occurring within, and helping the bracketed part
of the following conversation;
A: Did you enjoy the meal?
(B: Did you?
A: Yes.)
B: so did I.

Furthermore, during the inserted sequence, the original question retains its transition
relevance, and if the second speaker does not then produce an answer it is noticeably
absent in exactly the same way as it would be if there were no intervening sequence,
and the questioner can complain about the lack of answer in exactly the same way.
Adjacency pairs are normative structures, the second part ought to occur, and thus
the other sequences are inserted between the first pair part that has occurred and the
second pair part that is anticipated.

It is, finally, interesting that an inserted sequence can itself contain inserted
sequences:
A: Are you coming tonight?
B: Can I bring a guest?
A: Male or female?
B: What difference does that make?
A: An issue of balance.
B: Female.
A: Sure.
B: I’ll be there.

Side Sequence
In the case of side sequence, Jefferson (1972) observes that the general drift of
conversation is sometimes halted at an unpredictable point a request for clarification
and then the conversation picks again where it left off. She, from this observation,
proposes type of embedded sequence different form Schegloff’s insertion sequence
and labels 'side sequence', for example, italic part of the following conversation:
 One, two, three, (pause), four, five, six, (pa seven, eight, nine, ten.
 Eleven?- eight, nine, ten.
 Eleven, eight, nine, ten.
 Eleven?
 Seven, eight, nine, ten.
 That's better.
Jefferson initially suggests that the 'misapprehension sequence', a well-known type
of 'side sequence' has a three-part structure consisting of:
(a) a statement of sorts,
(b) a misapprehension of sorts, and
(c) a clarification of sorts, for example:
Statement: A: If Percy goes with - Nixon I'd sure like that.
Misapprehension: B: Who?
Clarification: A: Percy. That young fella that uh- his daughter was murdered.
Terminator: B: Oh Yea: h. Yeah.

Topic change:
Topic change is a technical way to avoid the topic which one no longer wants to talk
on a same topic for a long time. It is a natural phenomenon occurring in conversation.
Sacks(1971) observes that in a conversation which is progressing well talk grits from
one topic to another, and suggests that the relative frequency of marked topic
introduction is some measure of the quality of a conversation. Since people do not
talk on the same topic for long, ’topic change’ takes place.

As Sacks (1968) stresses, talking topically and talking about some topic chosen by
another speaker is not the same thing at all. One can perfectly well have a sequence
in which successive speakers talk in a way topically coherent with the last utterance,
but in which each speaker talks on a different topic. Speakers are aware of this as a
problem and have ways of formulating a topic to make it more likely that other
speakers will talk to it. Sacks exemplifies with a hypothetical speaker who wants to
talk about surfing:

A: I was at Malibu yesterday.

B: Yeah? I was at County Line.
A: How was it?
B: Too low tide.

Topic Conflict:
Topic conflict is also a technical term which refers to two speakers who want to
develop the topic in different ways. Both fight because they know there will be no
further opportunity to say what they want to say. , there goes on a competitive talk
within conversations. This competition between two speakers generates ‘topic
conflict’. For example:

Roger: Isn’t the New Pike depressing?

Ken: Hi the Pike?
Roger: Yeah! Oh the place is disgusting.
Jim: Any day of the week I think that P.O P. is depressing it’s just-
Roger: But you go- you go- take-
Jim: Those guys are losing money. (Sacks: 1967)

Utterances normally relate back to the previous utterance- here Roger and Jim
compete by skip-connecting, relating back to the last-but-one utterance, their own.
Each time one of them gets a turn he declines to talk about the previous speaker’s
topic and reasserts his own. Skip-connecting is not an uncommon phenomenon, but
apparently speakers only skip-connect over one utterance. When this competition
has been resolved, the conversation moves forward again.

Speech Acts
A speech act is a minimal functional unit in human communications. It refers to all the
functions performed through speaking or speech, and all the things done when spoken.
That is, when we speak, we perform acts. These include giving reports, making statements,
making promises and soon.

In brief, speech acts can be considered as a unit of function done or performed through
utterances or speech.
 Speech acts theory attempts to explain how the speakers use language to accomplish
intended actions and how hearers infer intended meaning what is said.

Background
Speech Act theory can be regarded as a strain an element in pragmatics, which originates
not in the discipline of linguistics but in philosophy. Now speech act studies are recognized
as a sub-discipline of cross cultural pragmatics.

Philosophers like Austin (1962), Grice (1957) and Searle (1969) offered the basic insight
into this new theory of linguistic communication based on the assumptions that he minimal
units of human communication are not linguistic expressions, but rather the performance
of certain kinds of acts. But, especially the speech acts theory very luminously originated
with the philosopher John Austin’s book “How to do things with words” (1962) in which
Austin argues against the philosophical assumptions that verbal statements can be analysed
in isolation and in terms only of their truth or falsity.

Along with Austin (1962), Grice (1957) and Searle (1969), some other philosophers have
developed and extended things very inevitable through language.

Linguistic functions of speech Act:

According to Austin (1962), Speech Act has two types of linguistic acts.
a) Constative
b) Performative

a) Constative: Constative utterances imply the assertion of something which can be either
true or false. It looks like statements.
For example,
Savar is in Dhaka.
The earth moves round the sun.

b) Performative: Performative utterances imply actions rather than statements, that is,
something rather than saying something.
For example,
Do it.
Do not run in the sun.

However, a constative utterance can also have a performative aspect by pragmatic

implication.

Felicity Conditions
Austin (1962) introduced some condition to differentiate between constative and
performative utterances. These conditions are labelled as felicity conditions, be more
 specific, these conditions are used to judge per formative acts. There are four felicity
conditions.
(i) There must exist an accepted conventional procedure, having a certain conventional
procedure, having a certain conventional effect, that procedure to include the uttering of
certain words by certain persons in circumstance.
(ii) The particular persons and circumstances in a given case must be appropriate for the
invocation of the particular procedure invoked.
(iii) The procedure must be executed by all participants carefully.
(iv) The procedure must be executed completely.

Austin (1962) maintains that these four conditions can be used as a frame for judging
performative utterances. If any utterance matches the frame of these conditions, it can be
labelled as performative utterances. Otherwise, it is a constative utterance. Beside Austin,
H. P. Grice (1957) suggests some cooperative principles known as Grice’s maxims that
govern conversation in ideal situations.

They include:
i) Maxim of quality: Make your contribution no more or less informative than is required.
ii) Maxim of quantity: Make your contribution one that is true, and that does not include either
false or inadequately substantiated material.
iii) Maxim of relation: Be relevant.
iv) Maxim of manner: Be perspicuous; avoid obscurity, ambiguity and unnecessary prolixity.

Types of Speech Acts

Searle (1969) made a useful distinction between a number of different sorts of verbal act.
i) Uttering words (morpheme, sentences) = performing utterance acts.
ii) Referring and predicting = performing propositional acts.
iii) Stating, questioning, commanding, promising, etc. = performing illocutionary acts.

Searle also suggests five basic categories of illocutionary speech acts.

They are:
i) Assertives: Statements may be judged true or false because they aim to describe
a state of affairs in the world.
ii) Directives: Statements attempt to make the other person’s action fit to the
propositional content.
iii) Commissives: Statements which commit the speaker to a course of action as
described by propositional content.
iv) Expressives: Statements that express the sincerity condition of the speech act.
v) Declaratives: Statements attempt to change the world by representing it as having been
changed.

On the other hand, Austin postulates three types of speech acts and maintains that a speaker
can perform these acts simultaneously.
1. Locutionary Act: A locutionary act refers to the saying of something which contains
meaning and permits to be understood. For example:
Read the poem.
Here the speaker does the act of saying and the hearer understands the words ‘read’, ‘the’,
‘poem’ and is able to recognize the poem referred to.
2. Illocutionary Act: When we speak or write an utterance or a sentence to accomplish a
function, it is called an illocutionary act. That is, an illocutionary act means an act
performed in saying something, for example:
Shut the door.
This utterance may be intended as an order or a request or the like.
3. Perlocutionary Act: A perlocutionary act is the result or effect produced by means of
saying something. For example,
(He persuaded me to) learn English.

The Locutionary Act is concerned with meaning and the illocutionary act is concerned with
force. Meanwhile, the perlocutionary act is a non-linguistic act which performed as an
outcome of locutionary and illocutionary act.

Indirect Speech Act

Indirect Speech Act refers to the speech acts performed in directly through the performance
of a speech act. For instance, to request for salt, we could have various indirect forms which
Searle (1969) groups into six categories.
1. Sentences concerning the hearer’s ability.
Can you pass the salt?
2. Sentences concerning the hearer’s future action.
Are you going to pass the salt?
3. Sentences concerning the speaker’s wish.
I would like (you to pass) the salt.
4. Sentences concerning the hearer’s desire or willingness.
Would you mind passing the salt?
It might help if you passed the salt.
5. Sentences concerning reason for action.
I don’t think you salted the potatoes.
6. Sentences concerning either one of the above or an explicit performative.
Can I ask you to pass the salt?

In fine, indirect speech acts are often felt to be more polite ways of performing certain
kinds of speech acts, such as, requests and refusals.

Limitations of Speech Act:

A speech can act perfectly when the transmitted meaning is equally shared. But if the
meaning is shared somehow in the different way then the speech fails to act. And it is the
basic limitation of speech acts.
We know that a speech acts three functions simultaneously such as – Locutionary,
Illocutionary and Perlocutionary. If anyhow one of the above functions is misunderstood
by the hearer, then the speech cannot act and it may occur very simply.

Speech acts and language teaching:

Speech acts and language teaching are very closely related. We know that the speech or
utterance has some underlying force or power to act but for doing this act the hearer must
need to understand the meaning of the speech transmitted by the speaker. And for this thing
the hearer must need to learn the second language carefully and need to have experience
of the four basic skills- listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Without learning the
target language by the hearer the speech will fail to act. So speech acts very directly
influence the hearer to learn the second language or teaching the second language.

Discourse, Spoken and Written language and Sentences

and Utterances
Discourse analysis
Discourse analysis is concerned with the study of the relationship between language and the
contexts in which it is used. It grew out of work in different disciplines in the 1960s and early
1970s, including linguistics, semiotics, psychology, anthropology and sociology. Discourse
analysts study language in use: Written texts of all kinds, and spoken data, from conversation to
highly institutionalized forms of talk.

Discourse
Discourse is a set of utterances which constitute any recognizable speech unit and it is a
behavioural unit which has pre-theoretical status in linguistics. It is a general term used in
pragmatics to refer to language that has been produced as the result of an act of communication.
In another words, it stands for a stretch of language which is unified, meaningful and purposive.

Example: conversations, interviews, compositions etc.

Discourse can be both spoken and written. The study of spoken and sometimes written discourse
is called discourse analysis.
 To some extents, discourse analysis is considered with –
a. The impact of the selection of grammatical items.
b. The relationship between utterances/sentences in the discourse.
c. The speaker to change, introduce or assert a topic.

Features of Discourse analysis:

The discourse analyst describes what the speaker and the hearer do rather than the relationship
existing between sentences. To do so, he/she has to consider four discoursal features as discussed
below-

A. Reference: According to Lyons (1968) reference is the ‘words refer to things’. Here, the speaker
refers by using vocabulary to refer something with appropriate expressions. It is an act on the part
of the speaker. In short, reference is something that someone can use an expression to do.

Example:
Speaker I: My uncle’s coming home from Canada on Sunday +he’s due in+
Speaker II: How long has he been away for or has he just been away?
Speaker I: Oh no they lived in Canada he was married to my mother’s sister++well she’s been
dead for a number of years.

Here, ‘he’ is used to refer to ‘my uncle’ and ‘she’ to my mother’s sister.

B. Presupposition: To Given (1979) presupposition is “defined in terms of assumptions the speaker

makes about what the hearer is likely to accept without challenge”. It means, accepting something
without challenge is defined through the term of assumption. To Selinker, presupposition is the
common ground of the participants in the conversation.

Example:
a. My uncle is coming home from Canada.
b. My uncle is not coming home from Canada
c. I have an uncle.

Here, sentence (b) is unnecessary, while sentence (c) is presupposition of the speaker in uttering
sentence (a).

C. Implicature: The term implicature is used by Grice (1975) account for what a speaker can imply,
suggest or mean, as distinct from what the speaker literary says. There are two types of implicature:

a. Conventional: It is determined by the conventional meaning of the words used, for example: He
is an English man, he is therefore, brave.
b. Conversational: It is derived from a general principle plus a number of maxims which speakers
will normally obey. The general principle is called the co-operative principles. The conversational
conventions which support co-operative principle are as follows:

i. Quantity: Make your contribution as is required. Do not make your contribution informative
than it required.
 ii. Quality: Do not say what you believe to be false. Do not say which you lack adequate
relevance.
iii. Relation: should be relevant.
iv. Manner: be perspicuous, brief, orderly & avoid ambiguity and obscurity of expression.

D. Inferences: The process is used to arrive at an interpretation for utterances or for the connection
between utterances-

Example:
In the kitchen there was a huge dresser and when anyone went in you see + the hats and coats were
all dumped on this dresser.

Here the inferences are:

a. The hats and coats belong to the visitor to the house.
b. The house has the dresser and
c. The dresser is in the kitchen.

Spoken Language
Spoken language is a vast subject, and little is known in hard statistical terms of the distribution
of different types of speech in people’s everyday lives. If we list at random a number of different
types of speech and consider how much of each day or weak we spend engaged in each one, we
can only roughly guess at some sort of frequency ranking other than to say that casual conversation
is almost certainly the most frequent for most people. The rest will depend on our daily occupation
and what sorts of contacts we have with others. Some different types of speech might be:

 Telephone calls (business or private)

 Service counters (shops, tickets, offices)
 Interviews (jobs, journalistic in official setting etc.)

Features of Spoken Language:

Let us consider the features of the spoken English as presented below-

1. The syntax of spoken English is much less structural:

i. Spoken language contains many incomplete sentences, often simple sequences of phrases, for
example, okay, that’ll do ……
ii. Spoken language possesses rather little subordination.
iii. Spoken language contains a lot of active declarative sentences. A very few examples of
passives, it-clefts or wh-clefts are found in a recorded conversation of over 50 hours, for example,
it’s quite nice the grass market since+ it’s always had the antique shops but they’re looking +
they’ve sort of +em+become a bit nicer+……..
2. In spoken language the chunks of utterances are connected by and, but, then and more rarely, if.
3. It is rare in spoken language to find more than two pre-modifying adjectives, and there is a strong
tendency to structure the short chunks of speech so that only one predicate is attacked to a given
referent at a time as in it’s a biggish cat= tabby + with torn ears.
4. The use of passive is not found in speech. Instead active constructions with indeterminate group
agents are noticeable in spoken language, as in-oh everything they do in Edinburgh + they do it
for so slowly.
5. In spoken language it is quite common to find topic – comment+ structure as in-the cats +did you
be +them out.
6. In chat about the immediate environment, the speaker may rely on, for example, gaze direction to
supply a referent. (looking at the rain) frightful isn’t it?
7. The speaker may replace or refine expressions as he/she goes along for example, this man +this
chap she was going out with.
8. In spoken language, the speaker typically uses a lot of rather generalized vocabulary, for example,-
a lot of, thing, got, nice, do, stuff, place, etc.
9. In spoken language, the speaker frequently repeats the same syntactic form several times over that
is repetitions and hesitations being involved in spoken.
10. The speaker may produce a large number of prefabricated fillers, such as, well, em, I think, you
know, of course and soon.
11. The speaker tries to establish and maintain role relationship with the listener.
12. In spoken language, there is a kind of approximate between the speaker and the listener.
13. Spoken language is less dense for the purpose of enabling the listener to understand the
information/message easily.
14. Spoken language takes no visual form.
15. Spoken language occurs in some context of situation and faces direct reaction of the listener.

Advantage of Spoken Language:

1. Spoken language takes in some context of situation and hence is supported by extra-linguistic
elements including all in the surrounding.
2. In a face to face interaction, the interlocutor can reformulate his/her language according to the
situation or taking into consideration the reaction shown by the other interlocutor.
3. While speaking, the speaker has available to him/her the full range of ‘voice quality’ efforts as
well as paralinguistic expressions.
4. In a conversation, non-linguistic events naturally contribute to spoken language and make it lively.
5. Spoken language is only interactional.
6. Finally, spoken language contains interactive markers and planning ‘filers’ and thus makes
communication effective.

Disadvantage of Spoken Language:

1. It does not maintain strict grammatical rules. So, grammatical mistakes are occurred often.
2. It is devoid of the transactional function of the language.
3. Spoken language cannot express emotions, sentiments and feelings.
4. Spoken language cannot be checked, changed or reformulated if it is once uttered.
5. It is the primary form of language. So, it is non-visible and it has no written document to prove.
6. Spoken language is less planned rather than written language. So it would be affected on listeners
if it is badly uttered.

Spoken Language Works in some Levels:

1. Adjacency pairs: A pair of utterances in talk is often mutually dependent. A most obvious
example is that a question predicts an answer and that an answer presupposes a question.
2. Turn taking: People take turns when they are selected or nominated by the current speaker, or if
no one is selected, they may speak of their own accord (self-selection).If neither of these conditions
applies, the person who is currently speaking may continue.
3. Transactions and topics: In transactions, we are concerned with how speakers manage longer
stretches of talk. They are most marked in settings. Such as classrooms, doctor’s surgeries and
formal interviews, they are also present in openings and closings. We also considered the question
of realizations of markers in different languages. On the other hand, topics could be defined on the
formal level, as stretches of talk bounded by certain topic and/or transactional markers, such as
lexical ones (by the way, to change the subject) or phonological ones (change in pitch)
4. Interactional and transactional talk: Transactional talk is for getting business done in the world
i.e.in order to produce some change in the situation that pertains. On the other hand, interactional
talk has as its primary functions the lubrication of the social wheels, establishing roles and
relationships with another person prior to transactional talk, confirming and consolidating
relationships expressing solidarity and so on.
5. Stories, anecdotes, jokes: Almost any piece of conversational data between friends will yield
occasions where people engage in the telling of stories, anecdotes, jokes and other kinds of
narratives. The ability to tell a good story or joke is a highly regarded, talent probably in all
cultures.
6. Speech and grammar: Brief mention must be made here of the role of grammatical accuracy in
unprepared speech.

Written Language
Written language is the secondary form of a language. It is visible, written or printed and hence
more permanent.

Features of Written Language:

1. Written language is more structured.
2. In written language, heavily pre-modified noun phrases are quite common, for example-a man
who turned into a human torch ten days ago after snoozing in his locked car while smoking has
pipe has died in hospital.
3. Written language sentences are generally structured in subject.
4. The use of passive is found in written language.
5. In written language, vocabulary for example-a lot of; thing, nice, do, stuff etc. is not taken
generally.
6. In written language, the some syntactic form is not repeated.

Advantage of Written Language:

1. Written language is the secondary form of language.
2. As written language is strictly governed by grammatical rules, non-native users are usually more
aware of the rules of written language.
3. We can express our feelings, ideas, emotions, sentiments, and so forth more freely in spoken
language because the reader cannot show direct and immediate reaction.
4. It may be checked, changed or reformulated if necessary grammatically and pragmatically.
5. It performs both transactional and interactional functions of language.

Disadvantage of Written Language:

1. It fails to establish and maintain direct role of relationships with the reader.
2. In written language there is no proximity between the writer and reader.
3. Written language does not take place in some context of situations. So it is not supported by extra
linguistics elements including all is the surrounded.
4. Written language does not contain interactive markers and planning filler and thus makes the
communication less effective.
5. It misses the para-linguistic expression and immediate reaction of the situation. So its effect is
slow.

Written language works in some levels:

1. Speech and writing: Both spoken and written discourses are dependent on their immediate
contexts to a greater or lesser degree. The idea that writing is in some way ‘free standing’ whereas
speech is more closely tied to its context, has come under attack as an oversimplification of
discourse analysts.
2. Units in written discourse: The sentence is more obvious as a grammatical unit in writing
although certainly not in all kinds of writing: signs and notices, small ads, notes, forms, tickets,
cheques, all contain frequent examples of ‘non-sentences.’
3. Clause relations: The units of written discourse rather than always being co-existence with
sentences (though they sometimes are) were best seen as functional segments (of anything from
phrasal to paragraph length) which could be related to one another by a finite set of cognitive
relations, such as cause-consequence instrument, achievement, and matching relations such as
contrasting and equivalence.
4. Culture and rhetoric: The area of cross-cultural rhetoric studies has spawned a vast literature of
its own and a somewhat confusing one. On the other hand, linguists claim to have evidence of
textual patterns in other languages not found in English writing. On the other hand, there is
disagreement over whether these patterns are transferred and cause interference when the learner
writes in English.
5. Discourse and the reader: Discourse and reading in fact follows consistently from what we have
learnt. We cannot explain discourse patterning at the macro-level without paying due attention to
the role of grammar and lexis. By the same token, we cannot foster good reading without
considering global and local reading skills.

Differences between spoken language and written language

Spoken language Written language
1. Spoken language is the primary form of 1. Written language is the secondary
linguistic communication. medium of communication.
 2. Spoken language is audible and temporary. 2. Written language is visible, written or
a. Utterance printed and hence more permanent than
b. Conventional analysis spoken language.

3. Spoken language takes place in context of 3. Written words can be examined

situation and so it is supported by extra-linguistic outside their original context.
elements including all in the surrounding.

4. Spoken language is primarily interactional. 4. Written language is primarily

transactional.

5. Spoken language is not usually packed with 5. Written language is usually packed
information. with facts.

6. A speaker’s voice, rhythm, intonation etc. are 6. Punctuation, word and sentence order
necessary features for the understanding of the are important for understanding of a
speech. written text.

7. Spoken language has a loose syntactic structure. 7. Written language is usually richly
organized.

8. In spoken language, the use of more than two 8. Written language has heavily
premodifying adjective is rare. premodified noun phrases.

9. The spoken language incorporates a lot of 9. This device is not taken in written
vocabulary, such as-‘a lot of’, things, nice, sort language, partly to avoid monotony, and
of…. to make language formal, stable.

10. The speaker may suffer the disadvantage of 10. The writer can easily manipulate
exposing his/her own feelings, emotions. words and expression in a way.

Sentence and Utterance

Sentence and utterance is of fundamental importance to both semantics and pragmatics. A
sentence is an abstract theoretical entity defined within a theory of grammar, while an utterance is
the issuance of a sentence, a sentence-analogue, or sentence-fragment, in an actual context.
Empirically, the relation between an utterance and a corresponding sentence may be quite obscure
(e.g. the utterance may be elliptical, or contain sentence-fragments or 'false-starts'), but it is
customary to think of an utterance as the pairing of a sentence and a context, namely the context
in which the sentence was uttered.

Difference between Sentences and Utterances

In pragmatics, sentences, and utterances are interpreted as two different types of units hiving varied
purposes, structures and effects as presented in the table below:
Sentences
1. Sentences are written, usually formal
and isolated from the context.
2. A sentence contains complete sense.
3. Sentences manifest the lexico-
grammatical rules for the purpose of
demonstration or display.
4. A sentence ends with full stroke.
5. A sentence may be decontextualized.
6. A sentence is not accompanied by voice
qualities or supra-segmental.
7. A sentence is not supported by body
language.
8. A sentence has tensed verb (finite verb).
For example: It is a (Verb)beautiful day.
9. A sentence does not have repetitions of
words or phrases.
10. A sentence has capitalization and may
have mechanics.
11. A sentence is usually studied in
semantics and syntax.
12. A sentence is a unit of analysis whose
meaning or signification is established by
paradigmatic association with other
sentences.
13. Example:
He is travelling there by train.
Utterances
1. Utterances are spoken, largely informal and
related to the context.
2. An Utterance may contain incomplete sense.
3. Utterances realize the rules for the purpose of
communication.
4. Utterances lack full stroke.
5. An Utterance is always contextualized.
6. An Utterance is accompanied by both voice
qualities and supra-segmental.
7. An Utterance is supported by body language.
8. An Utterance doesn’t usually have tensed verb.
For example: What a day! (no verb is used here).
9. An Utterance may have repetitions of
expression.
10. An Utterance does not needcapitalization.
11. An Utterance is usually studied in pragmatics.
12. An utterance is a unit of analysis whose
meaning or signification is established by
syntagmatic association with other utterances.
13. Example:
He, the boy's travelling there, to Dhaka by
train....