McCarthy Issues in Applied Linguistics

Chapter 5 - Language as discourse: speech and writing in applied

linguistics

The analysis of speech has always had a socially oriented perspective (rather
than a formal one, chomskian approach, etc.)
Applied linguistics. Speech act theory and pragmatics socially and culturally
embedded concept of language.
IMPORTANCE OF EXAMINING SPOKEN AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE
Implication in learning skills (language teaching reading, listening, writing
and speaking)
The descriptive picture (grammar, lexis) changes depending on the source of
the data (whether it's spoken or written)
Influence on units of acquisition (clauses and sentences), the rules underlying
them and the metalanguage used to talk about them.
It has implications in terms of data, hypotheses, methodology and
interpretation.

SPEECH AND WRITING

THERE IS NO SIMPLE, ONE-DIMENSIONAL DIFFERENCE BTWN SPEECH AND
WRITING. There are several factors/tendencies:
Involvement of the participants. Interpersonal involvement. Distance.
Intimacy.
Explicitness/implicitness (depending on the formality or informality of the
text/chat/whatever)
Time of production speech is created and received in real time, writing is
created at one time/place and read in another time/place (lapsed time)
Organization/disorganization, integration/fragmentation.
BIBER: Linguistic and contextual features cluster differently in different types of
discourse (spoken/written), serving a specific communicative purpose.
Relative roles of speaking and writing re-thinking of the roles of wr/sp
discourse, because oral style and communication are taking over in global
communication. The relationship btwn speech and writing in our society is
changing, language teaching should adjust to new realities-
INTERMINGLING OF STYLES writing borrows features normally associated
with speech and there is greater access to features associated with written styles
(because of literacy and job opportunities)
MCCARTHY & CARTER they talk about MODES OF COMMUNICATION
(speakerly/writerly), rather than mediums of communication (spoken/written).
These processes blur the separate traditional skills of language teaching.

TEXT AND DISCOURSE

Text and discourse can refer to the study of utterances/sentences as part of a
context of use. (Language beyond the sentence). Language in social contexts.
The TEXT can be seen as the product of language use, and DISCOURSE as the
process of meaning-creation and interaction.
COGNITIVE APPROACHES
Different text types-different strategies (Welrich). Theme/rheme
(Halliday/Prague School). Cognitive processing of written texts (school of text
linguistics). Schema Theory (Rumelhart)
They emphasise what readers bring to the text. The text does not contain full
 meaning in itself; the reader constructs the meaning, by the process of
interpretation.
READER TEXT INTERACTION = COHERENT TEXT
HOEY & JORDAN culturally common patterns in texts are constructed by the
reader in interaction with the logical relations between clauses and by
processing lexical and grammatical signals of the pattern employed by the
author. TEXTS interactional arena for the creation of meaning. Sentences
acquire meaning in relation to one another.
These schools have studied language beyond the sentence, laying emphasis on
the text as a mediator between sender and receiver (rather than an object with
stored meaning). They see the sentence not in isolation, but in interaction with
other sentences. Language is no longer an abstract object, LANGUAGE HAS
BECOME DISCOURSE.

DISCOURSE ANALYISIS
DA is a general approach to language, associated with studies of the spoken
language.
Growing interest in the process of meaning-creation in real situations settings
(linguistic and non-linguistic features of context), participants and interactional
goals.
SINCLAIR AND COULTHARD
Recurring patterns of interaction (student-teacher interaction in classrooms).
Setting and institutional roles.
Structural features regular configurations recurred in predictable contexts
and sequences.
STRUCTURAL MODEL OF (CLASSROOM) INTERACTION
MOVES smaller units of interaction (e.g. questions, answers)
EXCHANGES sets of moves (e.g. question-answer-feedback)
TRANSACTIONS combination of exchanges to form larger units. (e.g.
goal of transmitting knowledge to the pupils)

CONVERSATION ANALYSIS
Casual and spontaneous talk participants' joint effort to make it work. Talking
is an achievement.
Conversation Interruptions, diversions, competition for the floor or control of
topics, unpredictable outcomes and indeterminate duration.
CA is associated with sociolinguistics.
CA studies how speakers close down conversations, turn-taking, agreement and
disagreement btwn participants, oral narratives, adjacency pairs, discourse
markers, interactive features, formulations, overlapping, stutters, recasting,
pauses, loudness, laughter, sighs, non-verbal vocalisations, intonational features,
etc.

Both DA and CA have shown that it is possible to incorporate social dimensions

into language study, and to account for the creation of meaning without reference to
syntax, sentences and deep structure. They elaborated a new terminology to study oral
discourse.

- DISCOURSE GRAMMARS
- They begin to question the rules that sentence grammarians elaborated. They
wanted to re-interpret the meanings of grammatical forms, which were taken for
granted.
 - Grammar meaning in interaction. E.g. In services encounters, institutional
politeness, etc. What was your name?
- To explain usage, they build descriptions that attempt to incorporate language
users, textual cohesion and coherence, and relevant features of context.
- Meaning on the form investigation of its contexts of occurrence and
distribution in real discourse.
- They try to redefine of grammatical meaning, as interactively determined.
Meaning is not inherently in the structures.
- If analysing sentences in isolation, theres no interpersonal evidence available,
so it has one meaning. It is only in context that a sentence gains different
meanings.
- DG presents evidence for the re-assessment of the sentence as unit of
grammatical description. Well-formed sentences are the exception rather than
the norm in many kinds of everyday conversation. The clause is a better unit of
description.
- Examples of grammar as joint-constructed units of grammar co-created by
participants. E.g. a noun phrase created interactively, not in isolation in the first
speakers head. A: It was a good thing == B: ==to have done
- The shared word constructed by people in an interaction, is expressed in
grammar and in lexical selections as well.
- Discourse grammar has different functional meanings in interaction.

- LANGUAGE AS GENRE
- Lay people can label everyday written and spoken discourses with genre-names.
I.e. documentary, narrative, etc.
- Degree to which genres are institutionalised recognisability of genres
- Relevant linguistic features typify different genres. Participants recognise them
and orient towards them.
- Halliday REGISTER: the relationship between language features and their
context of utterance. Formality/informality. Interpersonal aspects of meaning.
Written/spoken differences.
- Bieber REGISTER: all aspects of variation in use. Language features clusters in
different types of texts.
- Register studies contribute to the understanding of different factors that
influence linguistic choice.

- SPEECH GENRES
- Different features of the situation (participants, purposes, setting) influence
language, so that there are some recognisable, forms of discourse,
- These forms of discourse have stages. I.e. service encounters, transaction of
goods, information and services.
- Hymes:
o GENRE: higher-order feature of speech events. Its dynamic. Its a norm-
governed social activity that manifests linguistic and non-linguistic
behaviour. There are different degrees of institutionalisation
- Transactional and relational features.
- Variability and mixing of activities. A genre can be realised in different ways by
different participants. Genres are sequenced and often inter-mixed. Genres
change over time.
- Variation in genres: sequencing of elements, compulsory and optional elements,
organization of elements.
- Bakhtin:
o UTTERANCE: its an abstract, individual unit of talk which may vary in
length. It ends at a point where an interlocutor may potentially respond.
 They reflect conditions and goals of different types, by their grammar,
lexis and compositional structure.
o GENRES: stable types of utterances that occur in each sphere in which the
language is used.

- GOAL-ORIENTATION
- Conversational participants have practical goals that drive the interaction
forward. They may emerge as the discourse progress, and they may be multiple.
- Better integration of interactional and transactional features of conversation.
- Casual conversation is goal-driven, may be multiple, emerge in real time and
largely relational. Relational goals.
- Goals are implicit most of the time. Usually indirect evidence.
- Goal-orientation ties the notion of genre to action.
- Participants have the ability to use generic resources to pursue goals, and its
inseparable from the ability to act in the immediate social situation.
- Generic patterns have global features of goal-type and types of participant
relationship.
- The plotting o features in texts helps us to make some links between higher-
order features and basic lexico-grammatical choices the speakers make, in line
with their goals and relationships in particular settings.

- CONCLUSION
- Trend to examine language in its real contexts of use and to analyse the
participants and their social worlds. It has focused on the idea of language as
discourse. Both media of communication, written and spoken, can be studied in
social contexts and through real texts (external evidence, existing in the social
world).

Coulthard
Chapter 11 Listening to People reading (Brazil)
READING AND TALKING
Spoken discourse:
o TALKING (spontaneous talk):
It happens in real time
Its linearly organised sequence of events
Naturally produced
Here-and-now state of speaker-hearer convergence
Step-by-step progression (piecemeal nature)
o READING ALOUD:
Prepared text complete object
Complex hearer-speaker relation
Reading involves an interaction with both, the text and the hearer
Intonational options correlate with these ascpects and render
different kinds of reading
Context of interaction: the speaker takes these features into
account, the
speaker engages with the context of interaction
DEGREES/LEVELS OF ENGAGEMENT (its not a clear cut distinction,
its rather a continuum)

ENGAGEMENT 1: MINIMAL ENGAGEMENT

 No concern with the communicative possibilities (no assumtions about how it fits
into any discourse or context) the text is read as a SAMPLE OF LANGUAGE.
The reader simply quotes, reports a form of words and does not implicate
himself with the truth of the text. (limited INVOLVEMENT)
FEATURES:
o Prominence: inherent stress, no decisions (e.g. word citation: the speakers
allots default prominence to the word)
o Tone units: one-tone-unit-per-sentence arrangement.
o Intonation: P tones (no assessment of shared knowledge)

ENGAGEMENT 2:
the reader must decode a text in real time and sometimes (s)he cant process
the items as single bits
FEATURES:
o Intonation: There are instances of hesitations and pauses zero tone
(beside the proclaiming tone)
o Prominence: citation forms ( = E1)
o Tone units: no engagement with a contextual projection
o Oblique presentation: ritualized, non-interactive presentation of
content. Some hearer-sensitive choices. Decoding and planning delays
interfere with the articulation of the language sample.

ENGAGEMENT 3:
Reading aloud an un-contextualised sentence the speaker constructs a
rudimentary discourse context that the organization of the sentence may or may
not suggest.
FEATURES:
o Intonation: R & P tones hypotetic conversational setting. Neutral
intonation (unmarked)
o The reader constructs a kind of discourse context and attaches some
interactional significance to items.

ENGAGEMENT 4:
The reader relates the sentence to the state of hearer-reader understanding.
The choices are made in line with the newly created context of the interaction.
Co-text: memory comes to play intonational decisions based on previous
discourse and extra-textual background.

ENGAGEMENT 5: MAXIMAL ENGAGEMENT

Reading aloud is most close to spontaneous interaction. It replicates interactive
speech (conversational purposes).
The reader takes into account the complex network of shared assumptions.
Texts are seen as the embodiment of the speakers viewpoint. The reader
assimilates his/her viewpoint and creates a notional hearer.
Memorization is not ivolved, but its similar to an actor performing glines, asif
they were oart if his own conversational purpose.
The speaker-hearer intermeshing of minds is similar to that one of speaking.
The reader has to assimilate to speech some material that was created in
different circumstances. Texts are aimed at composite readership (presumed
recipient). Te reader has to recreate an interactive action of the text.
READING:
While reading aloud, readers make choices according to what they believe to be
common ground.
Sometimes, tone and prominence decisions may be redundant for 2 reasons:
o To take less for granted (tone)
o To make the comprehension procedss easier (prominence)
An example of minimal engagement is dictations there is orientation towards
the language.
Reporting for checking: r+ tones

PROJECTING A CONTEXT:
Readers match performance with expectation
Reading aloud in fiction involve a projection of a context of interaction in which
the world of the fiction could take place.

Cockroft
Chapter 2, 3 & 4.
THE STRUCTURES AND FUNCTIONS OF SPEECH
- DISCOURSE
- Interactions between speakers in different contexts
- Functions of language -> transactional/interactional
- Approaches:
Functionalist structured by the context of interaction
Formalist structured by the organization of the spoken interaction
Halliday structured by the distribution of new/shared information
- Language has an external (social) function

- UTTERANCE (form & function): Context defined unit of language

SOME THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
- SPEECH ACT THEORY Austin and Searle
- Language performs communicative acts:
ILLOCUTIONARY ACTS performative.
PERLOCUTIONARY (affects the listener) Representative, directive,
commisive, expressive, declarative.
- Felicity conditions authority to perform the speech act (SA); perform the SA
correctly and sincerely. successful conversation
- Language:
- Communicative functions

- Direct/indirect
- EXCHANGE THEORY Coulthard, Sinclair and Brazil.
- Interactions have the same structure, with each move consisting of one or more
speech acts.
- IRF structure. Initiation, response, feedback/evaluation
- Adjacency pairs question/answer, introduction/greeting, inform/acknowledge.
They can be separated by insertion sequences.
- Preferred/dispreferred moves. The listener can change the conversations
direction. For example answering a question with another question.

- NARRATIVE STRUCTURE THEORY - Lavob

- Narrative: unit of discourse with clear boundaries, linear structure and
recognisable stages in its development:
 ABSTRACT summary of the story. Key messages, main points. Doesnt
develop the story.
ORIENTATION context in which the story takes place. Setting.
EVALUATION
NARRATIVE Story telling
RESULT what finally happened.
CODA Signals the end, relates the story to the present.
- Narrative part of everyday spoken interaction. Holds the hearers attention.
Relationship between form and function.

- FRAME THEORY Goffman and Minsky

- Past experience Structure present usage
- When we talk, we pick up contextualization frames, we recognise the situation
and we are able to structure our responses appropriately.
- Mental frameworks --> help us interpret the situation and anticipate whats going
to happen discourse structures

- SCHEMA THEORY
- Schema: mental model or knowledge structure in the memory. Its related to
frame theory. Patterns and expectations. Frames and assumptions.
- Each frame creates and fulfil discourse expectations
- The speakers adjust and shift their framework and schemas as required by the
context of interaction.
- Miscommunication:
Conflicting frames. i.e. Register
Mismatched schema.

- PRAGMATICS
- Focuses on the contexts and purposes of people talking to each other.
- Studies the choices of language in social interaction, and the effects of our
choices on others.
- Grice conversational maxims quantity, quality, relevance and manner.
- Making sense of what we hear also depends on the context of interaction.
Previous experiences, assumptions.
- Discourse interpretation depends on: intentions of speakers/hearers, their
knowledge, beliefs, and presuppositions about the world, the context and
individual psychological factors.

- CONVERSATION ANALYSIS
- They focus on the way society affects spoken interaction.
- Naturally occurring spoken language (conversation) has its own dynamic
structure and rules that derive from social interaction. (not from grammar and
syntax) We know those rules intuitively.
- Features in spoken language (in successful conversation): turn-taking, adjacency
pairs, openings and closures, topic shifts, politeness strategies, etc.
- If rules are not followed or the participants misjudge or ignore the context
unsuccessful conversation miscommunication
- Talk ordered, organised and dynamic.

- ETNOGRAPHY OF COMMUNICATION - Hymes

- Patterns of spoken communication Cultural knowledge and behaviour
- Communicative competence norms and variations. Cultural and linguistic
constraints.
 - Sequenced interaction defined by the context and the participants in the
discourse Speech events (i.e. an interview) Speech act (i.e. a question)
- Participants share cultural knowledge, experiences within a community, etc.

SMOOTH TALKING AND NOT SO SMOOTH TALKING

- Choices of lexis and grammar the speakers make real the forms and functions
of discourse.
- Features of spoken language:
GRAMMAR FEATURES Relationship between the words in an utterance,
and its syntactic structure.
o Contractions
o Active verbs rather than passive
o Frequency of imperative and interrogative forms
o Phrases, noun phrases instead of complete sentences
o Simple and short clauses
o High proportion of co-ordination
o and as a marker
o Ellipsis
o Deixis
o ALSO (practical classes) incomplete sentences, present tenses.

LEXICAL FEATURES register and semantic field

o Less abstract vocabulary
o General and simple vocabulary
o High proportion of functional words (low lexical density)
o Context-determined lexical choice
o Vague language (stuff, things, anyone)
o Fillers
o Hedging devices (actually)
o Terms of address
o Phatic language (polite expressions of social lubrications)
o ALSO: Lexicalized items: fixed expressions, phrasal verbs, idioms, etc.
Deixis.

DISCOURSE FEATURES interactive features. Express attentiveness

interest, emotion, etc.
o Discourse Markers. Question tags, overlaps, interruptions, incomplete
clauses.
o Repetitions and echoing
o Reformulation
o Back-chanelling (monitoring devices) mhm, yeah, laughs, right, sure, etc.
o Disjuncts Frankly, honestly..
o repetitions
o Comment clauses of certainty, tentativeness, and emotional attitude.
(expressing speakers feelings)
o ALSO: Pauses and hesitations. Discourse markers (you know, I mean.., sort
of..)

- FLUENCY IN TALK
- Fluency continuum. Complete fluency <-----------------> Virtual incoherence
- Fluency is the unmarked norm of talking. Fluency norm.
- Non-fluency features deviate from that norm they are marked:
 o Long and/or frequent hesitations
o False starts & incomplete clauses
o High proportion of fillers and vague language
o High frequency of repetition
o Excessive overlaps and interruptions
o Failure to identify and repair miscommunication
o Failure to use strategies such as: clarification, adjusting schema, code
switching, conversational maxims, and other politeness strategies.
- Successful communication can take place with a substantial degree of non-
fluency, if the speakers choices are functioning effectively.

PRIVATE & PUBLIC, PLANNED & UNPLANNED TALKING.

- Communicative competence changes of the spoken language within and between
different contexts. Speakers accommodate their spoken language to different situations
and people.
- Unplanned private talking- is an interaction in a context where the participants know
each other well. The interaction is personal. Occurs in a private context. Higher
proportion of implicatures, non-fluency features, overlaps and interruptions.
- Unplanned public talking is an interaction in a context where the participants do not
know each other well, perhaps not at all. The transactional function prevails. It is
associated with service encounters or professional consultations. There may be non-
fluency features, but less overlaps and interruptions than in private talk.
- Planned public talking - Occurs in occupational, business, professional, civic and
national contexts. Its learnt in advance, even scripted.
- TALKING IN PRIVATE: UNPLANNED SPEECH
- Private and unplanned talking. The most accessible kind of talking: Casual
conversation
- Interactional and transactional exchanges.
- Predominantly dialogic.
CASUAL CONVERSATION
o Family and friends topic shifts. Implicatures.
o Telling stories and Jokes Narrative structure. Monologues, false starts.
Back-channelling. Interactional features: you see...
o Talking on the phone Greetings, opening and closing moves. Back-
channelling.
o Talking to different audiences Inequality in the relationship between
participants (powerful & powerless participants). Talking to children,
animals, and the elderly. Tendency to simplify structures, use short
utterances, exaggerated intonation, diminutive forms, baby-talk, etc.
o Talking as a monologue Planned monologue (literary/dramatic contexts).
Thinking aloud, dealing with practical problems, messages in answering
machines, etc. Absent audience.

- TALKING IN PUBLIC: UNPLANNED SPEECH

- Spoken interactions when we go to work, shop, visit the bank, buy a
newspaper, attend a class, consult a doctor, etc.
- Predominantly transactional structural patterns. Speakers can recognise
different genres. Previous experiences generate expectations, and we have some
expectations.
- There may be interactional elements social lubrication.
- Participants may be friends, acquaintances or strangers.
- Education, business, media or other professional contexts.
- Unplanned and spontaneous language.
 SERVICE ENCOUNTERS Transactional talking. Structural pattern (offer of
service request for service transaction salutation). Obligatory and
optional elements.
o Business Structural pattern. Choices of lexis, terms of address, levels of
formality, non-fluency features and adjacency pairs. For example: service
encounter in a shop (exchange of goods)
o Professional Its mainly transactional, but it has strong interactional
elements. For example, a doctor-patient interaction. Imbalance of power.
The doctor must adjust his schema to the patients. Exchange structure
model (history-taking, examination, diagnosis and management).
Adjacency pairs.
CLASSROOM TALK Although classes are planned in advance, the interaction
between pupils and teachers remain spontaneous and unplanned. Exchange
structures (IRF and adjacency pairs), opening and closing moves, elicitations,
evaluations, re-initiations, reinforcements, repetitions, multiple-class
responses, etc.
COURTROOM LANGUAGE It reflects the professional relationships of the
participants. It takes place in the public domain. Combines predictable
discourse structure (for example, the lawyers) and unpredictable responses
(from the defendant). Exchange structure pattern and adjacency pairs.
Argument-based debates.
TALKING IN PUBLIC:
o The media Radio and television. Chat shows, phone-ins, discussions,
interviews, documentaries, sports commentaries, broadcast debates, etc.
Spontaneous comments of participants, unplanned talking. There are
expected generic structures, as well as expected register and levels of
formality. Each genre of media talk will have its own Generic structure
potential obligatory and optional elements. Elements: number of
participants, turn-taking, back
o Communicating information - Public announcements. Information about
trains, planes, buses, weather forecasting, traffic control, police, and
ambulance services, etc. Circumstances as they arise unplanned
language. Audience general public. Exchange structure patterns.
Restricted language: standard phrases, fixed syntactic and lexical routines
(to avoid ambiguity). They remain rigid in form, but must be flexible
enough to respond to changing situations.

Thornbury & Slade Conversation: from

description to pedagogy.
1. CARACTERIZING CONVERSATION
- Conversation is central to human discourse enactment of social values and
relationships. Through conversation people establish, maintain and modify their
social identities.
- Definitions:
o Talk that takes place in informal situations
o Informal talk exchange of information, news, feeling and thoughts
o Activity that involves 2 or more people (small groups)
THE NATURE OF CONVERSATION
- Conversation is SPOKEN:
o MODE spoken prosodic features sentence stress, intonation, tempo
and articulation rate, rhythm and voice quality. (Difficult to transcribe)
o PROSODY
Intonation - rising tones (questions)
Pitch - Key/termination choices to maintain or relinquish the
speaking turn. High key also signals high involvement in the
conversation.
Intonation to contrast information shared/given information and
proclaimed-as-new information.
Intonation and pitch play a crucial role in conversation management
(topics, turns, degree of speaker involvement and identification of
information status)
- It takes place SPONTANEOUSLY, in REAL TIME:
o Several features are caused but the time of planning and production of
conversation.
o Dysfluency features:
Hesitations
Word repetition
False starts
Repairs
Unfinished utterances
Ungrammaticality
o Devices that buy planning time:
Fillers (well, you know, etc.)
Repetition of sentence frames and borrowing chunks from the
others utterance.
Utterance launchers (stored fabricated and memorized items) Im
so glad You mean I was speaking to.
o Talk is built clause by clause, rather than sentence by sentence
utterance boundaries are less clear than in written language.
o Coordination is preferred to subordination Sequences of short clauses
linked by and, but, then, because.
o Theme of the utterance: usually a noun phrase.
o Low lexical density (functional words > content words).
This makes conversation easier to process in real time.
This is balanced by the fact that conversation is sometimes
intricate, because speakers elaborate loosely linked clauses and
phrases.
Information is loosely packed because of production pressure.
- It takes place in a SHARED CONTEXT:
o Context is shared and immediate.
o Speakers rely on shared knowledge of the participants, and knowledge of
the immediate spatio-temporal context.
o Features:
Pronouns
Deictic forms (this, that, there, now, when, etc.)
Ellipsis (omitted things that can be reconstructed from the context.)
Non-clausal expressions (yeah, oh yeah, no, mm)
 o Participants also rely on the institutional, social and cultural context.
o INTERPRETATION of conversation relies then on sharing contextual
knowledge and on the immediate context of interaction (more degree of
implicitness than in written communication)
- It is INTERACTIVE, hence jointly constructed and reciprocal:
o Conversation is dialogic or multilogic.
o It involves taking successive turns (participants take the floor)
o RECIPROCITY: speakers respond to and refer to previous utterances of
other speakers.
o CONTINGENCY: Utterances are retrospective and prospective
(referring/proclaiming tones)
o INTERACTIONAL SIGNALS: Discourse markers and interactional signals help
the speaker to signal the beginning of a turn or a transition point.
o REPAIR WORK: when ambiguities need to be resolved.
Speakers receive immediate feedback from the other participants
(agreeing, back channeling, showing interest, clarifying or
responding to questions).
Speakers adapt their message to their interlocutors (linguistic and
paralinguistic) reactions.
- It has an INTERPERSONAL function:
o The roles of the speakers shape the conversation (e.g. interview)
o Rights of interaction:
Service encounters, interviews, etc. Asymmetrical interactions:
Unequal distribution of rights to initiate, to ask questions, to direct
the flow of talk, etc.
Casual conversation Symmetrical interaction: rights are equally
distributed among participants.
o Functions of talk:
Transactional Service encounters practical goal to achieve
Interactional CASUAL CONVERSATION phatic, social aim. It is
directed to the establishing and maintaining social
relationships/ties. It emphasizes the personal element of the
interaction, its not product-oriented.
- It is INFORMAL:
o Conversation is spontaneous and interactive casual/informal style.
o Characteristics of informality:
Lexical choices (slang, swearing and colloquial language)
Pronunciation features (contractions)
Vernacular grammar (stigmatized forms regional varieties). E.g.
aint, they gets, double negation, etc.
- It is EXPRESSIVE of our feelings, wishes, attitudes and judgments:
o Conversation is critical for the negotiation of social identities
o Membership to a particular social group vernacular features of grammar
o Conversation facilitates the bonding of large groups social function
o Casual talk helps people to construct cohesive relationships between a
group of people.
o Identity is encoded in a variety of ways
Appraisal language: high frequency of evaluative vocabulary and
formulaic expressions.
Supportive back-channeling
 Telling of stories
Informal lexis
Humour
Swearing
Nicknames and address terms
Interjections (wow, cool)
- Other modes of conversation: computer mediated communication (CMC)
chatting, e-mail exchanges. Electronic medium dissolves the traditional
distinctions between spoken and written interaction.
- SUMMARY: conversation is spoken, planned and produced in real time. It happens
informally, symmetrically and its purpose is establishing and maintaining social
ties. Its an informal, interactive talk between 2 or more people. Participants
share symmetrical rights.

APPROACHES TO THE ANALYSIS OF CONVERSATION

- Some approaches share basic assumptions about conversations: its structurally
patterned, its ordered not chaotically, not randomly but coherently.
- Sociological approaches:
o Sociology account for the organization of everyday life.
o CONVERSATION ANALYSIS Sociological approach to conversation:
describes and explains the ordering of conversation (reasoning procedures
and sociolinguistic competence of participants.
o Rules of turn-taking, conversational repairs, adjacency pairs, insertion
sequences, etc.
o Conversation ordered in sequences conversational work is co-
operatively managed.
- Sociolinguistic approaches:
o Antropology, sociology and linguistics.
o Analyisis of language in its social context language use variations
according to contextual and cultural factors.
o ETHNOGRAPHY OF SPEAKING Hymes contextual factors influence
speech events. SPEAKING grid.
o Variations in pronunciation, word choices, etc. Linguistic factors social
variables (class, ethnicity, gender, etc.)
o Interactional sociolinguistics, variation theory language variation is
evidenced in discourse units, e.g. Narratives: abstract, orientation,
complication, resolution, coda and evaluation. --_ great deal of linguistic
variation within relatively stable structures. Vernacural style in narratives,
and attitudes conveyed when relating a narrative.
- Philosophical approaches:
o SPEECH ACT THEORY Speakers intentions are expressed in language.
Austin and Searle speech as action. Utterances different functions
(expressive, communicative, representative, etc.)
o PRAGMATICS elucidating speaker meaning, and how it is retrieved by
listeners. Interpretation relies on shared knowledge and principles for the
conduct of talk. These principles were outlined by Grice (co-operative
principle). Listeners co-operate in order to achieve coherence (making sense
of utterances by searching or relevance in the co-text and context)
 o RELEVANCE THEORY Sperber & Wilson speakers try to make their
contribution as relevant as possible, which requires the least processing
effort in order to make sense. This assumption is key to maintain
conversational coherence.
- Linguistic approaches:
o DISCOURSE ANALYSIS Firth, Sinclair, Coulthard (classroom interaction)
Grammar of interaction speaker choices are determined by
previous utterances. Discourse grammar hierarchy of units,
individual acts. Transactions > exchanges > moves
o SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS: Halliday
Relates language to its social context and the functions it performs
in that context. Actual language in use social, cultural and
situationa context.
Functional approach to language: internal organisation of language
functions. Context and language are functionally and
systematically related. Different contexts = different kinds of
language use.
Context factors that determine language and constitute the
register of the situation (how we use language differently in
different situations):
FIELD: what is being talked about
TENOR: relationship between participants
MODE: written/spoken language
These factors are encoded in 3 types of meaning, which are
encoded simultaneously in the text:
Ideational meanings: meanings about the world.
Interpersonal meanings: meanings about the roles and
relationships.
Textual meanings: meanings about the message.
o GENRE THEORY:
Semantic and grammatical tool to group texts with similar social
purposes into text-types.
o CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
Discourse form of social practice. It can be understood only in
relation to social structures, and the relations of power inherent to
them. Language choices are socially constitutive, they help to
sustain and reproduce current social structures (including
inequalities of power, cultural stereotypes of age, gender and race).
Every text has an ideological sub-text.
o CORPUS LINGUISTICS: The tape recorder and the computer allowed
linguists to record real spoken data, compile it and analyse it.

SUMMARY
Conversation is spontaneous, spoken, multilogic communication. It takes place in
real time and in shared contexts, and its functions is primarily interpersonal. In this
interaction, the participants have equal rights. Different approaches to
conversations provide different tools for analysing and describing conversation.

2. THE VOCABULARY OF CONVERSATION

 LEXICAL SIZE:
o Spoken discourse smaller amount of words needed to understand than written
discourse. (Every-day conversation 2000/3000 words).
o Word frequency: sharp distinction words that are very frequently used and
others that occur relatively infrequently.
o Word families base word plus its inflections and derivations.
o English learners minimum adequate speech vocab of 1200 words.
o Effective speaking: using a few words, to say a lot. Ways of economizing
vocabulary: vague language, repetition, etc.

LEXICAL DENSITY AND LEXICAL VARIETY in conversation

o Low lexical density: the lowest of all registers. More number of content words
than lexical words. Conversation is produced and received in real time
lower information load than written text, due to its spontaneity. Conversation
= language in action (supports actions) Use of deictic language and
pronouns to avoid redundancy.
o Lexical variety: different words in a text. Types (number of different words)
token (number of actual words, no matter if repeated). The type-token ration
indicates lexical variation. Spoken data shows lower rations than written one.
LEXICAL FREQUENCY
o Half of conversation consists of just 50 frequent words, which are constantly
recycled. E.g. well, know, got, think, right, the, I, you, and, to, it, etc. Many of
these words are elements of discourse markers or inserts such as and, yeah,
but, oh, so and yes.
o Core lexicon of conversation (2000 most frequent words)
9 categories:
Modal vocabulary (expressing certainty or necessity)
Delexical verbs (do, make, take, get)
Interactive words (sps attitude actually, really, quite)
Discourse markers their function is to organize the flow of
talk and to manage its interactivity. (so, anyway, right, ok?)
Basic nominal concepts (common nouns problem, person,
family, kids, room, car, school, days, months, colours, etc.)
General deictics now, then, this, that, etc.
Basic adjectives nice, lovely, different, good, bad.
Basic adverbs of time, frequency, and sentence adverbs
Basic verbs of action and events sit, give, say, leave, stop,
etc.
o High incidence of adverbial pgrases and lower incidence of nouns in spoken
data.
LEXICAL REPETITION
o Repetition at the level of words, grammatical structures and discourse
features.
o Repeated use of keywords serves to make the talk cohesive and coherent.
o Reiteration of lexical items provides the text with discourse cohesion
o Lexical repetition can have a cohesive function:
Direct repetition of a word
Derived form
Synonyms or near-synonyms
 Superordinate
Item from the same lexical set
o Pro-forms are repeated sometimes forming a lexical pattern. Reiteration helps
the listeners to construt a schema for the story (a mental representation of
the sequence of events).
o Repetition serves 2 functions:
Textual function (cohesion & coherence)
Interpersonal function (repeating the others utterances bonds
participants to discourse and to each other)
o Lexical repetition relexicalization: speakers paraphrase the others
utterance. This helps conversation progression.
VAGUE LANGUAGE:
o The demands of spontaneity account for some instances of vagueness
vague lexical items, hesitations, fillers. Vagueness is perfectly acceptable in
conversation.
o Hedging fills an interpersonal function. Its a form of avoiding commiting
oneself or imposing on our locutor.
o Vague category identifiers:
Expressions of vagueness: stuff like that something
Vague tags: and things, and all that sort of things, etc.
o Vague quantities: loads of, a lot of, a bit of
o Place-holders words: thingy, whatsisname (used to substitute more specific
words)
FILLERS:
o Pause fillers or hesitators are used to fill a momentary hesitation. err erm.
The speaker wants to keep the floor.
o Verbal fillers well, I mean, well erm,you know, etc. They are used by speakers
to save time at the beginning of a turn, to plan what to say next (stallers)
o Double function - Verbal fillers can function as discourse markers, to signal
the speakers intentions.
DISCOURSE MARKERS AND OTHER INSERTS:
o Talk is segmented into coherent macrostructures topics.
o Topics are continually shaped and negotiated by participants
Organizational work: discourse markers and interactiona signals.
Discourse markers show how what is being said is related to what
has already been said. They connect utterances, segmenting the flow
of talk into macrostructures. Openings and closings of conversations,
introduction of a topic, etc.
Interactional signals: they are devices that facilitate the cut-and-
thrust of online talk. They include:
Attention signals (hey!)
Response elicitors (OK?)
Back-channelling devices (mmm, uh huh, etc.)
Pragmatic markers (interactional signals) they monitor and stage the
unfolding talk: right, now, anyway, well, oh, and, but, or, so, because,
yknow, I mean, etc.
Overtures: longer expressions that serve to signal launch utterances
(like I say, the question is, you mean to say, etc.)
 Inserts that mark transitions, signal attitudes or manage the
interaction:
Greetings and farewells
Interjections
Polite formulae
Hedges
Expletives (shit! Bloody hell!)
Tails or tags occur at the end of the utterance and serve to qualify it or
to solicit listener involvement.
ROUTINES AND LEXICAL PHRASES
o Fixed and semi-fixed multi-word phrases play an important role in
conversation.
o Expressions of vagueness, discourse markers and overtures are routinized
chunks.
o A large amount of conversational language is stored as prefabricated
utterances
o Difficulty in defining lexical phrases: formulaic sentences (prefabricated
elements, stored and retrieved from memory rather than being generated)
o Lexical phrases: multi-word items that constitute a single grammatical unit,
but have no pragmatic function. They are big words, with simple meanings.
out of the blue dictionary meaning. They facilitate fluency and processing
time. They are speaker-oriented.
o Conversational routines: they are grammatical units and pragmatically
functional. They include fillers, discourse markers, utterance launchers, tags,
etc.how do you do? socio-interactional function. They are aimed at
achieving efficient comprehension and socio-interactional goals. They are
hearer-oriented.
o Multi-word phrases can be:
Idiomatic expressions: on the other hand
Non-canonical (they are not orthodox grammatical constructions): long
time no see.
o Some multi-words are fixed and some others allow certain degree of variation.
o Sentence builders provide a framework for whole new sentences: have a
nice day/evening/morning. Would you like .? These also include utterance
launchers: speaking of the thing is that..
o Conversational gambits:
Opening gambits: guess what!
Linking gambits: in fact, thats why..
Responding gambits: youre joking!
o Conventionalized social formulae. Greetings, ways of thanking,
apologizing, making requests and offers. Thank you Im sorry would you
mind? Shall I?
o Lexical bundles: sequences of 3 or more words that tend to co-occur in
particular registers. They are not idiomatic, they are more frequent than
idioms and sometimes they are incomplete. going to be a I said to him.
APPRAISAL AND INVOLVEMENT:
o Speakers demonstrate their commitment to the flow of talk by expressing
their personal stance and attitude toward what they are saying, and their
 membership to the immediate social group by using appraisal and
involvement language.
o APPRAISAL: language resources used to negotiate emotions, judgements
and evaluations. It includes adjectives (wonderful, stunning, awful, amazing)
and intensifying adverbs (incredibly, totally, really), verbs of likes and dislikes
(hate, loathe, adore, love). There are 3 categories of appraisal:
Affect: personal feelings
Judgement: social sanctions and esteem
Appreciation: expression of opinion
o INVOLVEMENT: refers to language used to express group membership:
names and terms of address, slang, swearing and taboo language, jargon,
foreign expressions, catchphrases, etc. Humour is also considered as part of
involvement language.
o Appraisal is a grading system (from negative to positive) so it is open to
evaluation and negotiation. Involvement is an indexical system of inclusion or
exclusion, there is no room for negotiation.
IMPLICATIONS with regard to the classroom
o Learners need to acquire a critical mass of high-frequency words to cope with
casual conversation.
o This spoken lexicon will include modality terms, deictic expressions, and the
core vocabulary (basic nouns, verbs, adj. and adv.). They should also acquire
a range of common lexical items to express emotion and attitude (appraisal
language).
o Fluency can be achieved by the use of fillers, lexical repetition devices, vague
terms, and lexical phrases.
o Conversational competence: Hedging devices, involvement, fixed phrases,
social formulae and conversational routines will help the learner to achieve
their interpersonal/social/conversational goals. This lexical phrase knowledge
also includes the management of openings/closings, turn-taking, etc.

3. THE GRAMMAR OF CONVERSATION

COMPLEXITY:
o (Halliday) The sentence structure of speech is highly complex, reaching
degrees of complexity rarely achieved in writing.
o Written language is densely packed lexical context into a simple
grammatical framework. Speech is like an intricate dance; its in a
constant state of constant flux.
o Speakers use complex and sophisticated grammatical constructions (e.g.
complex relative causes) as well as simple clauses and , etc. These units
of analysis (sentence, phrase, clause, etc.) are more appropriate when
referring to written data.
o Spoken grammar is dynamic (Brazil). Discourse is now-happening,
assembled in real-time this explains the fragmented nature of speech.
Spoken and written discourses are both complex, in different ways.
o Utterances are assembled in stages, which are planned locally; we cannot
plan a whole sentence in advance because of our restricted memory.
o The complexity of speech is achieved by the accumulation of individual
clause-like units (even though these segments are rather simple), linked
by discourse markers.
 o Non-clausal material (C-units: building blocks of spoken grammar):
Inserts: discourse markers, back-channelling devices, interjections.
They stand alone and do not enter syntactic relations with other
structures. Please pardon? yeah
Syntactic non-clausal units: isolated phrases which are capable of
forming elements of other structures. E.g. answers, repetitions, terms
of address, elaborations, and evaluative comments. a pen, good,
fine.

HEADS AND TAILS:

o The body of the spoken message is preceded and followed by optional
slots, which may be filled with heads or tails:
HEADS: typically a noun phrase, which identifies the topic and
establishes a common frame of reference. It can be a non-grammatical
construction such as [where I live] Its a beautiful place, a discourse
maker or other interactional signals such as right yes really in a wat
I mean to say etc.
Heads have a discourse function: they foreground the topical focus of
the following utterances.
TAILS: The use of tails is more retrospective, because they extend,
reinforce, mitigate, carify or comments on what the speaker has said.
Question tags
Interrogatives: no? Or?
Reinforcement tags: you are in trouble, you are
Noun phrase identifiers
Evaluative adjectives
Vague category identifiers
Comment clauses: I think, I reckon
Discourse markers and interactional signals: though, you
know
Vocatives: they reinforce social relationships and display
solidarity (interpersonal grammar)
GRAMMATICAL INCOMPLETION: pressure of online planning
ungrammatical utterances (incomplete constructions or non-standard usages).
These non-standard forms are accepted by native speakers.
o Abandonment
o Interruption
o Completion by other speaker (jointly constructed nature of conversation)
o Syntactic blending: mismatch between the start of an utterance and its
ending:
ELLIPSIS: Conversation occurs in a shared context deliberate omission of
items that are retrievable from the immediate linguistic or situational context, so
they would be redundant.
o Omitted items can be: Words and phrases, whole clauses, sentence
subjects, subjects and operators, and auxiliary verbs.
o Ellipsis usually occurs at the beginning of utterances, because it is usually
given information (theme and rheme). Ellipsis occurs at the end in replies
to questions (short answers) or in comment questions.
 o Language-in-action talk renders elaborate language redundant.
DEIXIS: Shared temporal and spatial context high proportion of deictic
expressions to refer to features of the immediate situation. Pointing with the
language. Functional words: Personal pronouns, demonstratives and adverbial
(personal deixis, spatial deixis and temporal deixis)
QUESTIONS: Conversation is interactive, dialogic and jointly constructed it
depends largely on questions. Conversational exchange: adjacency pairs
question-answer.
o Types of questions (function):
To elicit information
To elicit confirmation
To elicit agreement
o Types of questions (form):
Declarative questions (quite common requests for confirmation)
Subject-object inversion questions (
Elliptical:
o Question tags (solicitations of agreement or
confirmation)
Fully independent clauses
o Yes/no questions
o Wh questions
o Alternative questions , echo questions, rhetorical and
self-answered questions.
o What defines the function of an utterance is not its form, but the actual
speech situation, including the participants shared knowledge.
TENSE AND ASPECT:
o Tense (marker of time)
Present tenses most common tenses in conversation (focus on the
immediate context, current states or habitual behaviour, present
perfect, historic present in complicating events or jokes)
Past tenses usually in conversation narratives and anecdotes. Past
perfect: background information and reported speech (uncommon)
o Aspect (actions seen as progress or complete)
Progressive aspect found in narrative (narrative frame for the key
events and reporting verbs). Its not very common in conversation.
Perfect aspect less frequent than simple forms. Comments on
changes, reporting news, commenting on situations that are evident in
the present.
o Pragmatic combinations of tense and aspect are not easily learnt and
taught. Spoken grammar contextual features and interpersonal aspects
of the interaction.
o Passive voice is very rare in talk (conversation human centered)
MODALITY: interpersonal features of the context of use. Speakers indicate their
attitudes or judgments with regard to the message. It is signaled by the use of
modal verbs, semi-modals (have to, be supposed to), lexical words (perhaps,
maybe, possibility).
o Mood system: expression of interpersonal meaning (TENOR of the
interaction)
o Extrinsic modality speakers judgment of the likelihood of an event
 o Intrinsic modality. Speakers judgment to the desirability, necessity or
permissibility of an event. (volition, obligation, permission)
o Speculating and exchange of opinion, points of view, tentativeness, etc.
o Common modals in conversation: can, will and would.
o Infrequent modals: may, shall, must.
REPORTING: reporting is very common in every day speech. Reporting vetbs are
found in their continuous forms, and they have a framing function. I was telling
Gary. Theres predominance of direct reporting (its simpler that indirect
reporting), coordinated by and (and he said blah blah and she said oh yeah)
LEARNERS need to know that formal grammar of EFL material does not always
apply to spoken discourse. Pedagogical grammar is usually written grammar
(fake writerly conversations). Conversation shares a lot of features with inter-
language: less frequent use of the definite article and the use of demonstratives;
greater use of active constructions; use of the present (more frequent than the
future and the past); short verbal clauses, low proportion of noun phrases per
verb and simplification of grammatical morphology.
Conversation features are typical of a pragmatic language mode (Givon)
learners should try to acquire prefabricated lexical chunks and lexical phrases, to
gain more fluency, together with a core grammar that would include: basic
conjunctions, deictic devices, simple verb tense forms, modals and semi-modals,
questions, heads and tails, all-purpose quotatives, sentence starters, discourse
markers, back-channeling devices, etc.

4. THE DISCOURSE FEATURES OF CONVERSATION

Functional approaches to language focus on the grammar and lexis and also on
the analysis of the surrounding discourse (text in social contexts).
Conversation interactional nature Links between the language and its social
context.
DISCOURSE = language functioning in its context of use.
DISCOURSE ANALYSIS = study of these real texts in real contexts, and their
relationships. Their primary unit of analysis is the utterance. DA focuses on the
participants, their relationship (power, distance, etc.), the intended meaning of
writers and speakers, meaning in context, factors that enable interpretation, text
coherence, cohesion, levels of context (context of situation and the surrounding
text), etc.
COHESION in conversation:
o Cohesive interpretation: The interpretation of one item presupposes (and
depends on) another. These connection create the texture of discourse.
Cohesion can occur within a speaker turn or across turns.
o H&H:
Grammatical cohesion:
REFERENCE: Exophoric and endophoric
(anaphoric/cataphoric) reference pronouns and
demonstratives. Referents can be people, things or
propositions. Exophoric reference is context dependent (e.g.
deixis) and very common in conversation. Because of the
here-and-now shared by speakers, conversation is more
implicit than written texts (e.g. the use of definite article with
 no previously mentioned referent).
SUBSTITUTION AND ELLIPSIS: Substitution involves the
replacement of one item (nominal or clausal) by another (e.g.
pronoun, auxiliary). Ellipsis is a form of substitution whereby
an element is replaced by zero and it contributes to the
contingency of spoken language. It also serves an
interpersonal function (shows agreement, sympathy, etc.).
CONJUNCTIONS: These linking words indicate the direction
the talk is taking (they function as discourse markers).
Frequent conjunctions in conversation: and, but and so.
Lexical cohesion: the use of repetition, synonyms and lexical chains
of lexically related items. This indicates topic consistency and
coherence, and contributes to the sense speakers make of the text.
INTERACTION: conversation is interactive and different interpersonal goals are
realized at the discourse level.
o Adjacency pairs (CA terms): 3 characteristics: (1) they are composed of
2 turns (2) produced by different speakers which are (3) placed adjacently
and where the second utterance is identified as related to the first:
question/answer, offer/accept, request/grant, compliment/response,
challenge/rejection, and instruct/receipt.
Dispreferred responses to the first turn are face-threatening, so they will
require more elaboration in order to save face (mitigating strategies).
Sometimes, AP consist of more than 2 turns 3 ways of expansion: pre-
sequences, insertion sequences and post-sequences.
o Moves and exchanges in conversation: conversation unfolds in
functional patterns; each speaker move achieves a function in context.
Each utterance can be referred to as a move basic semantic unit in
interaction that perform a speech function, and serve as a point of turn-
transfer. Types of moves
Initiating moves: command, statement, offer and question
Expected responding moves: answer, acknowledging, response
to command, response to offer.
Discretionary moves: they are more frequent than expected ones;
they can be tracking (checking the content of prior moves) or
challenging.
Move complex: group of moves.
Exchange: interactive pattern of move exchanges. It begins with an
opening move and ends when another opening move occurs. Exchanges
are jointly constructed (conversation is developed move by move) by
participants, who assume roles and produce moves ad move complexes
accordingly.
o Turn-taking mechanism: speaker change needs to be negotiated at
every turn: the current speaker can selesct the next speaker (asking a
question, addressing directly, eye contact, etc.) or a new speaker can self-
select (using different strategies). Conversation is systematically
structured: even though some instances of overlapping and interruption
do occur, conversation flows coherently turn taking is systematic and
clearly understood by speakers (social and cultural knowledge).
 Interactants recognize points of potential speaker change at the end of
each turn-constructional unit (TCU - minimal semantic unit that can
constitute one complete turn of talk).
Conventions of turn-taking can be culturally specific and there can lead to
misunderstanding in cross cultural contexts (if the conventions are not
shared).
TOPIC MANAGEMENT: Topic development and management is an important
aspect of conversational structure.
o Topic change: to introduce a new topic, there are certain initiating moves
or strategies. Sometimes new topics are introduced without overt
signposting.
o Topic choice: appropriate and acceptable topics vary according to context
and culture (cross-cultural misunderstandings may arise). Topics of
conversation also differ according to: gender, class, age and ethnicity, as
well as the degree of familiarity or distances between the participants
(gossiping, teasing, telling stories, etc.)
DISCOURSE STRATEGIES:
o Openings and closings: they are culturally and contextually dependent
(formality, informality). In casual conversation theu usually involve more
than a simple adjacency pair openings and closings are achieved
through an exchange of 3 or more moves (including pre-closings, which
allow a change of topic before the conversation ends). I have to go, enjoy
your class ok, Ill talk to her on Monday yeah, talk to us all see you
later. Conversations do not end abruptly, their endings are negotiated.
o Feedback in conversation: listeners show they are following the
conversation through back-channeling devices, and speakers check their
attention. Feedback conveys agreement, disagreement, interest and
attention, and maintains coherent and smooth conversation. This is also
culturally specific and changes from context to context (participants age,
gender, origin, etc.).
Continuers: permission to keep the floor - mmhm, uh huh
Acknowledgments: agreement/understanding yeah, mmhm
Assessments: wonderful
News markers: really, is it!
Questions : asking further details
Collaborative completions
Non-verbal vocalizations: laughter, sighs.
Non-minimal responses: really, fine they show an engaged
listenership.
o Cross-cultural variation in the use of DS: Gumperz cross-cultural
communication: different lexis, pronunciation, argumentation and
feedback. Linguistic differences co-relate to non-linguistic differences
(ethnicity, gender and class). Understanding depends on more than lexical
and grammatical knowledge misunderstandings arise much more
frequently due to lack of knowledge concerning the conventions of
language in use, and the strategies used in conversation, than to linguistic
competence. They also arise because of cultural stereotypes, different
cultural assumptions about the situation and the appropriate behaviour,
 politeness strategies, different ways of structuring discourse and
unconscious linguistic features (intonation, prosody, stress).
o Gender differences in the use of DS: gender influences the topic choice,
and also different ways of structuring discourse. Story telling: women
embarrassing, impossible or humiliating situations. Men heroic, violent
or danger situations. Gender also influences feedback, women ask a lot
more questions and encourage responses from the other speakers; women
make more use of minimal responses; woman use more inclusive pronouns
(you and we); men are more likely to challenge the other speakers
statements and they use more mechanisms for controlling the topic of
conversation.
SUMMARY: Conversation is interactive, and cohesion is necessary both to
achieve coherence and to make sure the talk is contingent and on topic. The
interactive nature of conversation accounts for the different strategies of the
turn-taking mechanism and move-and-exchange structure. Other strategies such
as topic management and feedback devices also help participants to ensure the
flow of conversation.
Conversation cannot be described in terms of grammatical units: it is not a
collection of decontextualized units of language structure, but a semantic unit
consisting of interactional units such as moves, exchanges, adjacency pairs,
TCUs, etc. (which are semantic too).
This is a micro-analysis of conversation, the macro-global analysis will study
genres.

Rost Teaching and researching listening

LISTENING
There have been different professional trends that tried to define listening.
With advances in technology (recording technology, acoustic phonetics, digital
networking, etc.) the definitions of listening changed as well as the expectations
of what we are able to achieve through listening.
Listening is regarded as one of the crucial components of spoken language
processing (complex behavior).
There is an interconnection of areas within the study of listening (linguistics,
anthropology, education, psychology, neurology, etc.)
Listening is a transient and invisible process that cannot be observed directly, so
in order to describe it, people use different ANALOGIES or METAPHORS. 4
orientations:
o RECEPTIVE ORIENTATION: Listening is receiving what the speaker
actually says (catching, getting, decoding information, etc.)
o CONSTRUCTIVE ORIENTATION: Listening is constructing (figuring out,
reframing, etc.) and representing meaning from what the speaker says.
o COLLABORATIVE ORIENTATION: Listening involves negotiating meaning
with the speaker and responding.
o TRANSFORMATIVE ORIENTATION: listening involves creating meaning
through involvement, imagination and empathy. (being involved, creating
a connection, imagining a possible world, creating meaning, etc.)

DEFINING LISTENING
 While listening there is an overlapping of 4 types of processing: neurological,
linguistic, semantic and pragmatic. These types of processing integrate and
complement each other.

Chapter 1 Neurological processing

1.1 Hearing
Hearing is a psychological system that allows rececption and conversion of sound
waves (perception).
Electrical pulses (pressure sound) outer ear inner ear brain (auditory
cortex)
Hearing is a neurological circuitry that is responsivle for spatial orientation
(balance) and temporal orientation (timing).
Sound perception works forward (anticipates) and backwards (organizes what has
been heard)
LISTENING has to do with the degree of intention (as opposed to hearing). It
involves the acknowledgment of a source and willingness to be affected by it.
AUDITION is the identification of sources in the energy field, in this case the air
surrounding the listener. The perceiver designates the sound waves to some
learned categories and assigns a particular meaning to them.

1.2 Consciousness
Its an aspect of the mind: self-centered point of view and orientation towards the
environment.
Its related to intentionality it directs speakers attention to the outside world.
2 processes:
Identifying a source/object/etc.
Willingness to witness that source.
Characteristics:
Embedded within an area of periphereal awareness: ACTIVE FOCUS
DYNAMIC: the focus moves constantly
It has a POINT OF VIEW that is centerd on the self.
It has a need for orientation in time, space and activity.
Orientation shifts: immediate mode/distal mode.
It can focus on one thing at a time.

1.3 Attention
It is the concrete aspect of consciousness
Focusing of consciousness on an object or train of thought (deliberate process)
Involvement: listening hearing
3 elements: arousal orientation focus
Shifts of attention = processing breaks
Attention has a limited capacity it is selective.

Chapter 2 Linguistic processing

2.1 Perceiving speech
Goal of speech production: maximise communication ( less effort, more
information)
 Efficiency principle: putting as many bits of information into every second of
speech as possible (frequent words are short, ellipsis)
Principle of least effort: minimise the articulatory effort (brevity, phonological
reduction)
Language processing must be efficient too, to keep up with the speaker. 2
features:
Maximisation of recognition: maximum use of acoustic information to
reconstruct the meaning of the utterance.
Minimisation of categorisation: hearers must tolerate ambiguity and create
as few perceptual classes as necessary to classify the acoustic input.
3 types of perceptual experience:
Articulatory causes for the sounds. Configuration in the speaker vocal tract

o Psychoacoustic effects: sounds are recognised as auditory qualities

(tone, intensity, frequency, timbre, duration)
o Speakers linguistic intentions: sounds are contrasted at multiple levels
of language (phonemic, morphological, lexical, semantic, etc.)
Speech perception sampling of sound characteristics in the speech signal.
Perceptual goodness: There is an ideal prototype for each phoneme and then
there is a broad range of variations within that phoneme that makes it
intelligible.
2.2 Identifying units of spoken language
Speakers groups speech into a small number of constituents (piecemeal fashion)
SPOKEN LANGUAGE produced in real time
o Short bursts of speech
o Topic-comment structures
o Coordination, additive ordering
o Low lexical density (functional words>content words)
o Incomplete grammatical units, false starts, abandoned structures.
o Ellipsis
o Vague language
o Fillers, markers and evocative expressions
o Exophoric reference, gesture and non-verbal cues
o Paralinguistic features, gestures, speeds and accents
Spoken language is not a deviation from written language; they simply follow
different realisation rules and standards of well formedness.
DIFFERENCE IN PLANNING TIME. Spoken discourse is put together in real time,
speakers need to adjust their message as they assess how they are getting their
message across to the listener.
Speakers use time-sensitive and context sensitive strategies to improve
comprehension
2.3 Using prosodic features in processing speech
Speech is uttered in a continuous stream, but divided into short bursts.
INTONATION UNITS (tone units/pause units) focal centre of attention (clitic
group). They consist of phrases or clauses; 2 or 3 seconds of length; they are
bound by pauses; they mark the speakers rhythm for composing and presenting
ideas; they coincide with the duration of the phonological short-term memory.
The choice of tones is related to the speakers current assessment of the
shared knowledge with the audience.
 o Level tones: allow the speaker to decide what to say next. Indicates that
additional information is coming and the speaker wants to keep the floor.
o Raising tones: new information, shared information. Referring tones.
o Falling tones: used to identify new or focal information. Proclaiming tones.
Turn-taking function: the speaker passes the floor.
Connectivity of tone units: speakers signal through intonational bracketing and
short/long pauses, which pause units are to be interpreted as related.
By means of paralinguistic features, the speaker can create different emotional
tones, through combinations of pitch, tempo, loudness, lip setting, timing, etc.
Relevance theory considers communication to be an ostensive-inferential
process. Speakers offer ostensive signals (linguistic and paralinguistic) and
listeners derive inferences.
Types of information available in speech (paralinguistic) signals:
o Emotional: attitudinal meaning (enthusiasm, doubt, distaste)
o Grammatical: mark structure, like punctuation in written language
o Informational: Speaker wants the listener to pay attention to some salient
parts of utterance (prominence)
o Textual: gives coherence to chunks of discourse (like paragraphs in written
language)
o Psychological: intonation is used to chunk complex information, so that it
is easier to deal with it.
o Indexical: intonation and melody are used as a social group identifier. (e.g.
recognisable intonation of preachers, newscasters, etc.)

2.4 Recognising words

Recognizing words is the basis of spoken language comprehension.
It is a fluid, automatic process, and its a critical process both in L1 and L2
acquisition.
Listeners carry out 2 tasks:
o Identifying words and lexical phrases
o Activating knowledge associated with them
There are different units in the phonological hierarchy: Utterance > Intonation
Unit > Lexical phrase (try as one might) > Phonological phrase (in the house) >
Clitic group (content + grammatical words) > Foot (strong/weak syllable
sequences > syllable (onset-nucleus-coda) > mora (half-syllable) > segment
(phoneme) > features (glide, obstruent, etc.)
Some processes make the identification of words easier:
o Likelihood of that word to be uttered in a certain context
o Sequential fashion of speech: syntactic and semantic constrains, number
of following words, onset of the following word.
o Short term memory allows the listener to hold unrecognized words for a
few seconds.
o Analysis of acoustic structure of the word eliminates all candidates but
one.
FLUENT SPEECH:
o Segmentation word boundaries
o Variation words that have sloppy articulation, and they must be
recognized from partial acoustic information. There are prototypes of
 sounds in memory, and they serve for the allophonic variations to be
interpreted.
o Semantic theory: Word recognition involves the activation of a frame
associated with the word: its acceptable word forms, its basic sense, part
of speech, frame relationships and collocations.
Theories of word recognition share some features, such as the activation of
multiple knowledge sources and a focus on decision making. Sources of
information in word recognition:
o Feature detection models: users have stored neutral representation of
words in their long-term memory, and it is triggered when they hear a
realization of the word.
o TRACE models: top-down process prediction of likely words in context.
Information used at 3 levels: phonetic features, phonemes and word
contours.
o Fuzzy logic models: 3 perceptual operations: feature evaluation, feature
integration (of the features with other information and matched against
prototypes in memory) and identification decision(judgement at all levels).

2.5 Employing phonotactic knowledge

In the brain there are phonetic feature detectors that enable the listener to
encode speech into linguistic units. Adults retain only the detectors stimulated by
their native language; this explains difficulties in perceiving, identifying and
producing sounds of a L2.
ALLOPHONIC VARIATION: The alternate pronunciations of a citation form that
occur due to context. These variations are allowed because of the efficiency
principle. Sounds are less clearly articulated in natural spoken language
(connected speech) than their citation forms, and yet, they are recognized.
Processes of assimilation, reduction and elision make speech production,
perception and processing more efficient.
o Assimilation: consonants change because of their context. It occurs in
several forms:
Articulation: open /oupm/ labialization of the nasal. Months /mons/
the dental fricative becomes an alveolar fricative, etc.
o Cluster reduction and dropping: two or more consonants come together to
simplify clusters:
Cluster reduction: Ask /a:skt/ /ast/. Hard disk /ha:d disk/
Ha:disk/, next to, etc.
Dropping: he, comfortable, terrorist, environment.
o Vowel changes: changes in the acoustic quality of vowels, related to
changes of stress, sonority, duration, loudness, articulation or position.
Weakening: idiot, period, Chariot.
Elision: (type of assimilation) omission of one or more sounds, so
that is easier for the speaker to pronounce a word or phrase. This is
automatic and unintentional. Comfortable, fifth, him, temperature,
etc.
o Syntactic parsing: users can map incoming speech onto a grammatical
model of the language. This aspect of linguistic processing is called
parsing. 2 passes, in 2 levels (simultaneously)
2.6 Utilising syntactic parsing (processing)
Processing language involves syntactic mapping of incoming speech onto a
grammatical model.
Syntactic and morphological cues influence how the listener processes meaning:
word order, subject-verb agreement, pro-form agreement, case inflections, and
ability to use this knowledge in real time.
Syntactic processing occurs at 2 levels:
o SENTENCE LEVEL
o DISCOURSE LEVEL
Syntactic processing occurs at 2 passes
o FIRST PASS: Identification of syntactic categories of categories.
3 main goals:
Assign syntactic categories to parts of the utterance
Predict functions of incoming parts
Create a propositional model of the incoming speech (logical
inferences)
It creates a syntactic reference frame that can be used for
comprehension and identification of the discourse topic.
o SECOND PASS: integration of syntax of the immediate utterance, with the
syntax of the larger speech unit. It assigns the recognized units into
grammatical constituents (content/functional words) and computes
semantic relationships between them.
Grammatical cues (wrd order, subj-v, etc.)
Semantic cues (logical viability)
Pragmatic cues (topic-comment relationship, contrastive stress,
interface between grammatical and real world knowledge).
o INTEGRATION of the 2 passes:
Syntactic integration processes:
Determining conjunctions, equivalences between items, and
calculating cohesion markers (anaphoric, cataphoric and
exophoric references).
Filling in ellipsis
Calculating logical inferences that link propositions.
Knowledge that facilitates the integration:
Pragmatic knowledge of common discourse functions and
types (genres, conventions, routines)
Intertextual knowledge of likely experiences (linguistic,
cultural experiences will influence speed of processing)
Familiarity with common sequences of formulaic
knowledge, idiomatic strings that are stored in memory and
facilitate fluency and linguistic processing. (polywords, fixed
phrases, meta-messages, sentence builders, situational
utterances, verbatim text)
Knowledge of context-appropriate prosody. Attention to pitch
levels, pauses, connectors, incompletion, etc.
Functional grammar: semantic roles as units in parsing
(agent, patient, object, instrument, goal, temporal, location,
path, source, manner, extent, reason, beneficiary)
2.7 Integrating non-verbal cues into linguistic processing
Listening involves integration of verbal and non-verbal cues, linguistic and extra
-linguistic information.
Messages have a potential interpretation that is constrained by listeners that
take into account different levels of processing.
NON-VERBAL INFORMATION:
o VISUAL SIGNALS
Exophoric - deixis
Kinesic body movements
Baton hands and head movements
Directional gaze eye movement
Guide signals systematic gestures and movements. They
vary across cultures and speakers.
o These non-verbal cues confirm the speakers linguistic meaning. It is
difficult to process the verbal message separately from the non-verbal
message.
o Listening face-to-face provides an extra layer of information. Non-verbal
cues amplify, confirm or disconfirm linguistic meaning.

SUMMARY
Language understanding involves parallel and complementary processes.
Bottom-up processing (users derive data from the signal to make sense) and top-
down processing (users use concepts in the brain to impose meaning) both
enable comprehension.

Chapter 3 Semantic processing

3.1 Comprehension: the role of knowledge structures
Comprehension process of structure building: relating language to concept
in ones memory and to references in the real world, to find coherence and
relevance.
Unit of reason: CONCEPTS (not words)
Goal of comprehension: build mental representations from concepts.
Comprehension structure: a map in which the concepts fit.
Listeners fill these maps with concepts that represent new information, relating it
to previous knowledge.
Memory nodes: blocks of mental structures. They are activated by incoming
speech and controlled by suppression and enhancement mechanisms.
Comprehension involves referring what we hear to ones experience of the world.
This new knowledge suppresses or enhances ones current understanding.
Intonation units carry different types of information, according to the speakers
intention to present the information as given or new. This is reflected in the
prosody of speech:
o New or focal information falling tones (proclaiming)
o Given or background information rising tones (referring)
Status of information in discourse:
o Active: new information as newly activated in this conversation.
o Accessible: information that has been activated previously has a semi-
active state.
 o Bringing inactive or semi-active information into a conversation involves
mental effort, or activation costs. New information is given prominence (by
phonological and syntactical means), in order to signal that it requires
greater attention and processing.
INTEGRATION: The central process in comprehension is the integration of
information conveyed in the text with the information and concepts already
known by the listener. This involves a modification of the internal model of the
discourse (interplay of new and given information).
PRESENTATION CUES: Distinctions between new and given are conveyed through
presentation cues, which are linguistic and non-linguistic:
o Stress and prominence fall on the focus of the new information
o Manner of delivery (pacing, pausing, frequency and type of disfluency
(disfluencies, if not very frequent, actually improve communication
because they add cues for the listener)
Comprehension is tied to memory. Listeners have to attend speech and store a
mental representation of the discourse and continuously update this
representation with new information. Listeners comprehension of a given text is
stored as sets of interrelated propositions.

3.2 Cognitive understanding: the role of schemata

Listening cognitive activity activation and modification of concepts in the
listeners mind.
SCHEMATA: activated portions of conceptual knowledge, or modules of
knowledge. They are interrelated in an infinite number of ways. New schemata
are created and existing ones are updated. We relate new experiences through
logical or semiotic links.
Effective comprehension involves the activation of appropriate schemata.
Schema theory: brain memory nodes activation of nodes in the network of
activated connections (schema)
Parsimony principle: when we listen we activate only the relevant schemata
which are necessary to understand the text.
Schemata contain:
o Linguistic and non-linguistic aspects (people, events, static and dynamic
imagery, other sensory data, etc.)
o Schemata contain prototypical elements
INFERENCES: If listeners activate the adequate schemata, they can draw
inferences that are essential in text comprehension.
TYPES OF UNDERSTANDINGS IN DISCOURSE:
o Misunderstanding takes place when there are significant mismatches
between the speakers and the listeners schemata.
o Non-understanding takes place when there are lapses and the listener
cant activate any appropriate schema.
o Partial understanding: Listener activates some schema. Theres some
overlap with the speakers schema.
o Plausible understanding: Listener activates schema that contains
central items of the speakers discourse.
o Acceptable understanding takes place when there is a relative
congruence of speaker and listeners schemata.
 o Complete understanding: completely shared schemata by speaker and
listener

3.3 Social understanding: the role of common ground

Listening involves social frameworks and affective elements. It depends on
common ground between speaker and listener (knowledge, routines, etc.)
People do not share identical schemata, but they share
cultural/educational/experiential background, so they have common activation
spaces in memory that allow them to arrive to acceptable understanding.
While listening, it is necessary for the listener to activate relevant knowledge
from stored prototypes.

3.4 The role of inference in constructing meaning

INFERENCES: We cant access to the speakers intended meaning in producing an
utterance, so we have to rely on the process of inference to arrive to an
acceptable interpretation of it.
Cohesion devices allow the speaker to make connections between bits of
information. Some of these devices are: anaphora, exophora, lexical
substitution, lexical chaining, conjunction, ellipsis, integration (synthesizing
cues).

3.5 Listener enrichment of input

Listening is aided by visual signals from the speaker (gestures and articulatory
movements).
These visual cues are as important as the auditory ones. If they do not coincide,
there are incidences of mishearing.
Listeners tend to integrate information from multiple channels.
LISTENER ENRICHMENT: Understanding requires making use of semantic
knowledge. This means that the listener must activate knowledge that is not
expressed explicitly in the text. As the speaker leaves this retrieval work to the
listener, the listener must provide supplements, making inferences and enriching
the text in order to understand it.

3.6 Problem solving during comprehension

Inferences are problem solving processes. They are employed when there is a
need to draw a relevant inference before comprehension can continue.
Inferences involve operations on a mental model that the listener created while
listening.
Types of inferences algorithms:
o Clarifying ambiguous references: I saw John last night INF: JOHN
her friend, at yesterdays party..etc.
o Supplying links in ellipted propositions.
o Filling in semantic slots.
o Supplying supporting grounds for logical arguments
o Using text genres to generate expectations.
o Supply plausible intentions.
 Listeners build and update cognitive representations updating the transactional
level (what is said and meant) and interactional level (.how it affects the
speaker/hearer relationship)
Because of our limited memory, only a few key lexical items and a syntactic
reference map will be remembered.
The listener will construct only those inferences necessary to maintain a
coherent representation of the text.
INFERENCE TYPES:
o Initiating links. A is the reason for B.
o Enabling links. A makes Y possible.
o Schematic links. A contains information framework needed to interpret B.
o Classification links. B can be classified in terms of A. (fruit banana)
o Paratactic links. B expresses something that follows A. (sequence)
o Logical links: A and B are a syllogism. (A+B Y)
o Reference links: Anaphoric links between items across utterances
o Elaborative links: inferences which are not necessary for text coherence.
o Bridging links: inferences that fill in assumed facts or presupposed details
to make a coherent representation. (Surgeon he/she?)

3.7 Reasoning during comprehension

Language comprehension involves logical and elaborative inferencing, which are
based on reasoning.
In real-time reasoning during discourse comprehension we depend on short-term
memory so we oversimplify complex arguments and interpretation to arrive to an
acceptable understanding
Reasoning: 5 cognitive processes:
o Comprehension of facts
o Categorization of claims about those facts
o Relative assumptions of truth values
o Induction of unknown facts
o Deduction of a generalization based on evidence given.
SUCCESSFUL LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION:
o Involves identification and evaluation of facts, premises and claims
(and their grounds)
o Involves not only textual competency, but also inter-textual
competency (understanding the claims of the speaker, partially or
completely accepting or rejecting them)
UNSUCCESSFUL LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION:
o Involves fallacies of reasoning (cognitive, deductive, inductive)
o Miscomprehension no one is expected to process language perfectly
every time.

3.8 Compensatory strategies during comprehension

Breakdowns in semantic processing:
o Listener cannot hear
o Listener doesnt know specific expressions
o Speaker gives incomplete information
o Listener hears a familiar word in an unfamiliar context
o Listener finds an unknown concept or word
 o Speaker speaks too quickly and there is no opportunity of clarification
To perform semantic processing in these instances, speakers must use different
compensation strategies:
o Skipping (omitting whats not understood
o Approximation (using a similar concept to the one we dont know)
o Filtering (long message compressed, more concise one)
o Incompletion (maintaining the proposition incomplete until clarification is
obtained)
o Substitution (substituting a word o concept for one that we understand)

3.9 Memory building during comprehension

Listening process of activating existing memories, forming new memory
connections, updating and strengthening existing memories.
2 dimensions of memory:
o LONG-TERM MEMORY: sum of a persons knowledge and experiences
o SHORT-TERM MEMORY: knowledge that is activated at a particular
moment.
Representations currently activated
Focus of attention or content of awareness (it can be held for a
short period of time)
Its hierarchical, with capacity constraints.
Role: storage, information maintenance for retrieval after a brief
interval (traditional approach)
WORKING MEMORY (new approach):
o Memory structural entity.
o Multiple working memories, modules associated with different modalities
(speech, writing, etc.), with different kinds of representations.
COMPUTATIONAL MODEL OF WORKING MEMORY:
o Memory computational space.
o Operations (inferences, generalisations, reductions, etc.)
o Temporal span limitations
STM and LTM can be associated with active and inactive information respectively.

3.10 Comprehension and learning

LEARNING (psychological terms): durable modification of a concept in memory
due to an experience.
DEGREE OF LEARNING: impact of the new knowledge on the listeners attitudes,
beliefs, and actions.
2 types of memory systems involved in learning:
5. Associative processing: association by similarity or contiguity in memory.
Increased experience with these memories leads to LTM learning.
Situational model: Long-term learning. New information must
be integrated with prior knowledge, if not it is easily forgotten
(text base model).
6. Rule-based processing: symbolically represented rules structured by language
and logic. New information can be learned in one or few experiences. Conscious
learning.
LEARNING Elements:
1. Units of learning: words of concepts are represented in LTM.
2. Activation values: relevance, importance attached to a unit they are more likely
to be activated and retained.
3. Connection weighting: units are linked in memory strength of these connections
will predict the likelihood of the new learning becoming permanent.
4. Learning rules: the way the connections are changed or unlearned. The way
listeners process the texts.
5. Emotional and motivational weighting: Representations are reconstructed, and these
reconstructions differ for the same person across time and context.
There are numerous sources of individual differences for what is learned and
retained, and subsequently recalled.

SUMMARY: COMPREHENSION AND UNDERSTANDING

Semantic processing is originated in the listeners memory (top down
processing). This kind of processing is the explanation of misunderstandings.
Semantic processing involves the activation of knowledge structures. Activating
appropriate schemata enables comprehension and allows the listener to fill in
missing information.
Listeners also activate social structures to weigh the relevance of what the
speaker is saying. Listeners calculate and establish common ground with the
speaker (through conventional inferences and listeners enrichment of the
speech).
Listeners must achieve understanding, its not given.
Learning and memory memory is updated when a new experience has been
integrated. Emotional and experiential factors influence learning through
listening.

Chapter 4 Pragmatic processing

4.1 Listening from a pragmatic perspective
PRAGMATIC COMPETENCE (social dimension of listening) additional information
in the speech signal; it goes beyond the linguistic decoding and semantic
processing.
o Pragmatic comprehension
o Interactional competence
o Symbolic competence
DISCOURSE ANALYSIS: ways listeners make use of linguistic info and background
knowledge as they listen in social contexts.
Understanding of the speakers intended meaning goal of listening
Subjective point of view (speaker/listener) and intersubjetivity of the interaction
(which is co-constructed) engagement (sp-list relationship)
Listener roles (levels of engagement)
o Participant Addressed directly, equal rights, involved in the interaction.
o Addressee: addressed directly but has limited rights of response
o Auditor member of an audience, very limited rights to respond
o Over-hearer not being addressed, but its within the earshot of the
speaker. (hearing a conversation in the bank queue)

4.2 Inferring speaker intention

Pragmatic processing deriving and building contextual meaning
(interactional status and interpersonal relationship)
 INTENTIONS: interaction of intentions contributes to the discourse meaning.
In order to complete communication, listeners must adopt an interpreter role and
a pragmatic perspective.
o PRAGMATIC PERSPECTIVE: Co-ordination and collaboration between
speaker and listener on the goals and rules of the interaction.
4 key pragmatic notions
o DEIXIS: language anchored to the real word. Pointing and indicating
variables of time, objects, persons, and status (terms of address).
Deictic reference is crucial in listening in context.
Features of context: SPEAKING (HYMES). Layers of potential meaning
Listener co-ordinates (they allow the listener to establish a partial
comprehension of what the speaker says) Coordinates: possible world,
time, place, speaker, audience, indicated object, previous discourse,
assignment.
o INTENTION: Speakers intend to influence the listener through linguistic
and non-linguistic elements. Speech acts (Austin) locutions (saying
something is true), illocutions (what is done in saying something),
perlocutions (what is done as a result of saying something)
o STRATEGY: In successful communication both listeners and speakers use
congruent strategies, to achieve their goals simultaneously.
Strategy: use of rules and restrictions agreed by the listener and the
speaker.
Co-operative principle (Grice) Speakers create meaning on a pragmatic
level through conversational maxims:
Maxim of quantity make your contribution as informative as
required.
Maxim of quality do not say something you believe to be false.
Maxim of relevance make your contribution relevant.
Maxim of manner avoid obscurity and ambiguity. Be brief and
orderly.
o CONVERSATIONAL MEANING

4.3 Detecting deception

Speakers can add meaning by flouting Grices maxims, infringing, ignoring or
opting out a maxim for a particular effect. E.g. irony, avoiding answering, etc.
Communicative insincerity: speakers consciously manipulate and deceive the
listener. Speakers might deliberately violate conversational maxims to obtain
strategic advantages.
IMPLICATURES: the derived intended effect of flouting the maxims.

4.4 Enriching speaker meaning

Inferential listening involves enriching speaker input, which is activated in 2
ways:
o Inferring speakers emotions and intentions
o Elaborating speaker meaning, making semantic and pragmatic inferences.
Levinson suggests that Grices maxims are pragmatic principles that list and sp
invoke.
4.5 Invoking social expectations
Language is situated its used by real speakers and for meaningful purposes.
Understanding requires an accounting for the context of situation (Malinowski)
Speakers must have an acceptable identity of speakers, purposes, settings,
relevant objects, and action.
Meaning of utterances: function of the situational and cultural context.
Interaction takes place within SOCIAL FRAMES:
o Social frames of Interaction involve:
Activity frame (activity the participants are engaged in)
Participant frame (participants roles, superiority/inferiority,
knowledge superior/inferior/equal, social class/status/rank)
o Use of social frames: They help listeners to understand speech: identifying
prototypes, comparing texts by analogy with similar experiences, evoking
alternative and similar texts, etc.

Language comprehension is filtered by the norms of an interpretive

community (group that shares contexts and experiences, expectations, etc.)
INTERPRETATION: different listeners = different understandings. This is due to
familiarity with the language or the speaker, background knowledge on the topic,
motives for listening, relevance of the interaction, social frames and interpretive
communities.

4.6 Adjusting affective involvement

Communication is determined by how participants define their status relative to
the other (participant frame). This affects the affective involvement of
participants.
o Anxiety and self confidence
o Motivation to participate in meaningful, open and revelatory ways
o + involvement + connection with the speaker better understanding
o involvement - connection - understanding repair and
misunderstanding
Social distance affects the Negotiation for meaning that the listener is willing
to undertake. NFM is the work that interlocutors do in order to resolve
communication difficulties.
Uncertainty management theory: anxiety about others attitudes and
feelings influences communication, language introduces ambiguity and
uncertainty into communication, the perception of uncertainty inhibits successful
communication.
Social status affects listening comprehension. Asymmetrical interaction fewer
opportunities for negotiation of meaning.
Uncertainty: lack of clarity about how social or situational status affects the
interaction. If equality is in doubt, communication can be ineffective.
Politeness strategies are used to restore common ground and save face
(self-respect and desire to maintain that self-esteem in public/private
interactions). FTAs (face threatening acts) challenge this esteem and respect.
o Negative politeness: demand on the listener less direct to avoid loss of
face
 o Positive politeness: overt attempts to respect the listener (generosity,
modesty, etc.)
Politeness varies across cultures.
Gender also influences communication, because men and women approach
conversation differently. Speakers have different goals, orientations, rules and
purposes genderlect (differences in interactional styles)

4.7 Formulating responses

LISTENERS:
o Powerful role in conversation
o They shape the meaning of interaction in collaboration with the speaker.
o They contribute to the conversation and achieve meaning
Conversation is organized around a series of intentions:
o Initiating acts (requests)
o Uptaking/ignoring the initiating move
o Preferred response, expected by the speaker. It completes the
exchange
o Dispreferred responses do not comply with the speakers expectations
challenge Face threatening acts (they challenge the interlocutors
power)
o Back-channelling: the listener sends short messages back during the
speakers turn to show they are listening. Back-channelling devices: verbal
utterances (yeah, right), semi-verbal utterances (uh-huh), laughs or
chuckles, postural movements and nods.. These may vary interculturally,
and they show reception of messages, readiness, permission (for the
speaker to continue talking), projections and empathy.
o Follow-up act: responses to a discourse exchange
Endorsements (positive evaluations)
Concessions (negative evaluations)
Acknowledgments (neutral evaluations)
o LISTENER RESPONSES (preferred/dispreferred, back-channelling and
follow-up acts) are an integral and active part of conversation. They serve
to guide the course of conversation and shape the interaction.

4.8 Connecting with the speaker

Non-traditional approaches view listening and speaking as equal parts of a co-
construction process.
Listeners non-verbal responses and periodic verbal responses Listening
becomes an interactional and co-constructive process.
GOALS OF LISTENING: establishing interactive connections with ones
interlocutors and mutually moving toward goals (mutual comprehension of
messages and adjustments in the sp-list relationship, finding common grounds,
etc.)
GOAL-ORIENTED COMMUNICATION: participants success or failure depends
on their:
o Understanding of the situation;
o Clarity of their goals;
o Perception of the others needs;
 o Ability to put choices into actions, to monitor their progress toward the
goals, and to provide feedback about their perceived progress.
In recent views, listening involves 4 stages:
o Sensing
o Interpreting
o Evaluating
o Response (this stage is crucial because listeners signal they have
understood and speakers can monitor goal achievement and select further
strategies).
EFFECTIVE LISTENING: The pursuit of goals through communication requires
effective listening, including listeners feedback and response.
o Includes evaluation of communication patterns in the interaction. Different
levels of depth of understanding.
o Benchmarks: specific patterns of behaviours and attitudes that
contribute to the success or failure of the interaction.
Accommodation adaptation in the interaction.

SUMMARY
Listeners must use social knowledge to listen competently and appropriately
Pragmatic competence involves understanding speakers intentions and
strategies for communication, using contextual sources of information, using
social conventions of language use, enriching speaker input and responding to
what the speaker is saying. Most important, this competence involves
engagement with the speaker and the speech event, and willingness to
participate in co-construction of meaning.

OKeefe, Carter & McCarthy From corpus to classroom

Introduction
DEFINITION
o Principled collection of texts, written or spoken, stored in a computer.
o Large amounts of texts can be stored and analysed using analytical
software.
o These collections of texts are not arbitrary; they represent something
(native speaker uses of the language, ELT language, etc.)
o Its designs allow us to assess its representiveness.
o Multimedia elements, extra-linguistic information (barking, noise, giggling,
etc.), prosodic information, etc.
o Written corpora are more plentiful and larger than spoken ones.
Qualitative and quantitative analysis
o Quantitative results: number of occurrence of certain words, which we can
compare with other corpora.
o Qualitative approach: how a word or phrase is used across a corpus (it
goes beyond the frequency of occurrence)
PURPOSE: There is no corpus that suits all purposes. There are several reasons
to use a corpus (to compare the use of a word, to compare BrE and AmE, for
pedagogical purposes, reference purposes, to look up collocations, idiomatic
uses, etc.). Uses:
o Basing dictionary entries.
 o Grammatical frequency and patterning
o Creativity in language
o Corpora on sociolinguistic variables
o Translation: descriptive. Comparing corpora translations with original
texts.

Corpora do not tell us the meaning of a word, but examples of the word used in
different contexts.
CORPUS SIZE: specialised vocabulary or register will require a smaller corpus.
The size of the corpus will be considered as large or small depending on whether
the corpus is spoken or written.
SUITABILITY: the suitability of a corpus is determined by its design rather than
its size, and what it is seeking to represent.
Dictionaries:
o Empirical basis for checking our intuitions about language. Reference
purposes.
TECHNIQUES:
o CONCORDANCING using corpus software to find every occurrence of a
particular word or phrase, called node.
o WORDLISTS Rank ordering of all the words, based in their frequency
(ranking)
o KEYWORD ANALYSIS Unusually frequent words. Identifying keywords in a
text. Characterizing a text or a genre. Predictions. Topics.
o CLUSTER ANALYSIS Analysis of how language systematically clusters into
chunks. Word combinations. E.g. I dont know a lot of, one of the, etc.
o LEXICO-GRAMMATICAL PROFILES context of use of words - collocations,
idioms, syntactic and semantic restrictions, prosody, etc.