Spoken

Language

Fikha Prastidiarmi
Astirini
Amilia Maita Sari
Melati Queentinie
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Introduction
Spoken language is a vast subject, and little is
known in hard statistical terms of the
distribution of different types of speech in
peoples everyday lives. If we list at random a
number of different types of speech and
consider how much of each day or week we
spend engaged in each one, we can only roughly
guess at some sort frequency ranking, other
than to say that casual conversation is almost
certainly the most frequent for most people.
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Some different types of speech might be:

Telephone Calls (business and private)

Service Encounters (shops, ticket offices, etc)
Interviews (jobs, journalistic, in official settings)
Classroom (classes, seminars, lectures, tutorials)
Rituals (church prayers, sermons, weddings)
Monologues (speeches, stories, jokes)
Language-in-action (talk a companying doing: fixing,
cooking, assembling, demonstrating, etc)
Casual Conversation (strangers, friends, intimates)
Organising and Directing People (work, home, in the street)

ADJACENCY PAIRS
Pairs of utterances in talk are often mutually dependent; a
most obvious example is that a question predicts an
answer, and that an answer presuposes a question.
Some examples might be:
Utterance Function
Expected Response
Greeting
greeting
Congratulation
thanks
Appology
acceptance
Inform
acknowledge
Leave-taking
leave-taking
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 Pairs of utterances such as greetinggreeting and appology-aceptance are

called adjacency pairs. The mutual
dependence of such utterances is
underlined by the fact that we can only be
absolutely sure of the function of the
initiating utterance (the first pair-part as it
is usually called), and vise versa (thus
hello in English could be a greeting, a
request to a telephone caller to identify
themselves, or an expression of surprise:
hello! Whats this here?)
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 We can segment the polite refusal of the

invitation into appreciation (thanks very
much), softener (Im afraid), reason (Im
booked up) and face-saver (what
about ...). This pattern would typically be
found between adult friends, collegues,
etc. in informal but polite situations.
More intimate situations may well omit the
softener. Each of these elements will
have several possible realisations, and
these can be practised in language
learning in a systimatic way
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 Different roles and settings will generate

different structures for such adjacency pairs, and
discourse analysts try to observe in natural data
just what patterns occur in particular settings.
Scarcella and Brunak (1981) compared native
and non-native speakers stragies for giving
informal invitations. The native speakers
prefaced their invitations (e.g. I was wondering,
uh, were having a party...), while the nonnatives were sometimes too formal or too blunt
(e.g. I would like to invite you to a party; I want
you to come in a party). Similarly, it seems that
native speakers usually preface disagreement
second pair-parts in English with partial
agreement (yes, but...) and with softeners
(Pearson 1986).
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 The principle of adjacency pairs and how

they are realised in natural speech point to
the importance of creating minimal
contexts in the teaching of common
communicative functions and the limited
value of teaching single utterances.
The structure and elaboration of the
adjacency pair is determined by role and
setting, and that the functions of its
component utterances depend on the copresence of both parts.
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EXCHANGES
Exchanges are independently
observable entities; adjacency pairs
may be found within their boundaries
but first and second pair-parts do not
necessarily coincide with initiating and
responding moves.

X.

Y:

In X below, there is such a coincidence,

but in Y adjacency pairing occurs in the
initiation and response (statement of
achievement-congratulation), and in the
responding and follow-up move
(congratulation-thanks):
A: Congratulations on the new job, by
the way.
B: Oh, thanks
A: Ive just passed my driving test
B: Oh, congratulations.
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 Look at some common follow-up moves in

eliciting exchanges in everyday talk. While
speakers outside classrooms do not usually
behave like teachers and evaluate the quality of
one anothers utterances (in terms of correctness,
fluency, etc.), they often evaluate (or at least
react to) its content; we might compare what can
sometimes happen in the classroom X with what
is likely to happen in the real world Y. (see the
example on page 123, point (5.6 and 5.7)

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Turn-Taking
In any piece of natural English discourse, turns
will occur smoothly, with only little overlap and
interruption, and only very brief silences
between turns (on average, less than a second).
People take turns when they are selected or
nominated by the current speaker, or if no one is
selected, they may speak of their own accord
(self-selection).
There are specific linguistic devices for getting
the turn when one is unable to enter the normal
flow of turn-taking or when the setting demands
that specific conventions be followed.
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 These vary greatly in level of formality and appropriacy to

different situations (If I may, Mr Chairman, I wonder if I
might say something, Can I just come in here, Hang on a
minute, Shut up will you, I cant get a word in edgewise).
There are also linguistic means of not taking the turn when
one has the opportunity, or simply of making it clear to the
speaker that we are attending to the message.
These are usually reffered to as back-channel responses,
and consist of vocalisations such as mm,
ah-ha, and short words and phrases such as yeah, no,
right, sure.
The overall conclusion is that turn-taking in itself is
something that may not need to be taught, but specific
linguistic realisations can be presented and practised and
significant cultural differences can at least be pointed out
to the learner.
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TRANSACTIONS AND TOPICS

TRANSACTIONS
Here we are concerned with how speakers manage
longer stretches of talk.
For example:
WHERE shall we have the TABLES?
A: / RIGHT /
WHAT about the REAding area?
B: / NOW /
C: / RIGHT /
THATS IT
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TOPICS
Topics could be defined, on the formal level, as stretches
of talk bounded by certain topic and/or transactional
markers, such as lexical ones (by the way, to change the
subject), or phonological ones (changes in pitch). Or we
could take a semantic framework, and try to express the
content of different segments of talk according to singleword or phrasal titles (e.g., holidays, buying a house),
or else we could use interactive criteria and say that
something is only a topic if more than one speaker
makes an utterance relevant to it.

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Interactional and Transactional talk

A distinction is often made by discourse analysis
between transactional and interactional talk.
Transactional talk is for getting business done in
the world, i.e. in order to produce some change in the
situation that pertains. It could be to tell somebody
something they need to know, to effect the purchase of
something, to get someone to do something, or many
other world-changing things. Interactional talk on
the other hand, has as its primary functions that
lubrication of the social wheels, establishing roles and
relationships with another person prior to transactional
talk, confirming and consolidating relationships,
expressing solidarity, and so on.

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 It is important to note that natural data show that even in

the most strictly transactional of settings, people often
engage in interactional talk, exchanging chat about the
weather and many unpredictable things, as in these
exchanges: the first is in a British chemists shop; the second
is a university porter registering some newly arrived
students at their campus accommodation :
(5.15) Customer: can you give me astrong painkiller for an
abscess, or else a suicide note.
Assistant : (laughing) Oh dear! Well, weve got (etc)
(authors field notes)

(5.16) Porter: So, Foti .. And Spampinato .. (writes their

names)
are you Italians? Im studying Italian Art, only
part time, of course, I love it, I love Italian Art.
Student: (looking bewildered) Excuse me?
(Authors field notes)
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Stories, anecdotes, jokes

Almost any piece of conversational data between friends will yield
occasions where people engage in the telling of stories,
anecdotes, jokes, and other kinds of narratives. The ability to tell
a good story or joke is a highly regarded talent, probably in all
cultures. As with other types of language events, discourse
analysts have sought to describe what all narrative developed by
Labov (1972). The labov model, rather, like the problem solution
model we have referred to at various points in this book, specifies
elements that are commonly found in normal narratives. They
are:
Abstract
Orientations
Complicating event
Resolution
Coda

Evaluation

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 Abstracts are short statements of what the story is going to be

about (I must tell you about an embarrassing moment yesterday).
Orientation sets out the time, place and characters for the
reader/listener (you know that secretary in our office, well, last
week ..). Complicating events are the main events that make the
story happen (the Xerox machine caught fire).
Resolutions are how the events sort themselves out (and she got
2,000 competition)
Codas provide a bridge between the story world the moment of
telling (and ever since, Ive never been able to look at a mango
without feeling sick)
Evaluation means making the story worth listening to/reading,
either by directly telling ones audience (youll love this one; its
not the worlds funniest joke, but I like it)
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Some common openers to spoken stories and jokes

in English include:
Ill always remember the time..
Did I ever tell you about ..
Then there was the time we
I must tell you about
Have you heard the one about ..
Youll never guess what happened yesterday
I heard a good one the other day
I had a funny experience last week
There are also regularly occurring markers for complicating events:
And then, suddenly / out of the blue
Next thing we knew
And as if that wasnt enough
Then guess what happened ..l.

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Listeners are active, constantly reacting (usually

with back-channel responses) to the narrative and
asking questions that fill out unspecified detail.
The following data sample illustrates. A and B are
telling a series of stories about driving incidents to
C.

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(5.17)
A: I remember that journey, we went from Yarmouth, when we had
the car
B:
Yeah
C:
and we went into Norwich, and theres a ring road
round
Norwich, and this road to Fareham was off this
ring road .. Well, we turned right
if you remember
B:
Oh I cant remember
A:
and we went right
round this ring road, I bet we did twenty miles, and when we came
back it was the next
one on the left to where wed started
C: God (laughs).
A: I remember that, I thought we were never going to find it.
C: You went right round the city.
A: Yes.
C: Good God, the must have been frustrating.
A: It was expensive as well (laughs) . . .
B : But the time I turned into the police station.
A : Oh. . . . Dear.
C : Yeah, what was that?
B : Dorset Constabulary Headquarters.
He says you, you
B : We were going to Lyme Regis.
A : He gave us the map.
B : On this tree there was this wooden thing, it had on Lyme Regis
and there were
these
big massive gates, big iron gates.
A : No, it was Iris and I, we said you turn left here, and he turned
immediate left, instead of
going on to the next road, and it said
Five miles an hour and we were creeping along, and
there were
bobbies looking at us, two of them in a car.
C : (laughs) Well, great, yeah.
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(Authors data 1989)

Other Spoken Discourse Types

The same goes for common discourse types such as giving route directions, a
favorite activity in the language classroom. Telling someone how to get
ones house, or where to locate things on a map are often the basis of
information-gap exercise, and these can be very successful in generating
talk. Discourse analysts have observed about the organization of talk in a
setting such as direction giving.
Psathas and Kozloff (1976) found atypical three-phase structure in their data,
consisting of situation, information and instruction and an ending phase
In the situation phase, the person giving directions must establish (1) the
starting point, (2) the goal and (3) the means of transport of the person
directed, if these are not already known or obvious.
It is then possible to specify typical linguistic realizations of these phases,
some of which will be formulaic, such as and there you are, got that?, you
cant miss it for the ending phase, and others which will be the familiar
boundary markers we have seen dividing transactions elsewhere (okay, so
you are at the market place right .. Well if you can see the clock
tower, )
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Speech and Grammar

Brief mention must be made here of the role of grammatical
accuracy in unprepared speech. Language teachers tend to
work with a set of norms based on the written language,
where clause and sentence structure are clearly defined.
Spoken data, however, present a different picture, and
frequently contain forms that would be considered
ungrammatical in writing. Such mistakes usually go quite
unnoticed in natural talk, and it is only when we look at
transcripts that we realize how common they are. One
example is the wh- clause structure with embedded reported
clauses, as in these two attested native-speaker utterances:
(5.19) A: And theres a thermostat at the back which I dont
know how it works.
(5.20) A: Theres another secretary too who I dont know what
shes responsible for.
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Thank you
Bye BYE
friends

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