UNIT 5

Spoken Language

1. Introduction

Different types of speech in people’s everyday lives:

  • 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 accompanying doing: fixing, cooking, assembling, demonstrating, etc.)
  • casual conversation (strangers, friends, intimates)
  • organising and directing people (work, home, in the street)

2. 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 presupposes a question.
  • It is possible to state the requirements, in a normal conversational sequence, for many types of utterances, in terms of what is expected as a response and what certain responses presuppose.

  • In example (5.1) the imperative first pair-part can be classified functionally as an informing move, in light of the acknowledging second pair-part it receives:

(5.1)   (On a train)

Ticket collector: (inspecting passenger’s ticket)  Change Peterborough.

Passenger: Thank you.

  • Look at these extracts from natural data and consider the different functions of thank you in each case. Follow-up moves such as ‘not at all’ / ‘that’s okay’ /’you’re welcome’ would not be appropriate here in British English; why not? Can you think of any culture or language where they would be realized?
  1. Bus conductor: One pound twenty.
        Passenger: (gives £1.20)
         Conductor: Thank you.
         Passenger: Thank you.
  2. 2. (University seminar; lecturer is facing the class, using an
    overhead )
           Student: It’s not focused.
           Lecturer: Thank you (adjusts the projector).
  • Adjacency pairs are of different types.
  • Some ritualized first pair-parts may have an identical second pair-part (hello-hello, happy New Year –happy New Year), while others expect a different second pair-part (congratulations – thanks).
  • Equally, a second pair-part such as thanks will presuppose quite a wide range of first pair-parts (offers, apologies, informing moves, congratulations, commiserations, etc.).
  • Other first pair-parts have various possibilities and generate further expectations too; take, for example, invitation:

  • (5.2)  A: Would you like to come over for a drink tomorrow?

      B: Yes, that would be nice   (accept)

          Yes, if it could be after six  (accept)

          No.    (reject)
  • We probably react against the bald No answer; politeness codes demand a more elaborate structure for the response:

  • (5.3)  B: Thanks very much, but I’m afraid I’m booked up   tomorrow night, what about …….. (etc.)

    • We can segment the polite refusal of the invitation into

      – appreciation (‘thanks very much’),

      – softener (I’m afraid’),

      – reason (‘I’m booked up’) and

      – face-saver (‘what about … ‘).

    This pattern ‘would typically be found between adult friends, colleagues, etc. in informal but polite situations

3. 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.
  • In (5.4) below, there is such a coincidence, but in (5.5) adjacency pairing occurs in the initiation and response (statement of achievement -congratulation), and in the responding and follow-up move (congratulation – thanks):

(5.4)  A: Congratulations on the new job, by the way.
  B: Oh, thanks.

(5.5)  A: I’ve just passed my driving test.

  B: Oh, congratulations.
  A: Thanks.

  • Compare what can sometimes happen in the classroom (5.6) with what is likely to happen in the-real world (5.7):

(5.6)  Teacher: Now Maria, you ask Fumiko.
  Maria: What did you do at the weekend?
  Fumiko: I went to Wales.
  Teacher: Good, now Fumiko, you ask Marco, . .. (etc.)

(5.7)  Maria: What did you do at the weekend?
  Fumiko: I went to Wales.

  Maria: Oh, really? Where did you go?

  • Follow-up moves of this latter kind might include: how nice, that’s interesting, oh dear, how awful, lucky you, oh no, I see, did you, right.
  • They are of interest because they are often not directly translatable language to language with English realisations such as really? and how awful!).
  • Look at these extracts from natural data and consider the different functions of thank you in each case. Follow-up moves such as ‘not at all’ / ‘that’s okay’ /’you’re welcome’ would not be appropriate here in British English; why not? Can you think of any culture or language where they would be realized?
  1. Bus conductor: One pound twenty.
        Passenger: (gives £1.20)
         Conductor: Thank you.
         Passenger: Thank you.
  2. 2. (University seminar; lecturer is facing the class, using an
    overhead )
           Student: It’s not focused.
           Lecturer: Thank you (adjusts the projector).
  • Adjacency pairs are of different types.
  • Some ritualized first pair-parts may have an identical second pair-part (hello-hello, happy New Year –happy New Year), while others expect a different second pair-part (congratulations – thanks).
  • Equally, a second pair-part such as thanks will presuppose quite a wide range of first pair-parts (offers, apologies, informing moves, congratulations, commiserations, etc.).
  • Other first pair-parts have various possibilities and generate further expectations too; take, for example, invitation:

  • (5.2)  A: Would you like to come over for a drink tomorrow?

      B: Yes, that would be nice   (accept)

          Yes, if it could be after six  (accept)

          No.    (reject)
  • We probably react against the bald No answer; politeness codes demand a more elaborate structure for the response:

  • (5.3)  B: Thanks very much, but I’m afraid I’m booked up   tomorrow night, what about …….. (etc.)

    • We can segment the polite refusal of the invitation into

      – appreciation (‘thanks very much’),

      – softener (I’m afraid’),

      – reason (‘I’m booked up’) and

      – face-saver (‘what about … ‘).

    This pattern ‘would typically be found between adult friends, colleagues, etc. in informal but polite situations

4 Conclusion

  • Spoken discourse types can be analized for their typical patterns and the linguistic realizations that accompany them (e.g. service encounters, business negotiations, telephone calls, chat-show interviews, lectures, trouble-sharing encounters, etc.), and the periodical literature of discourse analysis abounds in detailed studies of a vast range of types.

 

  • These studies are most often not carried out with any overt pedagogical aim, but are very useful for language teachers and material writers who want to create systematic speaking skills programmes and whose goal is to design activities that will generate output as close as possible to naturally occurring talk.

References

McCarthy, M. (2000). Discourse Analysis for Language Teachers, Cambridge: University Press.
Penny, W. K. (2002). Form and Function of Linguistic Items in Discourse: Analysis of a Spoken Text.
Schiffrin, D., Tannen, D. & Hamilton, H.E. (2001). The Handbook of discourse analysis. UK: Blackwell Publisher.

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