spoken discourse ML Flashcards
openings and closings
1) Closings signal that the interaction has been productive or enjoyable, and there Is often a promise of future contact.
2) Gives conversations a framework or structure
3) Salutations and vocatives are used for greeting which can build rapport and intimacy with the audience
4) Formulaic expression gives the impression of the reader being invited to a special event and thus creates an immediate rapport with the audience
5) Imbues the text with a personalised undercurrent, thereby reducing the social distance…
6) Openings can establish cooperative atmosphere by selecting a topic that reflects interests and experiences of the participants
adjaceny pairs
1) Facilitates the conversation and promotes social harmony
2) Creates a logical connection between past utterances to achieve the goal of the conversation more effectively
3) Assists with the general ebb and flow of a conversation
Signify cooperative conversation, provide information and are a break from the monologue
4) compliment-acknowledgement, apologies-acceptance, phatic comment-response, question-answer
overlapping
1) Overlapping one another inadvertently perhaps when we think others have finished speaking, or because we are excited or encouraging others to continue
2 )Agree with the person or echo their thoughts/supportive
3) Overlap deliberately, in an attempt to contradict, interject or take the floor
4) overlap is not taken offence on, but mostly serves as emotive engagement of the mutual feelings of _____. This displays a cooperative tenor between the interlocutors
interrogative tags
1) express one’s belief that an answer is likely to be correct/seeking confirmation/validation; ensuring listener involvement; regulates conversational interaction and politeness; signal sensitivity, actively inviting participation and emphasising common ground; ask for their reaction or response/ seek empathy—-doing the above without giving up the floor
2) Aggressive tags can be hostile with considerable overtones of sarcasm; highlight the stupidity of an idea/concept
3) Check that the other person is following, understanding or agreeing – in these cases the person still intends to hold the floor
4) To relinquish the floor
5) Rising tone positive: Express uncertainty or to express surprise
6) Rising tone negative: Empress irritation and to challenge a particular thought
7) Falling tone positive – to express concern, amusement, or confidence
8) Falling tone negative – to express resignation; to show that speaker stands on opinion
discourse particles
1) Packaging information, orienting topics, structuring turn-taking, and expressing attitudes/opinions and social relationships/shows sensitivity or to emphasise common ground/establish relevance or connect to ideas
2) Phrases like ‘I mean’, ‘I guess’, and ‘I think’ can express imprecision or uncertainty
3) ‘Well’ serves to focus the topic as it acts as an introductory particle; what will follow is an explanation of…
4) ‘So’, ‘Alright’ can be used to announce a shift of topic
5) ‘Actually’ suggests that the speaker is dismissing a contrary opinion
6) ‘Well’ and ‘Anyway’ can indicate that the conversation is changing direction
7) General forms: Emphatic marker, introductory particle, orient/signal, hedge
The use of ‘Yeah-no / Yeah-nah’ in Australian English
1) used in response to compliment: Idiosyncratic Australian discourse particle
Demonstrate his humility so as not to appear overly complacent or flamboyant after winning the BCS championship. (stylistic effect) –> face saving strategy
… ‘tall poppy syndrome’ –
this appeals to Australians’ fabled ‘tall poppy syndrome’ whereby any outstanding individual is quickly ‘cut down’ through mockery, derision or disdain… (real juice = link to cultural context)
2) The affirmative ‘yeah’ acknowledges the preceding empathetic interrogative ‘you nervous?’ whereas the negator ‘nah’ swiftly portrays his forward looking/optimistic/resilient attitudes…
hedging expressions
1) To express uncertainty, modesty or unwillingness to be too dogmatic, thus creating a friendlier, less authoritative utterance
2) Enables to minimise social distance and build rapport with interlocuters
3) Mitigate/ attenuate/ extenuate/ tempers the notion of…, acknowledging the reader’s/another’s possible discomfort with…/makes an imperative or request seem less demanding or strident —-attends negative face needs
non fluency features
1) Pauses may occur when breathing, or when reaching sort of grammatical boundary in our speech. Pauses may also be used deliberately to aim for a dramatic effect; signal hesitation or word searching
2) Filled pauses or voiced hesitations are words such as ‘um’, ‘ah’, and ‘er’ and are very common indicators of hesitation or thinking. A false start might involve one of these filled pauses or possibly repetition (‘I, I don’t know’) or a repair, where the speaker corrects themselves
3) Repetition: can reflect mood or attitude; can signal emphasis or uncertainty; an be done to pass time or to reiterate importance
4) Repairs: To correct mistakes as such wrong pronunciation or information to convey correct information; clarify information
topic management
1) Initiate topics with introductory discourse particles (now, well, guess what, by the way, did you hear about…)
2) Change topics by asking questions unrelated to the current topic (anyway, so, so anyway)
3) Develop or maintain the topic being discusses (minimal responses); use words from the same semantic field, or echo the words used by their fellow interlocuters
4) When a topic gets off-track, people might return to it (topic loop) by using phrases such as ‘getting back to…’ or ‘anyway’, ‘to get back to what I was saying before’.
topic aviodance
Individuals avoid topics for relationship-based reasons (e.g., relational maintenance), individual-based reasons (e.g., such as self-protection), and information-based reasons (e.g., a topic is uninteresting or not newsworthy).
turn taking - taking the floor
Signalled by discourse particles (well, right, now) or perhaps explicit phrase such as (Sorry to bother you…)
turn taking - holding the floor
1) Intonation plays an important role
2) Continuing intonation signals that we haven’t finished our sentence, or that we still have more to say on a topic
3) Rising intonation might signal some type of list, or signal that our turn is not over
4) By using conjunctions or connecting words such as ‘and’, ‘but’ or ‘so’
5) Filled pauses such as ‘um’ and ‘ah’ also shown someone to hold the floor while they find their words.
6) In formal contexts, someone might signpost how long they intend to hold the floor by using temporal markers such as ‘firstly…’, ‘secondly…’
turn taking - passing the floor
1) In formal situations, some might use a formulaic phrase
2) Floor-sharing generally takes a question and answer structure, and turns are dictated by the roles of the speakers
3) In spontaneous, everyday conversations, we might pass the floor by directly inviting someone to speak, using a vocative and/or an interrogative
4) Falling or final intonation could also signal the end of our turn, as could a discourse particle followed by silence, ‘Sooo…’ with the drawn-out vowel emphasising that the person has said all there is to say on the matter
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minimal response - back channeling
1) Laughter, echoing someone’s words: indicate validation and support
2) Repeated use of minimal responses like ‘hmm’ can also indicate impatience and a desire to take the floor.
3) The lack of a response, or perhaps a delayed response, might indicate lack of interest in the topic/disagreement
4) The cooperative usage of the discourse particle ‘yeah’ serves as a back-channelling device that encourages the other interlocuter to continue speaking and shows active listening.
5) Fragments long, compound-complex sentences
non spontaneous speech
The fact that this speech was planned, written and rehearsed means that [speaker] has had the opportunity to craft her [speech] and employ literary techniques which would be uncommon in spontaneous speech
features of informality
1) slang
2) colloquialism
3) neologism
4) profanity
5) Word formation process/creative word formation
6) sentence fragment
7) puns/irony/idioms
8) phrasal verbs
9) vocal effects: laughter
10) hypocorisms/ diminutives/ sobriquet/ vocatives
features of formality
1) jargon
2) negative politness
3) jargon
4) negative face needs
5) positive face needs
6) adjaceny pairs
7) paraleelism
7) simile
8) negative face needs
9) colloquialisms
10)slang
11) colloqialisms
11) positive face needs
12) turn taking
13) passing floor
14) topic management
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