Spoken Language Flashcards
Component 1 Section A
What is an accent?
Particular way a person speaks, depending on location and people around them
What is a dialect?
The same language, but slightly different
The accent, lexis and grammar of a certain geographical area
What is a sociolect?
The accent, lexis grammar of a specific social group
What is an idiolect?
The accent, lexis, grammar of a specific person (your own way of speaking)
What is a prosody?
Patterns of stress and intonation in language
how tune and rhythm of speech can create different meanings
What is meant by a paralanguage?
Is it word focused or sound focused?
verbal communication in the way something is said rather than the words used
‘how’ not ‘what’
features include tempo, pitch, volume, non-fluency features etc
What are the functions of spoken language?
5 of them
- Referential
- Expressive
- Transactional
- Interactional
- Phatic
Functions of spoken language
What is a referential function?
If you refer to something, the reference tends to be useful/ necessary
The utterance provides information (useful info)
Functions of spoken language
What is an expressive function?
Utterance that expresses speaker’s feelings/ emotions
Functions of spoken language
What is a transactional function?
Opposite of interactional
Verbal exchange- main emphasis is on getting something done
Functions of spoken language
What is an interactional function?
Opposite to transactional
Verbal exchange- main emphasis is on the social relationship between participants
Functions of spoken language
What is a phatic function?
Technical term for ‘small talk’
What are adjacency pairs?
parallel expressions (pairs of words that fit together within a conversation)
make a smooth flowing conversation
e.g. “How are you?”
“Fine, thanks.”
same idea as ‘semantic field’
What is the field of a conversation?
The topic or focus of the conversation (basis of it)
e.g. two friends are talking about a TV show- the field of the conversation would be the TV show
What is the mode of a conversation in terms of field, mode and tenor?
Means by which the conversation takes place
The framing of the interaction
e.g. a conversation between a student and teacher- the mode would be spontaneous speech
What is the tenor of a conversation?
The relationship between the speakers
can effect the means of conversation (mode)
e.g. poor relationship= broken speech, interruptions, overlapping etc
What are pragmatics?
There are 4 types of them
The contexts that shape a conversation:
* Physical
* Epistemic
* Linguistic
* Social
How context influences meaning
Pragmatics
What is the physical context?
Where a conversation takes place, what objects are present, what actions are occurring
Anything in the area that may affect the conversation
e.g. conversation occurs in a library- may influence quiet, knowledgable conversations
Pragmatics
What is the epistemic context?
Refers to what speakers already know, what background knowledge is ahred by the speakers
e.g. a library is a quiet place, people should be quiet in a library- people already generally know this
Pragmatics
What is the linguistic context?
Refers to what has already been said in the utterance (also tone of voice)
e.g. could refer to someone as ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘you’ if their name has already been mentioned, could pick up on sarcasm
Pragmatics
What is the social context?
Refers to the social relationship among speakers and hearers
e.g. one friend can tell another to stop talking, whereas two strangers would find this more difficult
What does flouting mean?
Grice’s maxims can be ‘flouted’
Openly disregarding a rule/ order, potentially creating a new meaning
Flouting a maxim= disregarding it’s rule
What is ‘face’?
Can be referred to as ‘saving face’
An individual’s public self-image- it constantly develops and progresses with social interactions
e.g. I told a lie to save face.
Grice’s Maxims
What is the maxim of quantity?
Try to be as informative as possible, giving no more or no less than info needed
flouted by giving too much/ too little info in a conversation
Grice’s maxims
What is the maxim of quality?
Try to be as truthful as possible, give no false/ unsupported info
flouted by telling constant lies in a conversation
Grice’s maxims
What is the maxim of relevance?
Be as relevant as possible, say things that relate to the conversation
flouted by making irrelevant comments in a discussion
Grice’s maxims
What is the maxim of manner?
Be as clear, brief and orderly as possible, avoid obscurity and ambiguity
flouted by being unclear and avoiding being brief
What is positive politeness?
When we show that people are liked/ admired
there is often no ‘hierarchy of respect’
e.g. manager of a company may allow employee to address them with their first name rather than ‘Sir’
What is negative politeness?
Indirect, apologetic and respectful politeness
shown when we avoid intrusion on someone else’s life
e.g. addressing someone as ‘Sir’ or ‘Mrs’ shows that we respect their status, saying ‘excuse me’
What is a face-threatening-act?
There are 3 types
Speaker makes a comment that attacks another’s face (public self-image)
-bald
-on record
-off record
3 types:
Face- threatening-acts (FTA)
What is a bald FTA?
Direct, ‘straight to point’, can be an insulting, explicit comment
e.g. “There’s just no flavour!”
“It’s bland all the way through, it’s awful!”
Face-threatening-acts (FTA)
What is an on-record FTA?
Direct, makes it linguistically clear who it is aimed at
similar to bald FTA, but less abrupt
e.g. “I’m not convinced you weighed everything out properly.”
Face-threatening-acts (FTA)
What is an off-record FTA?
Makes it explicit who it’s aimed at, but isnt’t ‘straight to the point’
gives an implied meaning
e.g. The room smells- “Gosh, I think we should open a window.”
What are discourse markers?
Words/ phrases used to organise discourse, can be followed on by listeners and speakers
e.g. ‘on the other hand’
What are the 3 types of discourse analysis?
They focus on structure, patterns, and context
Conversational: dialogue structure
Narrative: patterns
Content: context (according to preconceptions)
What is lexis?
words/ vocab used in utterances- more informal and colloquial within speech
