spoken language features Flashcards
definition of topic
a conversation should require participants to focus on one topic at a time
what is a topic shift
change in topic in the conversation
what indicates a topic shift
discourse marker
eg well anyway so
adjacency pair
indicate the back and fourth nature of a conversation
illustrates a transactional feature of conversations
structure of adjacency pairs
1st person makes statement which has desired response
2nd person either provides response (preferred 1st) or doesn’t (disprrferred 2nd)
feed back
phrases that encourage the speaker that you’re listening
eg ‘really’ ‘tell me more’
minimal response
show weaken indication of interest
eg ‘mhm’ ‘yes’
what is an unsuccessful conversation
when speaker doesn’t get the response they want
tag question
question at the end of a statement to encourage participation
what is degreeting
when speakers agree to discontinue the conversation
eg ‘bye’ ‘see you later’
non-fluency feature
when people need time to think or are under pressure etc they become less fluent
3 non-fluency features
pauses
false starts
fillers
2 types of pauses
voiced pauses => eg ‘um’ ‘er’ etc
unvoiced pauses => marked by (.)
false start
when you start to say something then change your mind
filler
words such as ‘like’ ‘you know’ ‘sort of’
dominance / discourse rights
when the conversation is structured around one dominant speaker
what makes someone a dominant speaker
may have discourse rights
what does a dominant speaker do
lead discussion of topics and control topic shifts
often have higher MLU
what are paralinguistic features
sounds which aren’t words and are universally understood
eg laughter, tutting etc
what is the accomadation theory
suggests we adjust our speech to accommodate the person we’re addressing
eg word pronunciation, voice pitch
who developed the accommodation theory
Giles in 1970s
what is convergence
moving speech closer to that of the other speaker to decrease social distance
what is downward convergence
in informal context slang is used more as well as taboo and relaxed pronunciation
upward convergence
in formal context may use standard voice and avoid slang
mutual convergence
2 regional speakers after being apart exaggerate their accent to match each other
divergence
moving speech further apart to emphasise difference
face theory
the image we present to the world
we have 2 face needs
who developed the face theory
Goffman
2 face needs
positive face needs
negative face needs
positvie face need
the need to be liked and approved and not to ‘lose face’ and be mocked
negative face need
need not to be apposed upon
face threatening act
when someone does something that doesn’t meet your face needs
what is the co-operative principle
co-operation is underlying fundamental in conversations
people tend to try and understand each other
who created the co-operative theory
Grice 1975
what was the name of the 4 identified rules
4 maxims
what are the maxims
maxim of quantity, relevance, mannor, quality
mode
a way or mannor in which something occurs or is experienced, expressed or dome
what is blended / mixed mode
combine spoken and written modes
archaic words
words we may not recognise but are old and rarely used
obsolete words
words never used and have been forgotten
low frequency words
may just be a word you don’t know but still used
