Spoken Language Techniques Flashcards
Accelerando?
A term used to describe speech that is getting faster (marked accel on transcripts)
Accommodation?
A term used to describe the changes people make to their speech, prosodic (relating to the rhythm/ sound of speech) features and gestures in order to emphasise or minimise the differences between them
Adjacency pair?
A sequence of two connected utterances by different speakers one after another. This may take the forms: question/answer complaint/explanation or remedy(correcting something) statement/affirmation command/action etc
Assimilation?
The ways in which the sounds of one word can change the sounds of neighbouring words in connected speech
Back channeling?
Interactive features such as minimal responses (e.g mm, yeah, ahh) that demonstrate a participants is listening and paralinguistic (non verbal) features that show affirmation, but which do not disrupt the speakers turn
Comment clause?
A commonly occurring clause in speech which adds remark to another clause e.g I mean, I think
Convergence?
A process in which two speakers adapt their language and pronunciation to reduce the differences between them
Discourse markers?
Words or phrases that stand outside the clause and act as fillers, topic changers or hedges e.g well, right, y’know, I mean, basically
Divergence?
A process by which two speakers adapt their language and pronunciation to increase the differences between them
Elision?
The omission of sounds in connected speech
Emphatic stress?
Stress placed upon syllables or words in spoken discourse
False start?
An utterance that is started, left incomplete, and then restarted again with a different grammatical structure
Filled pause?
A voiced hesitation in spoken language
Filler?
Words with no semantic value, which are inserted into speech either from habit or to give a participant thinking time as they search for a word e.g er,um,ah
Hedging?
The use of migrating words or sounds to lessen the impact of an utterance e.g I think, I’m not an expert but, somewhat, it’s possible that
Hesitation?
The repetition of the initial sound of a letter
Implicature?
A term used to describe what a hearer infers from an utterance
Interactive?
Distinctive non-verbal utterances that affirm (e.g mm, yes) show agreement (e.g laughter) or add reinforcement (e.g echo utterances)
Interruption?
The ending of one speaker’s turn by the intervention of another speaker, which may be a non-cooperative challenge, or may be the result of multiple participants with equal status in a conversation
Intonation?
The quality or tone of voice in speech, which can stay level, rise or fall
Latch-on
A smooth link between different speakers in a spoken exchange
Liaison
A process that changes the pronunciation of words at boundaries marked by /r/
Monitoring features?
Expressions which allow a speaker to check that the hearer is still listening, has understood ect e.g would you believe
Normal non-fluency
Commonly occurring features of spoken language such as hesitations and false starts which breakup the flow of speech