Spoken Mode Flashcards
Topic/discourse markers
words, phrases or clauses that help to organise what we say or write, e.g. okay, so, ‘As I was saying…’
Topic shifters
as above but more as a means of moving the topic focus on, e.g. anyway, ‘in other news’, ‘oh, by the way…’
Adjuncts
non-essential elements of clauses, or elements that are perhaps of secondary importance (usually adverbial) – ‘I’ll see you in the morning’.
Disjuncts
sentence adverbs that work to express an attitude or stance towards material that follows, e.g. ‘Frankly, I’m appalled…’; ‘Sadly, I’m leaving the company’; ‘With regret, I must tell you to leave home.’
Anaphoric referencing
making a reference to something previously identified in a text (often using pronouns to refer to an already established reference point, e.g. ‘The woman stood by the door. She made detailed notes of what she could see.’
Cataphoric referencing
making reference forwards to something as yet unidentified. ‘It swam up from the deep, silently, purposefully. The water was so dark that Jane didn’t have any notion of the shark’s approach.
Endophoric referencing:
making reference to something else within the text overtly: ‘Later in the show we’ll be…’; ‘as I said on page 37…’
Narrative structures
not just for fiction! How events, actions and processes are sequenced when recounting a story in any text (travel journalism, fiction, memoir etc).
Running repairs:
the repair of clarity and continuity when discourse breaks down between multiple speakers, e.g. ‘sorry, you go first’.
Self repair:
the repair of clarity and continuity by a single speaker, e.g. ‘let me rephrase that…’
Interrupted constructions
when a unit of speech in a speaker’s utterance ends seemingly at mid point before the speaker suddenly shifts to a different topic. ‘Don’t you think its… oh, hang on, that’s why I’m not getting anywhere on this computer.’
Fillers
sounds, words, or phrases that interject discourse/utterances, that have a variety of subtle effects.
Conversational questions
interrogative instigations that elicit one word or extremely limited responses, e.g. ‘Did you enjoy the film?
Conversational requests
interrogative instigations that require a more open response, e.g. ‘What did you think of the film.
Conversational offers
declarative instigations that require a more open response, and usually a degree of contextual understanding between speaker and receiver, e.g. ‘I saw that film you recommended last night.’
