The Difference between Written and Spoken English

The Difference between Written and Spoken English

Introduction      

There has been a surge of interest that is researching the differences between written and spoken language. The research of comparing structural characteristics vs. discourse analyst and sociolinguists concluded that the main difference between speech and written language are sounds and letters, permanency and redundancy, formality and function, vocabulary and sentences, strategies as well as the interaction between the speaker and listener. This essay will define language and will highlight the element in written English and spoken English. It will compare and contrast the listed criteria of the written and spoken language.

Definition of Language

Language is a productive complex system that is used by human being to convey their message from message from one to another individual, control another person, event or relationship, express our inner thought and emotions. According to Norquist, human utilize arbitrary signals, such as voice sounds, gestures, or written symbols. The Oxford Dictionary supports this definition as it stated that a language could be either spoken or written as long as the words are structurally and conventionally used. As Samuel Taylor Coleridge said "Language is the armory of the human mind, and at once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons of its future conquests.

Written Language

The written language usually follows and support a spoken language as supported by Aristotle’s once said that the writing is a presentation of a speech. Bloomfield, 1933 con with this as he said written language is a record of the spoken language. However, the written language evolved through morpheme writing, terminating in a combination of phonetic and semantic elements with neophenogenetic principle to be a more developed language. (Coulmas, 1997). The basic unit of written language is the sentence. Written communication needs to be learned. This is supported by the research of DeFord, 1980. He concluded that “learning to write is initiated tacitly, as in oral language”.

A language recorded is more precise as greater though, is placed in it and the words are deliberately selected. The writer can rewrite and refine the message countless time and over a longer period of time. The written language is usually permanent and once it is printed is difficult to be rectified.

As the saying goes the pen is mightier than the sword.  It’s non retractable, so be careful what you write.  Written communication can be carefully analyzed and read repeatedly.  In addition, both the writer and reader can control the pace of the interaction.  Since, written language does not receive an immediate reply except in the case of computer mediated communication. Therefore, the reader or the writer cannot ask or clarify things if additional information is needed. Hence, writing is a fairly static form of transfer.  

Furthermore, the monologist of the written communication uses less of the first and second pronoun compared to spoken language.  Written language tends to be more complex and intricate than speech with longer sentences and many subordinate clauses. The punctuation and layout of written texts also more complex informative or academic form of text which has high content words such as nouns, adjective, verbs and adverbs which are used to explain information.

 According to Schleppegrell, 2004 written language plays a major role in making meaning as the resources used in school had expanded beyond the resources which are required for daily interaction to a more technical and abstract meanings necessary for construing academic knowledge.   This because, spoken language’s syntactical properties are less formal than those of written language. Firstly, it is more organized with paragraphing; it can be deliberately styled using punctuation, headings, layout, colors and other graphical effects in their written texts.

Spoken English

Language is primarily speech. Speech is the representation of the experiences of the mind. (Aristotle, n.d.).  Lieberman supports Aristotle’s

statement be reinforcing that speech is so essential to our concept of intelligence that its possession is virtually equated with being human. Animals who talk are human, because what sets us apart from other

animals is the “gift” of speech.

The basic unit of spoken language is the tone group. Speech consists of two types of basic units: 'Phonemes' or units of sound, which are themselves meaningless, are combined into 'morphemes', which are meaningful units; so the  phonemes /b/, /e/, /l/ /t/ form the word 'belt'. Jared Diamond identifies the greatest step in language evolution as the progression from primitive, pidgin-like communication to a creole-like language with all the grammar and syntax of modern language.

 Speech is naturally picked up and write formally at school Based upon the principles of Skinnerian behaviorism, Relational Frame Theory (RFT) posits that children acquire language purely through interacting with the environment.  Most spoken language is spontaneous and rapid and usually involves thinking on the spot.  However, formal spoken language such as can be accurate, but it's a great deal of  preparation and compression.

As one speaks, the audience provides its own visual cues about whether it is finding the argument coherent, comprehensible, or interesting.  Speakers should avoid focusing on single individuals within an audience.  The spoken language utilizes first and second person in spoken language mainly expresses the speaker's desire of interaction with their participants or audience so as to get closer to them.

Based on this point the monologues of the written communication uses less of the first and second pronoun compared to spoken language. In contrast, in speech the language is more dialogues in nature as there is a dynamic interaction between two or more individuals. Spoken language is spontaneous and transient, unless recorded, and speakers can correct themselves.

Once spoken, words cannot be retracted, although one can apologize for a mistake and improvise a clarification.  Halliday said that spoken language is more complex than written language in terms of its grammatical intricacy.  Based on the example given from the LTTC Unit 1 reading materials:  Context and shared knowledge play a major role, so it is possible to leave much unsaid or indirectly implied. Spoken language can be delivered using various gestures, intonation, inflection, volume, pitch, pauses, movement, visual cues such as appearance, and a whole host of other ways to communicate meaning. Some words and constructions such as “ thingamajig” and “ whatchamecallit ”

, and phrases like“  bla bla bla” only occur in spoken language.

Spoken language contains less around 16.4% of verbs that occurs in the non finite clause while in written discourse the non finite clauses accounts for 27.5% of all the verbs.  Spoken register has a lower nominalization frequency There is a bigger grammatical deviation in spoken language due to local dialects and shortage of mental processing capacity during conversation as grammatical disfluencies were transcribed in fidelity to the original speech. Grammatical deviations from the standard grammar are more frequent in spoken language.  Such deviations are due to local dialects as well as shortage of the mental processing capacity, which seems to be excessively engaged by focus on the content or other issues.  The other factor is due to speaker’s language deficiency.

Spoken language accommodates more clauses and prepositions. The spoken language carries less lexical items, but is more complex in terms of grammatical intricacy. Normally genre analysis is conducted in written language on the grammatical and linguistic structure. The studies on grammar, linguistic structures (mainly in structuralism), and genre analysis have frequently  been based and conducted in writing language. The way spoken language differs from written language lies in their functions. We can express ourselves intimately in a speech by “I  donno-La, her bf left her ” and hug her friend to console her.

In contrast, this situation is rare in writing. Furthermore, there are some small words like discourse markers in a conversation that does not appear in written .An example of a transcript of two teenagers plating “Scruples” from Exploring English reproduced by New Zealand’s Ministry of

Education:

C: Do you put them face down - hang on

H: Oh - ha

C: Then we get one ballot card each and you put them aside until  the vote is called

V: Oh - sorry

Spoken language describes "actions" while writing, language expresses "things". Halliday, 2002 elaborates that in many written text, especially the academic genre, there is a  buildup of abstraction and this nominalization turns actions into things.  The main differences are sum up in a comparison chart Basis Written Communication Spoken Communication Form Essentially words Essentially sound Basic Unit Sentences Tone Group Formality

It is more formal  “Would you like to have lunch?”

        It is less formal unless in planned speech “You wanna have lunch?”

Interaction and Feedback

It is planned and feedback will take time.  It is spontaneous with immediate feedback Accuracy .  It is more precise as the response is carefully planned . It is less accurate in conversation and is accurate in speech Acquisition . 

The person needs to be trained and learned.  The person pick up naturally through exposure and meaningful communication Record.   It is recorded permanent.  There is no record unless effort is made to record.

Mistakes

It is hard to be rectified Once spoken, words cannot be retracted, although one can apologize for a mistake and improvise a clarification.

Legality

It can be considered as a legal document.  It cannot be admissible as a legal evidence Delivery.   It can be written on any surface or medium . It is more organized with paragraphing and can be deliberately styled using punctuation, headings, layout, colors and other graphical effect letters, words, sentences,  paragraphs etc) have the character of objects.   It is spoken and in order to stress intonation , gesture and inflection, volume, pitch, pauses, movement, visual cues is used.  

Grammar

It is lexically dense and has more verbs based phrase and predicative adjective. The sentences may have many subordinate clauses and uses less of the first and second pronoun It has fewer complex words and phrases , accommodates more clauses and  prepositions. It carries less lexical items, but is more complex in terms of grammatical intricacy

Description

The writing, language expresses "things".  Spoken language describes "actions"

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This evident in language acquisition of the baby that starts with the exposure of the language.  Children learn how to speak at home before learning to read    

Conclusion

Halliday (1989, 2007), Tillmann (1997), Aijmer and Stenström (2004), Wikberg (2004),  Nelson, Balass and Perfetti (2005), Biber (2006), Miller (2006), McCarthy and Slade (2007) and Wichmann (2007) emphasize the different nature and aspects of written and spoken discourse, implicationally instilling the worthiness of further research on the differences between written and spoken discourse Language is not only the vehicle of thought, it is a great and efficient instrument in thinking. Both spoken and written languages are equally important. Both spoken and written dialects are linked to the social background, age, race, and gender of the writer, speaker and

 audience.