5. Spoken language

textbook 1 chapter 5

speech acts

an utterance that does something

felicity conditions

the circumstances required to make a speech act successful

sincerity conditions

participants must have necessary intentions

John Austin (1975)

came up with the three elements of felicity conditions

assertives

a statement that is true/the speaker believes is true

directives

speaker gives instructions

commissives

speaker promises/commits to doing something

declaritives

a statement that changes/has impact

expressive

speaker shows their feelings towards something

implicature

context that adds meaning to what is being said

William Labov (1972)

came up with model of narrative structure

abstract

signals beginning of a story, catches listeners' attention

orientation

helps listener identify time/manner/place

complicating action

core narrative

resolution

final events of narrative

evaluation

expresses point of story clearly

coda

signals that the story is ending

pragmatics

context and meaning

turn taking

process by which speakers co construct conversations

adjacency pair

a simple structure of 2 turns

preferred response

the expected turn

dispreferred response

unexpected or irrelevent turn

insertion sequence

additional sequence between adjacency pair

discourse marker

make beginnings and endings of turns clear

conversational floor

the 'space' containing a conversation

non-fluency features

features that disrupt the 'flow' of speech

fillers

act as pauses in speech ('hmmm','like')

repairs

speaker corrects something they said

false starts

speaker begins an utterance then re-starts

tag questions

used to convey an attitude or seek confirmation

hedges

words that imply vagueness, express imprecision or tone down meaning

backchannels

sounds/words/phrases/body language that show feedback

deixis

words that refer to objects/people in the immediate context shared by participants

conversational historical present

using present tense when talking about the past to convey a story

general extenders

words/phrases that show the previous is part of a set/vague

intensifiers

adverbs that add emphasis

phatic communication

function of language to maintain/develop relations (like small talk)

Brown and Yule (1983)

suggested that language has 2 functions (interactional or transactional)

interactional language

maintains social relationships

transactional language

transmission of information

Brown and Yule (1989)

interactional language=listener oriented, transactional language=message oriented

schema theory

All knowledge is organised into units, like file cabinets

schema

how knowledge is represented and used

carrell (1988:101)

the role of pre-existing knowledge structures in providing information left implicit in the text

goffman (1969) : face theory

due to our highly social lives we depend on one another to get things done and are concerned with how we appear to people

Brown and Levinson (1987)

distinguished positive and negative face

positive face

desire to be liked and admired by others

negative face

desire to be not imposed or intruded on

face threatening acts

messages that seem to challenge the image we want to project

positive ftas

lead to us feeling embarrassed

negative ftas

lead to us feeling offended

maxims

rules we follow in conversation

maxim of quantity

Make your contribution as informative as is required. Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.

maxim of quality

do not say what you believe to be false, do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence

maxim of relevance

do not say something irrelevant

maxim of manner

avoid ambiguity and obscurity; be brief and orderly

scripts

conceptual structure used to understand linguistic and behavioural protocols in various situations

interthinking

working together to solve problems

intramental activity

individual thinking

intermental activity

social interaction

cumulative interthinking

people are in agreement with one another

disputational interthinking

people are in disagreement with eachother

exploratory interthinking

people are interested in reasoning and evaluating