spoken language

back channeling

signals that you’re listening (mm, yeah, okay)

deixis

verbally pointing to something relevant to the context or understanding of those taking part in the conversation

ellipsis

omission of words for speed, ecomomy, expression, or to avoid repetition

voiced pauses

non-verbal aspects of speech acting as pauses or to give thinking time (can signal stress) (er, um)

minor sentences

grammatically incomplete structures - typical of spontaneous, casual speech (her not mine)

non-fluency features

non verbal occurences of interruption or delay typical of spoken language

types of utterance

declaratives, interrogatives, imperatives, exclamatives

repair

speaker returns to a previous phrase/utterance (eg. he, sorry, she broke the vase)

false start

a construction is abandoned in favour of another (I think you could have (.) you should have told me)

fillers

little meaning, featured in everyday speech (like, sort of)

adjacency pairs

two part exchanges that follow a predictable pattern (“what’s the time?” “ten past three”)

elision

the omission of sound or syllable when speaking (wanna, gonna)

overlaps

participants talk at the same time

interruption

one person talks over the other and the first stops speaking

code switching

moving between languages/dialects/registers within the same conversation

hedges

makes an utterance less forceful or assertive

topic shift

changes of topic and utterances that initiate them are called topic shifters

topic loop

return to an earlier topic

openings and closings

social equals use them as a neutral starring points or opening a conversation (hello, see you later)

hospitality token

linguistic references to customary social acts that are used to receive and entertain guests (can I get you a drink)

tag question

a small question that is attached to the end of declarative. a form of ‘be’ or other auxiliary verb/modal is used in the tag (you came by train, didn’t you?)

dispreferred response

unexpected to what a particular statement, question, imperative or comment would normally engender - either in its content, tone, duration or force (“want tea?” “no thanks”)

acronym

an abbreviation formed from the individual letters of a word and pronounced as a word (NASA, ASAP, PIN)

initialism

a word formed from the first letters of a sequences of a word (brb, tbf, bffr, omg)

blend

a word formed from two or more words (brunch, brocedes, britcedes)

clipping

a creation of a word by dropping one syllable or more (rizz, thurs, snap, insta)

coinage

the construction and addition of new words to the word stock (brand name, cheugy)

logograms

when graphic units are associated with words/action (<3, :), x)

borrowing

introducing a load word from one language into another (hola)

double negative

the use of two negatives in the same phrase or clause (I don’t know nothing)