" “There's a comfortable glow in the shop, and cool, satisfying smoke is billowing out of the windows."

Universidad Tecnológica Nacional Facultad Regional Avellaneda Licenciatura en Lengua y Literatura Inglesa

Estudios del Discurso Oral Profesora Ingrid Sühring

Do you speak English? Means: Can you carry on conversation reasonably competently?

Let´s watch a video Listen to Mary Byram Jones talking about her father. Pay attention to the way she organizes her anecdote and the use of language ZgSVA ZgSVA

Let’s read Read an excerpt from When did you last see your father? Blake Morrison 2006

Compare both texts Consider: o Organization of information o Language use o Linkers o others

Writing is an act of faith E.B. White said. Speaking is no less so.

What do speakers communicate? We may communicate by writing a book or making a speech, with a torrent of words or with one, with a grunt or with silence, by waving our arms or raising our eyebrows.( Blakemore, 1998:2) In some cases the choice is carried out with great deliberation and care. In others the choice is spontaneous and virtually unconscious.

Speaking “Spoken language, as has often been pointed out, happens in time, and must therefore be produced and procesed ‘on line’.There is no going back and changing or restructuring our words as there is in writing; there is often no time to pause and think, and while we are talking or listening, we cannot stand back and view the discourse in spatial or diagramatic terms…” (Cook,1989:115)

Speaking “For each occasion on which we speak, there are certain requirements we must seek to satisfy.It is our perception of these requirements that lies behind our purposeful utterances: we persue a purpose that is in some sense imposed upon us by our reading of the present situation vis a vis our listener; and our listener’s percetion of that situation provides a framework within which to interpret what we say.” (Brazil,1995:31)

Spoken English Variation in speed Loudness or quietness Gestures –body language Intonation Stress Rythm Pitch range Pausing and phrasing

Spoken Language Less complex Grammatically less complex Spoken texts are longer Shorter less complex words and phrases

Spoken Language has: More verb based phrases (having treatment W Being treated S) More predicative adjectives More pronouns More lexical repetition More first person reference More active verbs than written language Fewer complex words and phrases

An example Every previous visit had left me with a sense of the futility of further action on my part. Whenever I’d visited there before, I’d ended up feeling that it would be futile if I tried to do anything more.

Now let’s watch … EBsSU EBsSU Homework Compare this to Mary Byram Jones’ anecdote. In what way are they similar in what way are they different? Think of organization, language used, linkers, discourse markers,

Ladies and gentlemen That covers the the main points we are going to discuss today, If you have any comments or questions, I’ll be glad to hear them.