Discourse, Spoken and Written language and Sentences

and Utterances
Discourse analysis
Discourse analysis is concerned with the study of the relationship between language and
the contexts in which it is used. It grew out of work in different disciplines in the 1960s
and early 1970s, including linguistics, semiotics, psychology, anthropology and
sociology. Discourse analysts study language in use: Written texts of all kinds, and
spoken data, from conversation to highly institutionalized forms of talk.

Discourse
Discourse is a set of utterances which constitute any recognizable speech unit and it is a
behavioural unit which has pre-theoretical status in linguistics. It is a general term used
in pragmatics to refer to language that has been produced as the result of an act of
communication. In another words, it stands for a stretch of language which is unified,
meaningful and purposive.
Example: conversations, interviews, compositions etc.
Discourse can be both spoken and written. The study of spoken and sometimes written
discourse is called discourse analysis.
To some extents, discourse analysis is considered with
a. The impact of the selection of grammatical items.
b. The relationship between utterances/sentences in the discourse.
c. The speaker to change, introduce or assert a topic.

Features of Discourse analysis:

The discourse analyst describes what the speaker and the hearer do rather than the
relationship existing between sentences. To do so, he/she has to consider four discoursal
features as discussed belowA. Reference: According to Lyons (1968) reference is the words refer to things. Here, the
speaker refers by using vocabulary to refer something with appropriate expressions. It is
an act on the part of the speaker. In short, reference is something that someone can use
an expression to do.
Example:
Speaker I: My uncles coming home from Canada on Sunday +hes due in+
Speaker II: How long has he been away for or has he just been away?
Speaker I: Oh no they lived in Canada he was married to my mothers sister++well
shes been dead for a number of years.
Here, he is used to refer to my uncle and she to my mothers sister.
B. Presupposition: To Given (1979) presupposition is defined in terms of assumptions
the speaker makes about what the hearer is likely to accept without challenge. It

means, accepting something without challenge is defined through the term of

assumption. To Selinker, presupposition is the common ground of the participants in the
conversation.
Example:
a. My uncle is coming home from Canada.
b. My uncle is not coming home from Canada
c. I have an uncle.
Here, sentence (b) is unnecessary, while sentence (c) is presupposition of the speaker in
uttering sentence (a).
C. Implicature: The term implicature is used by Grice (1975) account for what a speaker
can imply, suggest or mean, as distinct from what the speaker literary says. There are
two types of implicature:
a. Conventional: It is determined by the conventional meaning of the words used, for
example: He is an English man, he is therefore, brave.
b. Conversational: It is derived from a general principle plus a number of maxims which
speakers will normally obey. The general principle is called the co-operative principles.
The conversational conventions which support co-operative principle are as follows:
i. Quantity: Make your contribution as is required. Do not make your contribution
informative than it required.
ii. Quality: Do not say what you believe to be false. Do not say which you lack
adequate relevance.
iii. Relation: should be relevant.
iv. Manner: be perspicuous, brief, orderly & avoid ambiguity and obscurity of
expression.
D. Inferences: The process is used to arrive at an interpretation for utterances or for the
connection between utterancesExample:
In the kitchen there was a huge dresser and when anyone went in you see + the hats and
coats were all dumped on this dresser.
Here the inferences are:
a. The hats and coats belong to the visitor to the house.
b. The house has the dresser and
c. The dresser is in the kitchen.

Spoken Language
Spoken language is a vast subject, and little is known in hard statistical terms of the
distribution of different types of speech in peoples everyday lives. If we list at random
a number of different types of speech and consider how much of each day or weak we
spend engaged in each one, we can only roughly guess at some sort of frequency
ranking other than to say that casual conversation is almost certainly the most frequent
for most people. The rest will depend on our daily occupation and what sorts of contacts
we have with others. Some different types of speech might be:

Telephone calls (business or private)

Service counters (shops, tickets, offices)
Interviews (jobs, journalistic in official setting etc.)

Features of Spoken Language:

Let us consider the features of the spoken English as presented below1. The syntax of spoken English is much less structural:
i. Spoken language contains many incomplete sentences, often simple sequences of
phrases, for example, okay, thatll do
ii. Spoken language possesses rather little subordination.
iii. Spoken language contains a lot of active declarative sentences. A very few examples
of passives, it-clefts or wh-clefts are found in a recorded conversation of over 50 hours,
for example, its quite nice the grass market since+ its always had the antique shops but
theyre looking + theyve sort of +em+become a bit nicer+..
2. In spoken language the chunks of utterances are connected by and, but, then and more
rarely, if.
3. It is rare in spoken language to find more than two pre-modifying adjectives, and there
is a strong tendency to structure the short chunks of speech so that only one predicate is
attacked to a given referent at a time as in its a biggish cat= tabby + with torn ears.
4. The use of passive is not found in speech. Instead active constructions with
indeterminate group agents are noticeable in spoken language, as in-oh everything they
do in Edinburgh + they do it for so slowly.
5. In spoken language it is quite common to find topic comment+ structure as in-the cats
+did you be +them out.
6. In chat about the immediate environment, the speaker may rely on, for example, gaze
direction to supply a referent. (looking at the rain) frightful isnt it?
7. The speaker may replace or refine expressions as he/she goes along for example, this
man +this chap she was going out with.
8. In spoken language, the speaker typically uses a lot of rather generalized vocabulary,
for example,-a lot of, thing, got, nice, do, stuff, place, etc.
9. In spoken language, the speaker frequently repeats the same syntactic form several
times over that is repetitions and hesitations being involved in spoken.
10. The speaker may produce a large number of prefabricated fillers, such as, well, em, I
think, you know, of course and soon.
11. The speaker tries to establish and maintain role relationship with the listener.
12. In spoken language, there is a kind of approximate between the speaker and the listener.
13. Spoken language is less dense for the purpose of enabling the listener to understand the
information/message easily.
14. Spoken language takes no visual form.
15. Spoken language occurs in some context of situation and faces direct reaction of the
listener.
Advantage of Spoken Language:
1. Spoken language takes in some context of situation and hence is supported by extralinguistic elements including all in the surrounding.
2. In a face to face interaction, the interlocutor can reformulate his/her language according
to the situation or taking into consideration the reaction shown by the other interlocutor.

3. While speaking, the speaker has available to him/her the full range of voice quality
efforts as well as paralinguistic expressions.
4. In a conversation, non-linguistic events naturally contribute to spoken language and
make it lively.
5. Spoken language is only interactional.
6. Finally, spoken language contains interactive markers and planning filers and thus
makes communication effective.

Disadvantage of Spoken Language:

1. It does not maintain strict grammatical rules. So, grammatical mistakes are occurred
often.
2. It is devoid of the transactional function of the language.
3. Spoken language cannot express emotions, sentiments and feelings.
4. Spoken language cannot be checked, changed or reformulated if it is once uttered.
5. It is the primary form of language. So, it is non-visible and it has no written document
to prove.
6. Spoken language is less planned rather than written language. So it would be affected
on listeners if it is badly uttered.

Spoken Language Works in some Levels:

1. Adjacency pairs: A pair of utterances in talk is often mutually dependent. A most
obvious example is that a question predicts an answer and that an answer presupposes a
question.
2. Turn taking: People take turns when they are selected or nominated by the current
speaker, or if no one is selected, they may speak of their own accord (self-selection).If
neither of these conditions applies, the person who is currently speaking may continue.
3. Transactions and topics: In transactions, we are concerned with how speakers manage
longer stretches of talk. They are most marked in settings. Such as classrooms, doctors
surgeries and formal interviews, they are also present in openings and closings. We also
considered the question of realizations of markers in different languages. On the other
hand, topics could be defined on the formal level, as stretches of talk bounded by certain
topic and/or transactional markers, such as lexical ones (by the way, to change the
subject) or phonological ones (change in pitch)
4. Interactional and transactional talk: Transactional talk is for getting business done in
the world i.e.in order to produce some change in the situation that pertains. On the other
hand, interactional talk has as its primary functions the lubrication of the social wheels,
establishing roles and relationships with another person prior to transactional talk,
confirming and consolidating relationships expressing solidarity and so on.
5. Stories, anecdotes, jokes: Almost any piece of conversational data between friends will
yield occasions where people engage in the telling of stories, anecdotes, jokes and other
kinds of narratives. The ability to tell a good story or joke is a highly regarded, talent
probably in all cultures.
6. Speech and grammar: Brief mention must be made here of the role of grammatical
accuracy in unprepared speech.

Written Language
Written language is the secondary form of a language. It is visible, written or printed
and hence more permanent.

Features of Written Language:

1. Written language is more structured.
2. In written language, heavily pre-modified noun phrases are quite common, for examplea man who turned into a human torch ten days ago after snoozing in his locked car
while smoking has pipe has died in hospital.
3. Written language sentences are generally structured in subject.
4. The use of passive is found in written language.
5. In written language, vocabulary for example-a lot of; thing, nice, do, stuff etc. is not
taken generally.
6. In written language, the some syntactic form is not repeated.

Advantage of Written Language:

1. Written language is the secondary form of language.
2. As written language is strictly governed by grammatical rules, non-native users are
usually more aware of the rules of written language.
3. We can express our feelings, ideas, emotions, sentiments, and so forth more freely in
spoken language because the reader cannot show direct and immediate reaction.
4. It may be checked, changed or reformulated if necessary grammatically and
pragmatically.
5. It performs both transactional and interactional functions of language.

Disadvantage of Written Language:

1. It fails to establish and maintain direct role of relationships with the reader.
2. In written language there is no proximity between the writer and reader.
3. Written language does not take place in some context of situations. So it is not
supported by extra linguistics elements including all is the surrounded.
4. Written language does not contain interactive markers and planning filler and thus
makes the communication less effective.
5. It misses the para-linguistic expression and immediate reaction of the situation. So its
effect is slow.

Written language works in some levels:

1. Speech and writing: Both spoken and written discourses are dependent on their
immediate contexts to a greater or lesser degree. The idea that writing is in some way
free standing whereas speech is more closely tied to its context, has come under attack
as an oversimplification of discourse analysts.
2. Units in written discourse: The sentence is more obvious as a grammatical unit in
writing although certainly not in all kinds of writing: signs and notices, small ads, notes,
forms, tickets, cheques, all contain frequent examples of non-sentences.
3. Clause relations: The units of written discourse rather than always being co-existence
with sentences (though they sometimes are) were best seen as functional segments (of
anything from phrasal to paragraph length) which could be related to one another by a
finite set of cognitive relations, such as cause-consequence instrument, achievement,
and matching relations such as contrasting and equivalence.
4. Culture and rhetoric: The area of cross-cultural rhetoric studies has spawned a vast
literature of its own and a somewhat confusing one. On the other hand, linguists claim

to have evidence of textual patterns in other languages not found in English writing. On
the other hand, there is disagreement over whether these patterns are transferred and
cause interference when the learner writes in English.
5. Discourse and the reader: Discourse and reading in fact follows consistently from
what we have learnt. We cannot explain discourse patterning at the macro-level without
paying due attention to the role of grammar and lexis. By the same token, we cannot
foster good reading without considering global and local reading skills.

Differences between spoken language and written language

Spoken language
1. Spoken language is the primary form of
linguistic communication.

Written language
1. Written language is the
secondary medium of
communication.

2. Spoken language is audible and temporary.

a.
Utterance
b.
Conventional analysis

2. Written language is visible,

written or printed and hence
more permanent than spoken
language.

3. Spoken language takes place in context of

situation and so it is supported by extra-linguistic
elements including all in the surrounding.

3. Written words can be

examined outside their original
context.

4. Spoken language is primarily interactional.

4. Written language is primarily

transactional.

5. Spoken language is not usually packed with

information.

5. Written language is usually

packed with facts.

6. A speakers voice, rhythm, intonation etc. are

necessary features for the understanding of the
speech.

6. Punctuation, word and

sentence order are important for
understanding of a written text.

7. Spoken language has a loose syntactic structure.

7. Written language is usually

richly organized.

8. In spoken language, the use of more than two

premodifying adjective is rare.

8. Written language has heavily

premodified noun phrases.

9. The spoken language incorporates a lot of

vocabulary, such as-a lot of, things, nice, sort
of.

9. This device is not taken in

written language, partly to
avoid monotony, and to make
language formal, stable.

10. The speaker may suffer the disadvantage of

exposing his/her own feelings, emotions.

10. The writer can easily

manipulate words and
expression in a way.

Sentence and Utterance

Sentence and utterance is of fundamental importance to both semantics and pragmatics.
A sentence is an abstract theoretical entity defined within a theory of grammar, while an
utterance is the issuance of a sentence, a sentence-analogue, or sentence-fragment, in an
actual context. Empirically, the relation between an utterance and a corresponding
sentence may be quite obscure (e.g. the utterance may be elliptical, or contain sentencefragments or 'false-starts'), but it is customary to think of an utterance as the pairing of a
sentence and a context, namely the context in which the sentence was uttered.

Difference between Sentences and Utterances

In pragmatics, sentences, and utterances are interpreted as two different types of units
hiving varied purposes, structures and effects as presented in the table below:
Sentences
1. Sentences are written, usually
formal and isolated from the context.
2. A sentence contains complete
sense.
3. Sentences manifest the lexicogrammatical rules for the purpose of
demonstration or display.

Utterances
1. Utterances are spoken, largely informal
and related to the context.
2. An Utterance may contain incomplete
sense.
3. Utterances realize the rules for the purpose
of communication.

4. A sentence ends with full stroke.

5.
A
sentence
may
be
decontextualized.
6. A sentence is not accompanied by
voice qualities or supra-segmental.
7. A sentence is not supported by
body language.
8. A sentence has tensed verb (finite
verb).
For
example:
It is a
(Verb) beautiful day.
9. A sentence does not have
repetitions of words or phrases.
10. A sentence has capitalization and
may have mechanics.
11. A sentence is usually studied in
semantics and syntax.
12. A sentence is a unit of analysis
whose meaning or signification is
established
by
paradigmatic
association with other sentences.

4. Utterances lack full stroke.

5. An Utterance is always contextualized.
6. An Utterance is accompanied by both
voice qualities and supra-segmental.
7. An Utterance is supported by body
language.
8. An Utterance doesnt usually have tensed
verb. For example: What a day! (no verb is
used here).
9. An Utterance may have repetitions of
expression.
10. An Utterance does not needcapitalization.
11. An Utterance is usually studied in
pragmatics.
12. An utterance is a unit of analysis whose
meaning or signification is established by
syntagmatic
association
with
other
utterances.

13. Example:
He is travelling there by train.

13. Example:
He, the boy's travelling there, to Dhaka
by train....

Works cited:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.

Mc Carthy, H.1991. Discourse Analysis for Language Teachers.

Brown, G. & Yule, G. Discourse Analysis.
Maniruzzaman, M. Introduction to Linguistics.
Wikipedia, The free online Encyclopaedia,
<www.wikipedia.en>
Levinson, S. 1983. Pragmatics.
Cook, G. 1989. Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Selinker, L. (1972) Interlanguage, International Review of Applied Linguistics, 10:
20931.
(1992) Rediscovering Interlanguage, London: Longman.
(1996) On the Notion of IL Competence, in Early SLA Research: An Aid to
Understanding Some Baffling Current Issues, in G. Brown, K. Malmkjr and J.
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