Controles sobre fondos concedidos a sujetos privados

It is commonly understood that spoken language is a reflection of the process of language construction whereas written language is a revised and polished product. However, the difference is more subtle than that. There is a cline from spontaneous spoken discourse (unplanned and semi-planned) to non-spon- taneous spoken (semi-scripted or scripted) to spontaneous written discourse (unplanned and semi-planned) to non-spontaneous written discourse (pol- ished scripts), and the borders between one category and the next are blurred. Most spoken discourse is unplanned: speakers do not know exactly what they are going to say before they say it, and they put their words together as

Chapter Overview

Types of Spoken Discourse 155

Spoken Discourse Features 158

Function of Features 162 Social Variables 165 Sample Study 166 Conclusion 169 Transcription Key 170 Key Readings 170

Continuum Companion to Discourse Analysis

they are talking. The prototypical unplanned spoken discourse is the casual conversation, examples being gossip between friends over coffee, chat between strangers at a bus stop, and informal health-reporting between a mother and daughter on the phone. The unplanned nature of an exchange can make top- ics shift seamlessly; note how in excerpt (1), from a conversation between fel- low students in a university common room, the interactivity contributes to the unpredictability of its direction.

Excerpt (1)

AF Also. I had quite a bad cold last week and (3) I didn’t feel much like going out

(1)

DM Feel better now?

AF Mm. Yes the worst was actually in the middle of the week when I was planning to work very hard. Cos em I’d got it over with when I was out without the opportunity to succumb as it were. So (heh heh) (8) I suppose we were out and about on Saturday afternoon. Actually I was up at the City Cafe.

DM Mm?

AF Heaping plates of chips into Julian. They do very good chips there actually.

DM Where’s that?

AF The City Cafe on Blair Street. (2.5) Just above Cowgate. You know when we go down to Wilkie House.

DM Aha.

AF Well the street we go down the City Cafe is in that. It’s a nice place. (3) And it’s like the only drinking place in Edinburgh where you can take children.

DM And get chips.

AF Just so.

DM Perfect.

Conversation takes place in a shared context; it is interactive, interpersonal and informal, and contains expressions of wishes, feelings, attitudes and judge- ments (Thornbury and Slade 2006: 8–25). In excerpt (1), AF and DM share knowledge: AF does not have to explain what Wilkie House is or who Julian is. They show feelings (‘the worst was actually in the middle of the week’) and make judgements (‘They do very good chips there actually’, ‘Perfect’).

Much spoken discourse is semi-planned, in that the speakers have an idea about the sort of thing that they are going to say before they say it. In this cat- egory are difficult conversations that need carefully chosen rehearsed words, such as a parent telling a pubescent child about making babies, and a man

proposing marriage to his sweetheart. Others in this category are job inter- views, interactive learner-centred classes and some public speeches. Excerpt (2) is from a lecture from The British Academic Spoken English (BASE) corpus. The fact that it ‘trips off his tongue’ suggests that the lecturer had planned, if not rehearsed, his words:

Because what we are grappling with in the phenomenon of imperialism is a phenomenon that in various forms is as old as the formation of state sys- tems by human beings. So I’m going to, er, at considerable risk er to myself, try to set this phenomenon in a much wider, er, more global perspective. I hope that might be of interest to many of you who have either been sub- jected to what you consider imperialism, or indeed have been part of states and societies that have themselves been imperialistic or are still being so. The less interactive the discourse is, the more control the speakers have over the topic development and direction, and the words used.

Semi-scripted spoken discourse is similar to semi-planned except that some

of the planned words have been written down. It differs from scripted in that it allows for creativity. Semi-scripted discourse occurs most frequently in encoun- ters where the speakers are trained to use basic routines and short formulae, where similar utterances are repeated with each hearer, or where the speaker is guided by notes. Witness the shop assistant’s ‘Pop in your pin-number and press enter’, the hairdresser’s ‘Going anywhere nice for your holidays?’, or the pilot’s ‘Sit back and relax and enjoy the flight’. If a university lecturer reads from the PowerPoint slides, or a public speaker uses a written list of points, it is semi-scripted.

Scripted spoken discourse is on the borderline with written discourse

because it amounts to reading aloud written words. In this category fall recorded telephone messages, news reports on radio and TV, plays and films, and lectures and speeches that are read out. These class as spoken discourse as they are intended to be heard, and because readers can add meaning and feel- ing through stress and intonation, and there is disfluency if they mispronounce words, stumble and repeat words, or cough and apologize mid-sentence.

Spontaneous written discourse, on the borderline with spoken, can be unplanned or semi-planned writing such as scribbled notes on the back of an envelope, mind maps for an essay, text messages, emails, chat-room text, blogs and Facebook messages, which tend to be informal, and often interactional and involved interpersonally. Cameron (2001: 9) points out that computer-mediated communication shows that interactivity and spontaneity are ‘more salient characteristics of “conversation” than the channel or medium of interaction’. Crystal (2004: 69–76) argues however that netspeak is different from face-to- face conversation in that there is a lack of simultaneous feedback, a possibility of multiple simultaneous conversations and a slower rhythm of interaction.

Continuum Companion to Discourse Analysis