Importance of Spoken Discourse - Term Paper Example

Introduction: The text describes about the importance of spoken language and the important components of spoken discourse. To describe the spoken discourse in detail a conversation between two people is taken and the spoken discourse is analyzed. The scenario of spoken discourse taken here is something that can be correlated to any person in general. Taking a topic of general scenario will help in understanding the facts that are conveyed through it. The text also describes the components of a proper spoken discourse and the various other factors that are involved in a good spoken discourse. The other important factors detailed in the text are the role of facial expressions, Quality of the voice, body language of the person. The content of the text is divided as follows; Introduction, example of spoken discourse, explanation of spoken discourse, explanation of implicature, Teaching of implications and conclusion. Communication plays an important role in the development of mankind. Communication helps in the transfer of ideas from one individual to another, It has an essential part for development of all currently known inventions in science, technology and all other possible fields developed by humans. The word “discourse” has its evolution from the Latin word “discursus”. In Latin it means conversation. There is still an ongoing debate among linguists on the meaning of discourse, some relate it to textual forms, at the same time certain others refer it to be associated with speech. “Discourse is the way in which language is used socially to convey broad historical meaning. It is language identified by the social conditions of its use, by who is using it under what conditions. Language can never be neutral because it bridges our personal and social worlds. This definition is taken from Discourses of Domination by Frances Henry and Carol Tator, Univ.of Toronto press,2002.” (Nordquist, 2010, para.3). The divisions in discourse are mainly the spoken and written discourse. When the built up of a discourse is concentrated, another classification that comes up is formal and informal communication. “Formal disclosure is more strict in that it requires the use of passive voice, lack of contracted forms together with impersonality, complex sentence structure and in case of English language, vocabulary derived from Latin. Informal discourse on the other hand, makes use of active voice mainly with personal pronouns and verbs which show feelings as ‘I think’, ‘We believe’ and it has frequent contractions both in written and spoken.” (Wisniewski, 2006, para.16). Formal spoken English has most of the characteristics same to that of written English. Formal spoken language is used only in certain circumstances while in case of informal spoken language it is more common. Informal spoken language is seen in general society while conversation between people. Formal spoken language is used in interaction of importance like when officials meet to discuss between issues of the country and in case of business communications. “Discourse analysis is a primarily linguistic study examining the use of language by its native population whose major concern is investigating language functions along with its forms, produced both orally and in writing. Moreover, identification of linguistic qualities of various genres, vital for their recognition and interpretation, together with cultural and social aspects which supports its comprehension is the domain of discourse analysis.” (Wisniewski, 2006, para.21). Discourse first came into existence in 1952, it was based on another work called transformational grammar. Discourse analysis help in understanding the level of spoken language used in a society. “Automatically extracting social meaning and intention from spoken language is an important task for dialogue systems and social computing. Using certain methods and systems elements of interactional style can be detected like whether the speaker is awkward, friendly or flirtatious.” (Jurafsky, Ranganath, & McFarland, n.d, p.1). Example of spoken discourse: People in society build up a relation in community based on their communication. In case of the relation between student and teacher communication plays a vital role in building a good relationship between the two. The academic improvement of a child depends on the relation that the student has with the teacher. The scenario given below describes a normal day in a school. The teacher is having a normal conversation with the student in relation to homework given by the teacher. The student is of 5th class. The conversation is as follows: Teacher: Did you do you homework today? Student: Yes madam Teacher: Did my advice help you in completing the homework? Student: Yes madam Teacher: I will see you in class, keep your work ready? (The teacher walks away to staff room) Student: Sure madam (the student moves to class) Explanation of the context: This is a usual situation that takes place in a school scenario. The student and teacher are aware of the roles in a school environment and they communicate keeping their roles in mind. The role of a student and teacher as a person differ when in a school atmosphere when compared to other social settings. The teacher is a person who is seen by the student with respect .At the same time teacher expects to be respected by every student and this is a well known fact that every student is aware of and he bears this in mind while communication with the teachers. This is the reason in the above scenario a student of 5th grade is taken as compared to students in lower primary classes. The children in primary schools have only started learning the environment and society around them so they will take time in building their concepts and in knowing general facts about the world around them. The above scenario moves like as follows. The teacher is on her way to staff room and she meets the student on the way. She stops to ask the student regarding his/her homework and ask questions regarding the status of the homework. The student answers to her questions politely. The teacher expects a positive or negative response from the student in regard to the status of homework of the student. The reaction of the teacher will depend on the response of the student. Here the teacher was pleased that the homework was done by the student and goes on to ask whether her guidelines for doing the work helped the student. The teacher was again satisfied with the answer of the student and say that she will see the student’s work in class and goes away. The main thing that we observe here is the way in which the student responds to the question of the teacher. The student is very polite by responding to teacher with short statements like ‘Yes Madam”, ‘Sure Madam’. Adding the word ‘Madam’ gives a sense of respect to the answers given by the student. The main thing that we notice here is that the student is using only short statement in responding to the teacher. The student could have conveyed his feeling in a better way by using elaborative sentences or using complete sentences. Like for the first question he could have answered by saying ‘Yes madam, I have done my home work’ or ‘Yes madam, it was an interesting work to do’. The first question is the starting of the conversation, answering to it with a complete sentence will form the base for a good conversation. Using a complete sentence shows that one has time and space for the other person. When one uses short sentences of just two words in a conversation the person opposite feels that other is not interested to carry on the conversation or may be busy to move away. In case of the second question the answer can be ‘Yes Madam, your advice was of great help, thank you’ or ‘Yes madam, your advice helped me to complete the work, thank you’. Having a complete sentence for the second question helps in maintaining the conversation and this helps in forming a good relation between the two person, that will lead to a healthy conversation, as in this case between the teacher and student. In the above scenario in case of second question, the student have just told that the teacher that her/his advice was of help in completing the homework but by using a complete sentence the student will be expressing how he felt the importance of the guidance in completing his /her homework. This could have helped in prolonging the conversation between the student and teacher. In case of the last question the student could have answered as follows ‘Sure madam, I will be ready with my work’ or ‘Sure madam, I am excited to show my work’ or ‘Yes Madam, I waiting eagerly for you to see my work’ or ‘Yes madam, I will be very happy to show the product of my sincere efforts’. These sentences can generate an interest in the teacher to see the work of the student. The Teacher will feel that student has made good efforts to do the homework. This will help the student for his future studies as the teacher will provide more attention to the student. Even if the student has not done the work well the teacher will show some interest to help the student in achieving good results. Facial expressions and composure of the body can also at the same time convey the message to the listener, the depth of interest the speaker is showing in the conversation. So managing one’s own facial expression and body language is important for a healthy conversation. The quality of the voice also plays an important role in conversation from the tone of the speaker the listener can make out how comfortable the speaker is. Explanation of Implicature: In spoken discourse sentences should be connected together with a connecting link between sentences. The connecting link is mostly the thread of information that flows through from one sentence to another. When complete and proper sentences are used, the link of information will remain stable and the information can be easily understood by the listener. Cohesion: Cohesion plays an pivotal role in spoken discourse. Cohesion is described as those linkers between the sentences which keep the sentences stable in information and relation to each other. The cohesive used in discourse are connectives, co-reference, ellipsis. Conjunctions and sentence adverbials are the subparts of connectives. Connectives have other four main divisions described below, the first division is conjunctions which helps in connecting more than two words or expressions. The conjunctions used are in addition, besides etc. Secondly, disjunctions which assist in selecting between components is used when a sentence describe about more than two components or elements. The best example of disjunction in either…or used commonly in sentences to project choice. Thirdly, contra-junctions which relate to acknowledgement and contrast. The examples for contra-junctions can be listed as the following however, less, least, as and most .Then the last and fourth connective is subordinators are signs which support dependent clauses. Subordinators are listed as follows; as, because and that. Co-reference help in maintaining a link between a sentence to its previous sentences. Ellipsis come in use of long conversions in which the listener or speaker should look back to the chain of sentences to find the ground information on which the conversation is based on. Coherence: In case of Coherence it can be described as certain words help in relating one sentence to another,. For example pronouns help in relating one sentence to the previous sentences. When a particular noun is not repeated pronouns are used. “Coherence deals with the connectivity of underlying content and it is a procedure to ensure conceptual connectivity which includes (i) logical relations, (ii) organization of the content (events, objects and situation) and continuity in human experience. Coherence deals with basic relations such as cause-effect, problem-solution, temporal sequence of events.” (Unit 10 discourse skills: Spoken and writing discourse, 1995, p.8). Teaching Implications: Spoken discourse should be an important part in language education. This will help the in understanding the importance of proper discourse in a society setting. .“Speaking is accompanied with full range of paralinguistic effects such as expression, voice quality, posture and gestures. While speaking one has to monitor one’s speech to a great deal and the speaker has to check continuously what she/he has just said with what his/her intentions are.” (Unit 10 discourse skills: Spoken and writing discourse, 1995, p.2). The speaker should have in mind the construction of the sentence that he or she is going to deliver next. The speaker should also have the quickness of mind to make any corrections to his speech if he/she had made any mistake which can mislead the listener. Situations adapted from real life can introduce to students the use of language in a better way for communication and in passing ideas to the listener without breaking the communication link. . Theoretical based education cannot pass on to the students the real advantages of using proper discourse. The students should be given some scenarios in general society to be enacted in the class. For examples like conversation between a customer and shop assistant or conversion between friends meeting after a long time in a public place. The students enacting should be asked to keep in mind the tone of language used, use of complete yet simple sentences and the relation of one’s idea to the sentence. The student should be allowed to discuss with the class how the others felt about the conformability of the students enacting the different scenarios. Such discussions can bring in new ideas that will help in improving discourse in society. The students can discuss about how the enacted discourse can be improved in terms of language construction and body language. Utterances are common among when communicating while at the same too much of utter can affect the smooth running of the speech, so having a clear idea what one is speaking will reduce the occurrence of number of utterances. So strategies must be employed to reduce utterances and mistakes to hold the attention of the listener. In case of writing one will have an option to change his mistakes or reconstruct his ideas and the response of the reader will not be immediate but this option does not exist in a speech the listeners reaction happens then itself as soon as he hears. It is seen that often spoken English has incomplete sentences and if one tries to bring in complete sentences instead of one word or two word answers it will have a good effect on the communication and the listeners will also have a good understanding. At the same time the speaker has to be careful that he/she is not using difficult complex sentences while speaking as in this case the listener can loose track of the information the speaker is providing. Conclusions: Spoken discourse forms an important part of the society in communication. A good spoken discourse helps in conveying information in a way that can be understood by the listener. A proper discourse at the same time saves time and energy that will be wasted by repeating statements when the listener fails in understanding the speaker. It will also help in building relations between people. A proper discourse does not mean only the proper complete and simple sentence but it also involves the facial expression, posture, and tone of voice of the speaker. Seeing the importance of spoken discourse for proper communication between individuals in a society and also in exchanging ideas it is very important in the future life of a student and so spoken discourse should be an important part of the school curriculum. Reference List Jurafsky, D., Ranganath, R., & McFarland, D., (n.d.), p.1. Extracting social meaning: Identifying interactional style in spoken conversation. http://www.stanford.edu/~jurafsky/191.pdf Nordquist, R., (2010). Discourse. About.com: Grammar and Composition. Retrieved May 7, 2010, from http://grammar.about.com/od/d/g/discourseterm.htm Unit 10 discourse skills: Spoken and writing discourse. (1995). Developing Language Skills. Retrieved May 7, 2010, from http://www.egyankosh.ac.in/bitstream/123456789/25578/1/Unit10.pdf Wisniewski, K., (2006). Discourse analysis: Its origins and developments. Anglozof.com. Retrieved May 7, 2010, from http://www.tlumaczenia-angielski.info/linguistics/discourse.htm . Read More