XI Международная студенческая научная конференция Студенческий научный форум - 2019

Writing and talking are both forms of communication using language. Yet they differ in important aspects. There are several ways, in which speech differs from writing. These differences can offer us insights into the nature of listening and reading tasks, especially when students are listening to or reading authentic, unedited discourse.

1. Whereas the organizational unit for written discourse is the sentence, spoken language is generally delivered a clause at a time. In conversational discourse in conversational discourse, longer utterances usually consist of a series of clauses coordinated with “ands” and “buts.” These clauses appear to be the major units or constituents in the planning and delivery of speech.

2. In most written material, the grammatical conversations of the language are rather carefully observed. In speech, however, one encounters more ungrammatical forms, as well as reduced forms. Words are sometimes slurred, dropped, or accented, and sentences may appear without subjects, verbs, auxiliaries, articles, or other parts of speech.

3. In well-written discourse, sentences flow in logical sequence and evidence of planning of thought. In spoken conversational discourse, pauses, hesitations, false starts, and corrections make up between 30 and 50 percent of what is said. In addition, speakers tend to use fillers and silent pauses to “buy time” a what they want to say next.

4. Coherence in written discourse is created differently as compared to speech, since writing tends to be more planned and tightly organized. It is usually produced by one person, which allows the discourse to flow logically as the topic is developed. Speaking, on the other hand, is generally not planned and therefore not as organized as written discourse. Often there are topic shifts, since the development of the topic of conversation is cooperatively constructed.

5. Because conversations are interactive, relying on nonverbal as well as verbal signals, meanings are negotiated between listener and hearer. Many things may be left unsaid in a conversation because both parties assume some common knowledge. In many types of written discourse, however, the person communicating the message may be addressing it to a wide and essentially anonymous audience and therefore has no opportunity to negotiate meaning directly with the reader. Fewer givens are assumed and more background information may be needed to communicate the message clearly.

The way in which the communication is organized in spoken language also differs from the organization of written language: whereas spoken language moves along a time axis, written language provides in its typography an idea of its organization and overall duration. In this sense, aural comprehension may be more difficult than reading. The accessibility of the message also differs in reading and listening. The reader can look back at what was read before and can also look ahead to get an idea of what is coming. The listener, however, cannot do the same thing, and any inattention to what is being said at the moment may easily cause him or her to lose an important part of the message, or may be even all of it.

The contrasts between oral and written language became more complex when one considers the range and variety of text types that can be encountered (Spontaneous free speech, deliberate free speech, oral presentation of a written text, oral presentation of a fixed script. Written discourse also has a variety of text types (literary passages, plays, poems, letters, newspapers and magazines, specialized reports, etc.)

Certainly, writing is not essentially different from speaking. There is even a compositional style aiming at the relaxed informal tone we associate with conversation. It is good when you write to imagine that you are talking to someone, trying to explain your ideas or feelings. Readers must get at your meaning solely through the words you put on paper. You must choose and arrange those words, then, with great care.

Writing is more than simply finding words to fit ideas. Writing is not merely a process of thinking of something to say and then selecting or looking up the words needed to say it. Writing is more complicated. Its complexity is revealed by the ambiguity of the word itself. On the one hand, “writing” in the former sense, to signify the entire complex process, but with the understanding that the physical act is a part of that process, which is a very important part.

As a process, writing involves both mental and physical activity. It is not the case, that we decide, what to say and then write it down. Few of us really know, in an absolute and final sense, what we want to say until we have said it. We begin with a general idea of what we would like to communicate. Thus “writing” in the abstract sense both feeds and is fed by “writing” in the physical sense.

This truth ought not to discourage us. On the contrary, it should be encouraging. Too often inexperienced writers are hamstrung because we mistakenly suppose we have to know exactly what they want to do before they can begin to write. Of course, the more we know the better. Even so, the paradox remains that we never completely know until we use the pencil.

References

Болдонова И.С. Межличностный диалог: устный и письменный

дискурсы. Вестник ЯГУ, 2009

2.Зяблова Н.Н. Дискурс и его отличие от текста// Молодой ученый. – 2012. - №4 – с.223-225

3. Maria Grazia Sindoni. Spoken and Written Discourse in Online Interactions. UK, 2013

4. Olga Dontcheva – Navratilova and Renata Povolna. Coherence and Cohesion in Spoken and Written Discourse/ Cambridge Scholars Publishing, UK, 2009