English Grammar
An Introduction to Punctuation
Definition:
The
ways in which the English language is transmitted through a
conventional system of sounds. Compare to written English.
Spoken
English, says linguist David Crystal, is "the more natural and widespread
mode of transmission, though ironically the one which most people find much
less familiar--presumably because it is so much more difficult to 'see' what is
happening in speech than in writing" (The Cambridge Encyclopedia of
the English Language, 2nd ed., 2003).
How to Teach English as a
Second Language:
Spoken English, says linguist David Crystal, is "the more natural and widespread mode of transmission, though ironically the one which most people find much less familiar--presumably because it is so much more difficult to 'see' what is happening in speech than in writing" (The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, 2nd ed., 2003).
In
recent years, linguists have found it easier to
"'see' what is happening in speech" through the availability of corpus resources--computerized databases
containing "real life" examples of both spoken and written English.
The Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English (1999)
is a contemporary reference grammar of English based on a
large-scale corpus.
The
study of speech sounds (or spoken language) is the branch of linguistics known as phonetics. The study of sound changes in a
language is phonology.
See also:- Speech (Linguistics)
- Colloquial
- Conversation
- Conversation Analysis
- Dialogue
- Key Events in the History of the English Language
- Present-Day English (PDE)
- Standard English
- Vernacular
- What Is Standard English?
Examples
and Observations:- Academic Bias Against
Spoken English
-
"[L]inguists have inevitably had a
long-standing and intensive contact with standard English. The nature of standard
English as primarily a written variety, together with the immersion of
academics in written English, does not augur well for their recognition of
structures that may be more typical of spoken English than
written English."
-
(Jenny Cheshire, "Spoken Standard English." Standard English: The Widening Debate, ed. by Tony
Bex and Richard J. Watts. Routledge, 1999)
- The Relationship Between
Spoken and Written English
-
"[I]n the course of the language's history, the relationship
between spoken and written
English has come nearly full circle. Throughout the Middle Ages, written
English predominately served transcript functions, enabling readers to
represent earlier spoken words or (oral) ceremony, or to produce durable
records of events, ideas, or spoken exchange. By the seventeenth century,
the written (and printed) word was developing its own autonomous identity,
a transformation that matured in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and first
half of the twentieth centuries. (However, through at least the end of the
nineteenth century, spoken rhetorical skills were also seen as
critically important to people with social and educational aspirations.)
Since World War II, written English (at least in America) has increasingly
come to reflect everyday speech. While writing on-line with computers has
hastened this trend, computers didn't initiate it. As writing growingly
mirrors informal speech, contemporary spoken and written English are losing
their identity as distinct forms of language."
-
(Naomi S. Baron, Alphabet to Email: How
Written English Evolved and Where It's Heading. Routledge,
2000)
- Teaching Illiteracy
-
"One main danger is that spoken English continues
to be judged by the codified standards of written English, and that
teaching pupils to speak Usual English may, in fact, be to teach them to
speak in formal written English. A test of spoken English may become a
test of one's knacks to speak a very restricted code--a formal English
used routinely by dons, civil servants, and cabinet ministers. It is not
very far removed from the language of formal debate. Such a view of spoken English can
produce an artificial and unnatural English and can even promote a kind
of illiteracy which is as
damaging to users of English as not being able to write literate English;
for to have everyone speaking and writing only one code--a standard
written English code--generates an illiteracy almost as grave as would be
the case if everyone were only able to use a local dialect."
-
(Ronald Carter, Investigating English
Discourse: Language, Literacy, and Literature. Routledge, 1997)
- Henry Sweet on Spoken
English (1890)
-
"The unity of spoken English is
still imperfect: it is still liable to be influenced by local dialects--in
London itself by the cockney dialect, in Edinburgh by the Lothian Scotch
dialect, and so on. . . . [I]t changes from generation to generation, and
is not absolutely uniform even among speakers of the same generation,
living in the same place and having the same social standing."
-
(Henry Sweet, A Primer of Spoken English,
1890)
- The Value of Teaching
Spoken English (1896)
-
"Not only should English grammar be taught with reference to the
nature of language and the history of English, but it should also take
account of the spoken, as
distinct from the written, form. The reasons for this seem to me many and
excellent. For instance, it is a misfortune that the English language
makes its appeal to the educated mind, mainly through the written and
printed form. The appeal to the ear and the appeal to the eye, which
should strengthen one another, are thus distinctly separate and divergent.
Our orthography encourages this
separation. It is, therefore, the more important that textbooks of grammar
should make some attempt to counteract this tendency."
-
(Oliver Farrar Emerson, "The Teaching of English Grammar,"
1896)
- The Lighter Side of Spoken
English
-
"'If Opal's goin' to be a school-teacher, mebbe she wants summat to exercise
on,' laughed her father.
-
"'Oh, Pa, you mustn't say summat--it isn't
a word," protested his daughter.
-
"'Ain't a word!' roared her father with increasing delight. 'Well,
hear that! How do you know it ain't a word?'
-
"'It isn't in the dictionary,' said Opal.
-
"'Shucks,' vilified Pa, 'what's the dictionary got to do with it? The
words that git into the dictionary ain't common talkin' words nohow;
they're written words--nobody puts talk into a dictionary.'
-
"'Why not?' questioned Opal, astonished at her father's apparent
knowledge of the making of dictionaries.
-
"'Cause why? Cause spoken words is too lively for 'em--who can go
round and keep track of every word that's spoke? I can make up a hull
mouthful I personally, and no dictionary'll ever know everything about
it--see?'"
-
(Bessie R. Hoover, "A Graduated Daughter." Everybody's Magazine, December 1909)
The study of speech sounds (or spoken language) is the branch of linguistics known as phonetics. The study of sound changes in a language is phonology.
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