The Coursework on Analysis of Spoken and Written Text (Coursework Sample)

Analysis of Spoken and Written Text
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Spoken and written texts often exhibit a wide range of differences. Written texts tend to be more intricate and complex than audio speech with many subordinate clauses and longer sentences. Regarding layout and punctuation, written text appear richer than audio texts. However, such forms of written language as email and instant messages appears closer to spoken texts (Biber, 2011). Such stylistics devices as repetitions, pause, corrections, incomplete sentences and interruptions are common with spoken texts. Analysis of these two intriguing linguistics constructs, spoken and written texts, therefore, makes the sole purpose of this paper.
Part A of the paper identifies and analyses the phonological and grammatical features of an audio conversation based on unrehearsed audio recording from BBC radio program. However, before the analysis, an overview of the whole conversation is first brought to light in this section. Part B, on the other hands, provides a direct contextual comparison of written language to spoken text. An opinionated article in the New York Newspaper centerlines the linguistic analysis of written texts.
Part A: spoken Text
As stated, this part will specifically focus on the analysis of phonological and grammatical aspects of a spoken text. The spoken text in question is an audio-recorded phone conversation between a radio presenter and the listener extracted from BBC Radio York discussion (). For effective analysis, it is crucial to understand that spoken texts are often influenced by various aspects ranging from the environment, emotion and status of the speaker or that of the person being addressed. As a result, the formality of the language used tend to vary depending on the kind of relationship between or amongst the speakers. In relation, an explicit understanding of the setting, participants, goals, instrumentalities, genre, norms and sequence of actions is paramount.
The spoken text embodies a conversation amongst three participants, David, Sam, an environmental officer and Jonathan, BBC radio presenter. Climate change and agriculture is the main theme underlying the discussion. Both of the speakers are Native English conversers. The place setting is at a radio station, BBC York, during the regular Jonathan Cowap program in which matters of concerns are normally deliberated. Generally, the conversation between Sam and the presenter was organized in the form of an interview with Jonathan asking Sam series of pertinent questions regarding the causes of climate change, its impacts, and possible ways of eliminating it. At the onset of the discussion, the presenter asks Sam whether he is really concerned about the climate change alluding to the point that climate change has become a huge impediment to agricultural activities in the community. Establishing a green environment, producing sufficient food, and making a direct contribution to the international agricultural cash generation is a total fiasco. The main reason for all these remains climate change according to Sam.
Evidently, climate change and its eventual impacts on agricultural production and the lives of the human race takes a centre-stage in the public arena. Everyone speaks about the subject. However, the public conception of climate only focuses on its consequences like flooding and drought. Not much attention is given to the key causative agents of the changes. As a result, people end up devastating the planet in oblivion. In the end, Sam provides some of the possible solutions to climate change and how to improve agricultural production in the current world system. The speakers suggest the usage off fertilizers boost soil fertility. Reducing usage chemicals in the environment amongst other strategies
Regardless of the content, it is highly admissible to contend that the conversation between the presenter and Sam maintains an official tone from the beginning to the end. There are no instances where the speakers deviate to focus on other side or personal aspects. The environment is the subject and emphasis embodies climate change and agriculture throughout the conversation. Additionally, since both the interlocutors seem to understand their language, code-switching instances do not feature in this conversation.
Phonological Analysis:
In linguistics, phonology deals with the speaker’s sound system and organization. There are rules and guidelines that outline how sounds in linguistics ought to be used or produced to form definite units of a language (Carter & McCarthy, 1995). In relation to the audio conversation in question, a number of phonological features can be surfaced. First is the deletion of the final consonants in such words as /important/. Sam, for instance, drops the sound /t/ as he says “it is importn.” According to Wardhaugh (2010), speakers often drop some sounds in the course of their speech for different reasons ranging from cultural backgrounds, a matter of time, social affiliation to the absence of consonant clusters.
Tonal variation is also a significant phonological aspect within this conversation. The speakers raise and lower their voices based on the circumstances or the kind of message they wish to deliver. At the onset of the conversation, for instance, the presenter uses a rising intonation to denote that he anticipates Sam to answer the questions he asks. As evidenced in the manner he answers, Sam well understands the meaning of the rising intonation.
40671755143500Presenter: Is climate change a subject of concern for you
17430758890Sam: Yes, possibly
At the same time, speakers also show some sense of approval for each other’s comments using rise-fall intonation. According to Wichmann (2014), the rise-fall tone in spoken text also provide emphasis of matter. By raising and falling the tone when mentioning the word ‘absolutely’ in the course of the conversation, Sam emphasizes that climate change is a public calamity and effective rescue measures have to be taken.
Presenter: What sort of consequences?...Do you think they are signs of climate change?
1114425406408858252159000Sam: Absolutely. Do not get me wrong
Elongation of pronunciation is also a common phonological feature within this conversation. Sam prolongs the connector ‘and’ using the vowel sound /e/ to give him time to think about the next line of talk. Also, by prolonging /and/, the speakers adds some sense of stress in the subsequent statement.
Sam: Um, well, am working at the Manchester where climate change issue is at the forefront, and it is just my own personal research…
Grammatical analysis:
As had been noted in the previous discussion, one is more likely to find grammatical features in a spoken text than in written language. As a result, it is conventional that such grammatical features as hesitation and repetition are evident in the conversation in question. In this section, the analysis will focus on the key grammatical features in the spoken text in question.
ADDIN EN.CITE Biber201125Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad, and Finegan (2011)25256Biber, DouglasJohansson, StigLeech, GeoffreyConrad, SusanFinegan, EdwardLongman grammar of spoken and written EnglishBook, WholeWritten EnglishEnglish languageGrammarUsage2011EnglandLongman0582237254; 9780582237254http://griffith.summon.serialssolutions.com/2.0.0/link/0/eLvHCXMwY2AwNtIz0EUrE4yM08wsDIEtuTSjVANzS2DHCJiY0tJMUyxNk5NSwYt-ER1-pALeTYiBKTVPlEHRzTXE2UMXNpARDx3biE8yNDcDX31uKMbAAuwvp0owKBibp5olpSWbm6ekJplYJidagDK8cSpoRi_J1NIgBQAy9yfLBiber et al. (2011) contend that the impromptu nature of communications often contributes to different to several features of spoken texts. Orators, for instance, will occasionally repeat what they have said, to get more time to think and formulate the message to be passed. Within the conversation, the speakers exhibit different instances of repetition meant to serve various functions. The phrase, climate change, for instance, has constantly been repeated throughout the conversation to highlight the significance of situation on the environment. Towards the conversation, Sam repeats the word ‘there’ as shown in the example below. Sam: Well, there, there is a lot of science surrounding the climate change.
Compared to repetition, a hesitation which is the use blank words to keep the conversation in progress is highly frequent within this context. The speakers make regular use of such words as umm, well, ah and yeah to ensure the conversation is motion even at times one holds to think. A clear of example of such instance is when Sam says,“ Um, well, am working at the Manchester where climate change issue is at the forefront, and it is just my own personal research…” Here Sam resorts hesitation to brainstorm the best way to answer the question on how he gained interest in the subject of climate change. Hesitation is, therefore, a significant element of a spoken. Not only does it provide consistency and coherence, but also the sense of emphasis in a discussion. Hesitation bridges the gap between the speakers thinking process and utterance of thoughts.
As purposeful as hesitation in spoken text is the use of discourse markers. According to Wichmann (2014), discourse markers are such words or phrases as okay, so, alright, anyway, well, to begin with. These linguistic elements function to organize language constructs into complete segments. Within this spoken text, a number of discourse markers can be identified. Such particles as ‘well,' ‘but,' â€&...