Главная страница «Первого сентября»Главная страница журнала «Английский язык»Содержание №3/2008

Why Study Grammar?

(Part 3)

continued from No. 2

1. Features of speech: dialogue
Texts 1 and 2 were both monologues (in Part 2), that is, one person speaking or writing. Speech is more often a dialogue, a communication between two or more speakers and this influences the grammar choices made. We can see this in the dialogue transcribed below.

A: Oh well, she wouldn’t be there after the bingo then would she? Probably went to I know that she does go. She there most of the evening and she goes to bingo and
B: Yeah
A: Cos they live down round near Tina’s, but not like Tina’s house before that off Allard Avenue round the back of Allard Sherwood is it?
B: Sherwood, yeah Sherwood Avenue
A: Yeah
B: Yeah they live up, yeah.

This transcript looks different from Text 1 and is even more difficult to make sense of. In natural speech, people often speak at the same time as each other, or complete each other’s remarks. There are therefore many utterances that seem incomplete when read on the page. Although transcripts of conversation may seem ‘ungrammatical’ in comparison to text specifically composed to be read, the participants in them have no problem understanding and responding. This indicates that the grammatical choices made in speech are often just different from those we make in writing.

The use of the context surrounding the participants means that they do not need to make everything explicit. In fact, they need to do different things in conversation and therefore need different grammatical resources. For example, in the context of a face-to-face conversation we see grammatical features such as question tags (would she? is it?) which invite a response, either verbally or through gestures such as nodding the head, from the other member of the dialogue. This helps to keep all participants in the conversation involved.

Missing out words such as personal pronouns is common, e.g. Probably went to, where the pronoun she is omitted. This is allowable in conversation because such words can be inferred from the surrounding text. It also helps to create a feeling of closeness between the participants. They can leave out words because they can rely on their shared understanding to fill in the meanings.

2. Features of Speech: Interaction
Once we start to consider the ongoing interactive nature of speech, many of the differences between speech and writing become explicable.

Activity 2 (15 minutes)
Read the extract below from a conversation among three people. Using your own words, underline and describe things that indicate that this is spontaneous conversation. To get you started, here is an example from the first two lines.
A: I’ve got [informal everyday expression with contraction] something [general noun rather than specific] new on the computer [specific reference to a particular computer shows shared context] here [reference to specific place that is clear to those in the conversation].
B: What do you got? [questions reflect interactive style: do and got show a lack of concord (agreement) as perhaps the speaker changed his/her mind halfway through the utterance.]

A conversation
A1: I’ve got something new on the computer here.
B1: What do you got?
A2: If you turn it on, it turns on here and that turns on the monitor, the speakers and the uh, printer so now <unclear> shut off my printer. I just put a, a plug strip in here.
B2: Oh okay.
A3: And there there’s another switch inside here that allows me to turn everything off, the computer, so like when I go away I can hit that and then everything is down.
C1: The one I like is the uh, little console.
B3: Yeah.
C2: You can, well you know <unclear>
A4: Well you know the other thing is though, see I can shut this off.

Comment
Some of the points that you might have noticed were:
• Avoiding elaborations or specification of meaning, and the use of general nouns and of pronouns e.g. something new; the other thing.
• Interactiveness with questions: What do you got? (note the dysfluency – a term we introduce later)
• Real-time production by add-on strategy: If you turn it on, it turns on here and that turns on the monitor, the speakers and the uh, printer so now <unclear> shut off my printer.
• Vernacular range of expressions such as contractions (I’ve), and informal and non-standard usage, e.g. So, like when I go away; What do you got?
• Repetition and hesitation: I just put a, a plug strip in here.

Many of these features can be put down to the pressures of thinking and translating our thoughts into comprehensible language in the milliseconds available during face-to-face conversation. They also rely on the sharing of immediate physical contexts and often much socio-cultural context knowledge as well. They result in the range of features noted above. Easily observable in most conversations is the increased use of pronouns to refer to people and things in the vicinity or recoverable in the wider context of the conversation. Writing, in contrast, usually uses fuller combinations of nouns and adjectives to specify who or what is being referred to.

3. Features of Speech: Ellipsis
Another feature of relying on the shared linguistic or socio-cultural context is ellipsis. This occurs when some elements of a phrase or other unit of language are not specified because they can be inferred from the context. Ellipsis occurs in both speech and writing, but is more common in speech. The following two-part exchange between a mother and daughter is an illustration. They have a cordless phone which can be used anywhere in the house and my daughter, like many teenagers, is constantly phoning and being phoned by her friends.
Mother: Suzanne, have you got the phone up there?
Suzanne: No... Dad’s using it.
The ellipsis occurs in the first part of Suzanne’s response. No could be expanded to ‘No, I haven’t got the phone up here’, but this is unnecessary because they both know what she is saying ‘no’ to.

Activity 3 (10 minutes).
In the examples below there is ellipsis. Try to work out what words have been omitted. The place where they could go has been indicated with the symbol ^. Write a version of each of these sentences with the ellipsed material included.
1. He and his mate both jumped out, he ^ to go to the women, his mate ^ to stop other traffic on the bridge.
2. Perhaps, as the review gathers steam, this can now change. It needs to ^.
3. A: Have you got an exam on Monday?
B: ^ Two exams ^.

Comment
Ellipted material is enclosed in [ ].
1. He and his mate both jumped out, he [jumped out] to go to the women, his mate [jumped out] to stop other traffic on the bridge.
2. Perhaps, as the review gathers steam, this can now change. It needs to [change].
3. A: Have you got an exam on Monday?
B: [I’ve got] two exams [on Monday].

4. Features of Speech: Dysfluency
Another of the differences between conversation and writing is sometimes referred to as dysfluency. This is the use of hesitators (sounds such as erm, urn), pauses and repetitions which reflect the difficulty of mental planning at speed. We can see all three of these dysfluencies in the next example.
That’s a very good – er very good precaution to take, yes.

There is a pause after good, a hesitator er and repetition of very good. While such dysfluencies might be considered as random occurrences during unplanned speech, analysis of large amounts of conversational data shows that there are systematic patterns in how they are used. Before you read on, consider when you might use a pause as opposed to a hesitator in conversation.

Hesitators are devices for indicating that a speaker has not yet finished their turn, and thus does not want to be interrupted. Hesitators are commonly used at a point when a speaker has not yet finished all they want to say, but they need to give themselves time for forward planning. In contrast, a pause occurs more often at places where a speaker is about to start on a new part of their utterance. They are often followed by words such as okay which signal this new section, as in this example:
Mmm I just thought you know I okay it’s only a cheque I know.

This transcript does not have pauses marked. However, when you say it in your head you certainly feel that there would be a pause before okay.

Activity 4 (5 minutes).
Read the examples below which show uses of repetition. Do you think repetitions function more like hesitators or pauses?
1. I hope that, uh, Audrey sent in that article to the News Press to, to get back with them.
2. Hopefully he’ll, er, he’ll see the error of his ways.

Comment
The repetition of to and he’ll are not at major points in the utterance, rather they are like hesitators, they allow forward planning time and indicate that the speaker has not finished. They can also be used to indicate emphasis.

5. Features of Speech: Language in Real Life
The discussion of dysfluency specifically avoids the use of the word ‘error’. In the past, because written grammar was used to judge speech, common features of speech were judged as errors because they do not occur in the more planned environment of written text.

Thus, what type of data is analysed is crucial to what the grammatical findings are. Grammar descriptions are increasingly being developed on the basis of examining how language is really used. This is in contrast to methods which rely on introspection; that is, grammarians consider examples of the language that they use or that is published and devise ways of accounting for the word combinations they find.

This method has two consequences. The first is that it is associated with a particular variety of the language, usually that used by those with higher levels of education. The second is that written rather than spoken language often forms the basis of the description. Nowadays, many authors writing grammar books or books to help learners of English are using large databases of natural language to give them insights into how language is used in real life, not just how we think it is used.

The following is an example of a grammatical feature which would not have been evident to grammarians using just introspective methods or even those describing actual uses of language based on limited examples. It comes from a project investigating grammatical patterns in speech. One of the discoveries made by the project team is referred to as ‘heads and tails’. These are items that are placed at the beginning or the end of the main utterance. Example (1) illustrates ‘heads’ (in bold) and (2) exemplifies ‘tails’ (in bold).

1. Paul in this job that he’s got now when he goes into the office he’s never quite sure where he’s going to be sent.

2. A: I’m going to have Mississippi Mud Pie I am.
B: I’m going to have profiteroles. I can’t resist them I can’t … just too moreish.

I think you will agree that it is highly unlikely that such utterances would occur in writing, with the exception perhaps of dialogue in novels. However, they have been found to occur frequently in speech. They must therefore serve a communicative purpose in speech that would not be necessary in writing. It has been suggested that ‘heads’ play an important role in helping the listener to prepare for what is coming next.

In (1), the word Paul is used as a signal by the speaker to the listener that a new topic of conversation is being introduced. It reflects the importance of helping the listener to process incoming information in the short time span typical of face-to-face interaction. In contrast, tails are often used in evaluative contexts where they reinforce a particular point, as in B’s remarks which contrast with A’s. These are examples of features that are only now being discovered through analysis of authentic, naturally occurring language, particularly in association with computational analysis.

To illustrate what is meant about not basing our study on how we think we use language, look at the transcripts below from a television news programme. Earlier, in Activity 4, we contrasted speech and writing, now you are looking at two different types of speech.

Activity 5 (30 minutes)
Below are two transcripts from a BBC news programme. In Text 3 you will read a short part of what the newsreader said when introducing a news item on rioting in Genoa during a summit conference of world leaders. In Text 4 you will read what a demonstrator at the conference had to say to a reporter. Read the texts and try to put in punctuation for both of them. Make a note of any differences in how the newsreader organises his speech and how the demonstrator organises his.

Text 3
Newsreader: Good evening dozens of people have been hurt in fighting between police and protesters outside the G8 summit of world leaders in Genoa Italian riot police fired tear gas at demonstrators after an anti-globalisation rally erupted into violence

Text 4
Man: A peaceful demonstration broke up round here you know with them mindless thugs that set fire to that bank for a start it’s it’s just devastating

Comment
Here we can observe yet more variation in how language is structured. The newsreader is reading from a script, so his words have been carefully worked out for him; his speech has a lot in common with written language and is therefore much easier to punctuate with conventional punctuation. The demonstrator, however, is thinking and formulating his thoughts into words almost simultaneously. We can see the result of this in the pauses, repetition, fillers such as you know and the lack of clear sentence boundaries – features you observed earlier in Activity 4 and other subsequent examples.

What is interesting is that before the invention of the tape recorder, people were not consciously aware of many of these features of spoken language. In the same way, having access to lots of language data is also revealing new features of how we actually use language.

Conclusions
Looking at naturally occurring language shows that there is systematic variation in the choices people make, related to both the meaning and the context of the communication. Specifically, there are differences in mode between grammar in speech, especially conversation, and in writing.

Of course there is variation within a language. For example, there are different varieties of English used in different parts of the world. India, the USA and Australia, for example, all have different varieties of the language we refer to as English. But variety also occurs within countries where different lexical and grammatical choices may be associated with regional dialects.

Often people have a choice over whether to use their dialect or to communicate using what has come to be called Standard English.

Exploring the grammar of English can help us look at a level of variation which is much more subtle – the very crude distinction between written and spoken modes. Grammar is a tool for adapting our communications in ways which present us and our message in different lights and it is dependent on many contextual factors. What did you think grammar was all about when you started? Have your views changed at all?

Have you begun to see that studying grammar opens doors into how we organise our world? Exploring grammar can allow you to see how language is intertwined with both describing a view of the world and interacting with others in it.

Erin Bouma (adapted )