spoken language features Flashcards
definition of topic
a conversation should require participants to focus on one topic at a time
what is a topic shift
change in topic in the conversation
what indicates a topic shift
discourse marker
eg well anyway so
adjacency pair
indicate the back and fourth nature of a conversation
illustrates a transactional feature of conversations
structure of adjacency pairs
1st person makes statement which has desired response
2nd person either provides response (preferred 1st) or doesn’t (disprrferred 2nd)
feed back
phrases that encourage the speaker that you’re listening
eg ‘really’ ‘tell me more’
minimal response
show weaken indication of interest
eg ‘mhm’ ‘yes’
what is an unsuccessful conversation
when speaker doesn’t get the response they want
tag question
question at the end of a statement to encourage participation
what is degreeting
when speakers agree to discontinue the conversation
eg ‘bye’ ‘see you later’
non-fluency feature
when people need time to think or are under pressure etc they become less fluent
3 non-fluency features
pauses
false starts
fillers
2 types of pauses
voiced pauses => eg ‘um’ ‘er’ etc
unvoiced pauses => marked by (.)
false start
when you start to say something then change your mind
filler
words such as ‘like’ ‘you know’ ‘sort of’
dominance / discourse rights
when the conversation is structured around one dominant speaker
what makes someone a dominant speaker
may have discourse rights
what does a dominant speaker do
lead discussion of topics and control topic shifts
often have higher MLU
what are paralinguistic features
sounds which aren’t words and are universally understood
eg laughter, tutting etc
what is the accomadation theory
suggests we adjust our speech to accommodate the person we’re addressing
eg word pronunciation, voice pitch
who developed the accommodation theory
Giles in 1970s
what is convergence
moving speech closer to that of the other speaker to decrease social distance
what is downward convergence
in informal context slang is used more as well as taboo and relaxed pronunciation
upward convergence
in formal context may use standard voice and avoid slang