Difference between Spoken English and Written English
Introduction
In understanding the practical applications of grammar and lexical features, it is relevant to relate it to important concepts that are important in understanding the English language. These concepts are language acquisition and intercultural communication. Language acquisition is the process of learning a native or a second language, which usually starts from early childhood, wherein an individual is taught a language or languages as a means of communication (“Language Acquisition”, 2008). In this process, an individual learns and adapt the four structural components of language, namely, phonology, semantics, grammar, and lexical, which are not only used for day-to-day conservations, but also for special purposes, including poems, songs, legal documents, and many others (“Language Acquisition”, 2008). The acquisition of language or languages would not be relevant and effective if not used as a means of effective communication. It is likewise useful for effective intercultural communication, which is defined as the interaction between individuals from differing cultures or the communication between groups with different value structures, and its understanding has become increasingly important to a world of blending cultures, experiences and practices Crystal, D. (1997). In addition, these two concepts can be integrated in the process of education and teaching, which further enhances and molds the learning process through effective communication. The various aspects interacting in the culture of different societies could be better understood and conveyed with the use of a developed language, specifically in terms of making intercultural relationships and communication among the peoples belonging to different cultures and countries. With regards to this discussion, this paper will be discussing the issues pertaining to the differences of grammar in spoken English and written English.
Discussion
Language is an important part of the human civilization. For many years, language is considered as the main tool for communication for almost all levels of man, all races, gender and age (Burns, A & Coffin, C 2000). The everyday life of man is confronted with knowledge. It is a fascinating necessity as it varies from culture to culture yet many still struggle to learn the language of another just to communicate with the person native of the language. Today, many people use different language, whether native or foreign, to communicate with other people from different race. One notable type of language is the English language, which is considered as the global or universal language (Burns, A & Coffin, C 2000). English is used by many countries as their secondary language. It is already being spread and used as a tool to communicate with other nationalities. In international assemblies, it is considered as the formal language although others may have the choice of bringing along a translator. The point is, English, by the turn of the last two centuries, is not just any language anymore, but a universal one available for the use of all.
From the changes in the global community, English language becomes critical. There are now classifications of it i.e. spoken English and written English. According to Geoffrey Leech in his paper entitled “English Grammar in Conversation”, “(1) Spoken English has no grammar at all: it is grammatically inchoate. (2) Spoken English does not have a special grammar: its grammar is just the same as the grammar of written English and (3) Spoken English does have a special grammar – it has its own principles, rules and categories, which are different from those of the written language.”[1] Although these statements are quite contradicting to one another, Geoffrey Leech shows great examples to differentiate each item.
From the second example of conversion in the given task, it shows that some of question tags, semi-preconstructed phrases, ellipsis, and complex clauses are more likely to appear in spoken English than written. In comparison to the first conversation, it seems that it is a written English in which the grammar is complete. However, in the question “Oh yeah?”, with answer “I’ve notice that. yeah” is not grammatically complete, but the ellipsis in the question creates an idea to the receiver to react on that particular question. Meaning to say, there are also some part in first conversation that can be considered as spoken English. Even though the idea of the question is not complete, the receiver can still understand the question. Basically, the second conversation in which the conversation done through spoken English is actually almost closed to the instincts of participants. Actually, they tend to forecast and agree to one another regarding child behavior during snow. As seen in this conversation, Marge and Peg both ended the discussion by saying “Then they want to go back again.” Even though their sentences are not complete, Marge, Peg and Jan can still react on statements. From the given conversations, it seems that written English is so technical compared to spoken English. Although the basis of grammar of spoken English is from written English, spoken English is easy to understand in accordance to coherent discussion. Actually, effective conversation is not about the grammar it is how effective the receiver receives the message. Please see appendix regarding the variables in effective conversation.
Spoken and written English or whatever language acquisition it is, it is still a developmental process, as people that learn a language build up their own systems by plenty of comprehensible input which can improve their sound inequity, memory and grammatical sensitivity skills, something that can compensate for deficiencies in some skills. The sooner they can acquire the grammatical system of a language, the faster they can use the language creatively as they need chances to negotiate meaning with native speakers. Native speakers often highly value good pronunciation while a producing language that sounds too good can be misleading. The more meaningful exposure that a learner has in a language, the better they learn the language as they cannot rely on memorising alone as it can be a false proof of their proficiency. A learner’s brain analyses a language constantly, and knowing about a language is different from knowing the language. The general knowledge of the language may help to learn it, by means of body language, gestures, and their face communicate as much as words. General learners build up an auditory image of what the language sounds like while language learners need to learn to understand and produce well-formed discourses, predictable scripts aid comprehension. At this point, they seem to hit a flat terrain as they need exposure to language in a variety of social settings due to the fact that one language may interfere with another resulting into using their mind to filter out redundant material. Productive skills of a language are harder than receptive skills as comprehensible output can become comprehensible input. By this I mean that knowing the topic helps them interpret what they hear or read, linguistic context helps them understand the meaning of words, knowledge of a language may lie inactive, but can be reactivated due to the fact that multilingual people may associate languages with a particular setting or audience.
Conclusions
The learning of grammar whether it is spoken or written are elements transcribed in language acquisition. This is tied with both spoken and written attributes of the acquisition process. The use of grammar tends to be focused more on the proper employment and application of the language through its technical elements such as the use of tenses and the use of grammatical person. This rather instruction of technical usage gives the tendency of learning the proper use of grammar considerably uninteresting and unexciting. (Fitch, 1995, 32) This means that the effectiveness of learning the proper use of language through grammar tends to vary depending on the learner. Applying these learned rules in grammar makes both spoken and written application of a language acceptable to the context of the language learning.
References:
Burns, A. & Coffin, C. (2000). Analysing English in a Global Context: A Reader (Teaching English Language Worldwide). Routledge, London.
Crystal, D. (1997). English as a Global Language. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Fitch, D. (1995). Teaching Grammar to Adults and Second Language Learning Research. Education. 116:32.
Internet. (2008). Language Acquisition. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved January 13, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_Acquisition.
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