5
things you should know about spoken English !!
you will
know that natural conversation is far more chaotic, far less structured than
written text. It contains lots of reformulation, repetition, false starts,
incomplete sentences, formulaic phrases, and unfinished questions.
Conversations are
unpredictable. We don’t have much time to think about what we are going to say
next so most of us speak in a chaotic way. Thought and ideas are like
butterflies that come into our mind. We do our best to catch them and transform
them into words before they fly away.
When we speak, we
constantly edit, reformulate and paraphrase what we have said to make sure our
conversational partner is able to understand us.
When we speak, we
generally do it in ‘real-time’, which means we are not always able to create
grammatically perfect sentences.
When we have a
conversation, we have to react in ‘real-time’ to our listener’s verbal and
non-verbal responses and utterances, which means we have to improvise.
In other words,
speech is far more flexible than written communication and doesn’t always
follow the grammar rules you may learn in class.
So, here are some
features of spoken English that may help you speak in a more natural and
relaxed way in everyday conversations:
1. The
historical present
When we tell a story
or an anecdote about something that happened, we often start by using past
tenses. When the listener is engaged and interested, we often switch to present
tenses because this makes the story more lively, engaging and real to the
listener.
The other day, I was
walking to the station when I saw a huge black dog with enormous teeth. The dog
started running towards me and I froze because I was so scared. Suddenly,
the dog jumps and me and I manage to jump out of the way. But the dog grabs my
coat in its teeth, I kick it with my left foot….
2.
Discourse markers
Discourse markers are
short words or phrases that connect ideas, indicate when somebody wants to
start or end a speaking turn, check that the listener has understood, change
the conversation or add something, show the listener how the speaker feels
about something, and prepares the listener for what the speaker is about to
say.
Common discourse
markers in spoken English include: you know, like, right, OK then, actually,
basically, as I was saying, what I mean is…
Listen carefully to
fluent English speakers to identify which discourse markers they use. Try using
them in your own speech.
3.
Situational ellipsis
When proficient
speakers of English have informal conversations, they often leave out certain
grammatical words, particularly pronouns and auxiliary verbs.
A. You
coming? (Are you coming?)
B. No, staying at
home. (No, I’m staying at home).
Ellipsis refers to
omitting or leaving out certain words so we communicate quickly and
economically, using only the words which we think are necessary to convey what
we need to express.
If you have everyday
conversations and speak in full sentences, you may sound too formal. However,
if you have formal conversations and leave out too many pronouns and
auxiliary verbs, you may sound too familiar and too informal.
Other grammar words
(articles and prepositions) can also be omitted. Make sure you don’t leave out
content words (verbs, adjectives, nouns) though!
4. General
extenders
We lead very busy
lives and information is all around us. Maybe that is why young people, in
particular, use general extenders in their everyday speech. These are words or
phrases that are used when we want to refer to a set of items but don’t want to
list them all.
For example: I
went to the supermarket to buy bread and milk and stuff.
Phrases such as
something like that, and all that, and those sort of things, and everything,
and ‘stuff like that’ are all general extenders.
Listeners don’t
always need to know the details so you don’t have to list everything. If you
do, you might find that you bore your conversational partners.
5. Hedging
We don’t always want
to give strong opinions about things. Sometimes we are not sure how we feel
about something or we don’t have a close relationship with the listener so
don’t feel comfortable expressing how we really feel. Sometimes, we don’t want
to give a ‘black and white’ response because we don’t know the appropriate or
correct response. This is called ‘hedging’.
Hedging words include
items such as:
may,
might,could, quite, a bit, suppose, sort of, I guess, and not
with an adjective.
What did you think of
the meal?
It wasn’t bad.
Are you going to the
party tomorrow?
Well, I may go. I
suppose it might be fun.
The speaker is not 100%
committed to their opinion. This means that people are unlikely to criticise
them later because they didn’t express their views with complete certainty.
One of the reasons we
criticise politicians is because they always speak with such certainty, even
when they are wrong or the facts suggest otherwise!
Nb : not originally written
by me
So that’s that, you people!!
I’ve come across some people
telling me that I leave out some words when I talk n im just there like r u
seriously trying to tell me that I should talk like a lady from the victorian
era ? -_-
