English Linguistics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

English Linguistics - Essay Example In conversation, linguists have viewed informal conversation as rather disorderly, the ubiquitous inexplicitness in usage; predominant from one country to another, frivolous use of subject matter and postulated with a high proportion of grammatical errors. Informal talk is of course largely unplanned because it comes spontaneously, without the speaker pausing for a moment to think. Welcome to the world of spoken English. Spoken and written English texts can differ from each other linguistically. There is a high percentage of local language influence in the way a person talks or writes. Besides, a look at an informal conversation exposes the linguistic difference between the medium of speech and letters. The conversation between Julie and her tutor (Cheepen and Monaghan, 1990, p.199) reflect the depth of variation in an informal conversation, when recorded on paper. Before we proceed to dissect two examples; one written, and the other spoken, a few points that characterize fundamental changes in writing and speech are: While in speech, one has the facility to change intonation pattern to convey moods, the same cannot be said of the written channel. In order to bring some semblance to such a theory, effort is made through underling, parenthesizing, punctuating and denoting of words and letters through capital letters. Speech is accompanied by gestures and movement to express situations. This is nowhere possible in written media. However, various styles of writing do try to bring an analogy to such situations. Where a speaker uses pauses and silence, an identical situation is created through the use of gaps and dots. There are no direct equivalents to names or places as seen in written, where Capital Letters start a sentence or names. Though there is a likeness to writing of spoken English, the differences are too conspicuous to be hidden under the rug. There is a spectrum of difference between spoken and written English linguistically (Czerniewska, Differences in structure and function, 1985). 2.0 Analysis In order to understand the difference between written and spoken language, the following sources; one written and the other spoken have been selected for analysis: 1. letter sent to G.D. Jayalakshmi Well; both Chi, Sow, Sukanye and I, are very pleased to learn that the children liked the toys I posted. This time I have sent a few books which they may like. We are pleased to learn that Dr. Lakani was very much impressed by their progress in speech. We are also happy to hear that the children, they are standing erect and trying to move in the erect positive. We are eagerly awaiting to see their later photos. Town, Chi-ry, Jaggu has safely landed in GAINSVILLG. We heard that the he landed safely at New-York and had to stay their for the night as he did not have time to catch his flight to Orlando. Perhaps, he