spoken texts

• features found in spoken texts

  immediate, interact, respond to others, honest and sincere
• features in written texts

  permanent, genres, fonts, standard
• what is a spontaneous conversation

  conversations that are not scripted or prepared for beforehand but happen in the moment. The kind we all have every day.
• non fluency features


  false starts, broken construction, repairs, timed pauses, micro pauses, non verbal fillers, verbal fillers, hedges
• what are non fluency features

  natural

  in spontaneous conversation as we’re speaking in the moment and haven’t planned what to say.

   
• what are false starts


  a speaker begins an utterance but decides it needs changing and begins again
• what is broken constructions 


  these are when the speaker decides the wording of an utterance needs changing towards the middle or the end of the utterance.
• what are repairs

  these are when a speaker changes the wording of a false start or broken construction

   

   
• what are timed pauses

  timed pauses indicate the number of seconds before someone continues what they are saying. The number of seconds paused is shown in brackets like this (2)
• what are micro pauses


  pauses of less than a second. These are usually just when someone is taking a breath and are shown like this (.)
• what are non verbal fillers

  these are when a speaker fills in thinking time by making a sound such as ‘erm’ or ‘er’
• what are verbal fillers

  these are when a speaker fills in thinking time with a word or words such as ‘sort of’, ‘you know’, ‘like’
• what are hedges

  these are when we use language that’s a bit hesitant or that we don’t want to sound too strong such as ‘sort of’, ‘maybe’, ‘perhaps’