Spoken language

• Idiolect

  Your own way of using language (your linguistic fingerprint) e.g. tone of voice, the words you use
• Filler –

  words or phrases that ‘fill’ the gaps in conversation. They allow thinking time – speech is fast paced and spontaneous e.g. to be fair, like
• Voiced pause

  noises that fill the gaps in conversation e.g. erm, um
• Unvoiced pause

  silence in speech (.)
• Non-fluency features

  all the features of spoken language that disrupt the flow
• Paralinguistic features –

  non-verbal features e.g. smile, frown, hand gestures
• Prosodic features –

  how something is said e.g. pitch, volume, intonation, tempo (speed)
• Hyperbole –

  exaggeration
• Contextual factors –

  all the background that affect the conversation e.g where? Who? What? Why?
• Linguistic accommodation –

  using suitable language for the situation
• Code-switching –

  adjusting our language to suit the situation – slipping in and out of language styles e.g. switching from formal classroom language to informal language with friends
• Simultaneous speech –

  speaking at the same time as someone else
• Interruption –

  speaking over someone – shows dominance, competitive
• Overlap –

  speaking at the same time to show support – co-operative
• Back-channelling –

  words and noises used to show you’re listening e.g really? Ahhh – positive, co-operative
• The floor –

  the conversation
• Holding the floor –

  speaking (at length)
• Passing the floor-

  encouraging someone else to speak e.g. by asking a question
• Sociolect-

  the language of a social group
• Familect –

  the language of a family
• Dialect –

  the language of a region. Words and phrases (grammar) associated with a particular part of the country
• Accent –

  regional pronunciation e.g. bath, barth, baath
• Slang –

  non-standard language, often used by teenagers, short lived (words are not codified - in the dictionary)
• Non-standard English –

  words and grammar that don’t adhere to the rules of Standard English e.g. I didn’t do nothing wrong. Non-Standard forms shouldn’t be negatively judged and they’re not ‘wrong’. They can be of value to many speakers e.g. group solidarity
• Standard English –

  the variety of English seen by society as being the most prestigious and powerful. Used in education, most professional careers and formal writing.SE is socially superior but it is not linguistically superior.
• Expletives –

  a swear word e.g. appropriate in some contexts
• Mode –

  whether the text is spoken or written (spoken mode, written mode)
• monitoring features

  phrases to check if the listener is understanding- “do you know what i mean?”
• utterance

  the spoken version of a sentence
• false start

  when you start an utterance but mess up- eg “on satur- sunday..”
• self correction/ repair

  fixing a false start
• phoneme


  a sound
• grapheme

  a letter
• orthography

  spelling
• register

  formality
• euphemism

  making someone sound more pleasant
• dysphemism


  making something sound more crude.
• types of power

  • instrumental- power gained through role/status
  • influential- power gained through influence
• code switching

  changing linguistic choices based on the context
• pragmatics

  hidden meanings or meanings in context