Spoken and Written Language

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It is clear that spoken language and written language differ in many ways. For example, written language is more formal as it is difficult to convey tone, whereas spoken language is more informal; we can notice a greater use of slang, such as “like”, “wanna”,”sorta”. Phrases such as these can make the speaker sound more insouciant (less formal), this may give us the impression they’re less educated and why spoken language, ultimately, is given lower status by society. In spoken language, sentences are often incomplete or poorly structured and it is a two-way – or more- communication where feedback and interaction occur immediately, unlike spoken language where sentences are complete and the person addressed is absent. Grammar is more “correct” since there is time for re-thinking and correcting – this means a written argument, for example, is better constructed, thought out and delivered than if it were spoken. Furthermore, written language is given higher status by society as effort and tools are needed to produce it. The antithesis of this being spoken language, which is given lower status by society and visual gestures (such as hand movements) are often used. Indeed, intonations, pauses, speed, pitch and loudness are used to clarify total meaning. However, when looking at written language intonations, pauses and emphasis can only be conveyed by punctuation (italics, capitals, exclamation marks ect.) In spoken language, we can clearly see grammatical forms are more relaxed; punctuation is only indicated by pauses. This makes spoken language appear of a lower status. This can be shown by the use of filters, such as “I mean “ and “you know” and colloquialisms which are common. Accent is how you sound when you speak. Your accent depends upon where you live and where you were brought up. Your class, education and other factors may also affect how you pronounce
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