Spoken discourse
In many ways, speech is not so different from writing. When people speak, they also produce different kinds of genres
(such as casual conversations, debates, lectures and speeches of various kinds) and use different kinds of ‘social
languages’. They also promote particular versions of reality or ideologies. But there are some ways in which speech is
very different from writing.
First of all, speech is more interactive. While we do often expect and receive feedback for our writing, especially
when it comes to new media genres like blogs, this feedback is usually delayed. When we speak, we usually do so in
‘real time’ with other people, and we receive their responses to what we have said right away. As we carry on
conversations, we decide what to say based on what the previous speaker has said as well as what we expect the
subsequent speaker to say after we have finished speaking. We can even alter what we are saying as we go along
based on how other people seem to be reacting to it. Similarly, listeners can let us know immediately whether they
object to or do not understand what we are saying. In other words, conversations are always co- constructed between
or among the different parties having them.
Second, speech tends to be more transient and spontaneous than writing. When we write, we often plan what we are
going to write carefully, and we often read over, revise and edit what we have written before showing it to other
people. Because writing has a certain ‘permanence’, people can also read what we have written more carefully. They
can read it quickly or slowly, and they can re-read it as many times as they like. They can also show it to other people
and get their opinions about it. Speech, on the other hand, is usually not as well planned as writing. While some genres
like formal speeches and lectures are planned, most casual conversation is just made up as we go along. It is also
transient; that is to say, our words usually disappear the moment we utter them. This makes listening in some ways
more challenging than reading.
Finally, speech tends to be less explicit than writing. The reason for this is that when we are speaking, we often also
depend on other methods of getting our message across. We communicate with our gaze, our gestures, our facial
expressions and the tone of our voice. When we are writing we do not have these tools at our disposal, and so we often
need to depend more on the words themselves to express our meaning. Speech also usually takes place in some kind
of physical context which participants share, and often the meaning of what we say is dependent on this context.
The problem is that quite often in conversation people do not mean what they say, and people do not say what they
mean.
Although, as we have seen, there is also a certain amount of ambiguity in written language, this problem is much more
common in spoken language due in part to its inexplicit, context-specific nature. And so, the problem is, if people do
not say what they mean or mean what they say, how are we able to make sense of what they say and successfully
engage in conversations with them? This problem is exasperated by the fact that we have to make decisions about
what we think people mean rather quickly in conversations in order for the conversations to proceed smoothly, which
increases the chances for misunderstanding.
In order to understand how participants in conversations deal with this problem, we will be drawing on two different
analytical traditions, one with its roots in philosophy and the other with its roots in sociology. These two traditions are
called pragmatics and conversation analysis.
Pragmatics is the study of how people use words to accomplish actions in their conversations: actions like requesting,
threatening and apologizing. It aims to help us understand how people figure out what actions other people are trying
to take with their words and respond appropriately.
Conversation analysis, on the other hand, comes out of a tradition in sociology called ethnomethodology, which
focuses on the ‘methods’ ordinary members of a society use to interact with one another and interpret their experience.
With its roots in philosophy, pragmatics tends to approach the problem as a matter of logic, asking what conditions
need to be present for a participant in a conversation to logically conclude that a given utterance has a certain meaning
(or pragmatic ‘force’). With its roots in sociology, conversation analysis approaches the problem not as one of abstract
logic, but as one of locally contingent action. According to this perspective, people make sense of that other people
say not by ‘figuring it out’ logically, but by paying attention to the local conditions of the conversation itself,
especially the sequence of utterances.
