Speaking and Writing Strategies: Lexicogrammatical and Behavioral Forms That Code Time and Space.

Abstract

This study explores relationships between speaking and writing in the English language to determine precisely what differences exist between these modes and what phenomena these differences represent. The focal point selected was the code, or the mapping of speaking and writing functions to form. For this cross-corpus study, texts of the languaging of college freshmen were collected in both speaking and writing modes, in the mode-forms of dialogue, monologue, and essay. One set of findings from this study shows that speaking and writing modes do exhibit measurable differences in the kinds of information they convey. Kinds of information were defined based upon the method of charting discourse developed by Robert C. Thurman. These are: event, identification, setting, background (explanations and evaluations), collateral (possibilities and negations), and form maintenance (communicator involvement). In this data there are significantly more form maintenance and collateral statements in the dialogues and significantly more event and background statements in the essays. Thus, more word groups in these dialogues express the relationship of speakers and express possibilities of events which might or did not occur. More word groups in these essays retell events and express explanations or evaluations of these events. Each kind of information, although initially classified semantically, was found to be conveyed by characteristic lexicogrammatical and behavioral forms. Therefore, lexical, syntactic, and behavioral forms occur with different frequencies in different mode-forms. Another set of findings from this study shows that speaking and writing differ in the amount of naming in each and in the extensions of grammatical structures into sentences. Also, behavioral forms that express initiative-taking and solidarity-building differ between the modes. The kinds of information and their representative forms that differ between speaking and writing express time relationships; the naming, structural extension and behavioral forms that differ between speaking and writing express space relationships. A significant conclusion from this study is that the lexicogrammatical and behavioral form differences in speaking and writing code the different relationships of speakers and writers to time and space.