Spoken language

Spoken language are all produced by the human vocal apparatus verbal expressions of a language, in contrast to the written language, the visually and manually oriented sign language and paralanguage. Spoken language is the original and basic form of human language. In some cultures, such as in ancient Hawaii was or is there no written language.

Spoken language is not identified as a spontaneous, freely formulated speaking in, unobserved communication situations is produced in conversations between two or more parties. This excludes the lecture writing boilerplate texts. Among the special conditions of production of the spoken language include not only the lower normalization of the situation bondage, the interactivity and the lower processing time of speaking. The special features of the spoken language are elliptical formation, that is, syntactically speaking in incomplete sentences, the use of interjections, various correction phenomena and the earpiece and speaker signals, so-called breakdown signals.

Features

Spoken and written German are variants of the language system and language use. First, our spoken language is based on the morphological and syntactic rules of the written language, in the majority of cases, a certain respect for rules in terms of grammar and syntax are listed; There are complied with certain standardized phrase, such as subject, predicate and object. However, because the spoken language is produced under other conditions, there are a number of features that were learned with the natural language acquisition and are not consciously perceived during speech. They are based in particular on the perception of the speech situation ( persons present, focusable objects, etc. ). The phonetic realization offers specific possibilities of nuance and emotion expression.

The spoken language is a volatile medium. This results in a lower advance planning capacity on the speaker side and the need to anchor the post in the ongoing interaction without losing the right to speak by interruptions. It will be placed on understanding and being understood other requirements as to a written language text, which can be written without time pressure and read any number of times. The spontaneous conversation is interactive, the handset is almost as involved in the occurrence of speaker Post by feedback (eg by interjections such as " hm" or by facial expressions ) as the speaker himself, the " speech constellation", that is the context in which I with whom speak, is just as crucial for the communication such as age, rank, gender, dialect region, attitudes and behavior of the speaker. Many verbal statements can be saved through non-verbal actions and by reference to the common experience space. Detailed representations for situational pointing ( deixis ), the ellipse and other phenomena give the example of the German language Zifonun / Hoffmann / Strecker 1997.

Ellipses

The ellipses are - in the sense of traditional grammar - incomplete sentences. Since the oral communication is based on a common syntax and shared knowledge of the world, but also a common spatial- situational experience exists, allows and requires the economy of language avoidance of redundancies. An almost classic case of an ellipse consists in a reply ellipse that should be shown in the following example:

• A: This year I 'm going again on vacation. B: Where? A: In the Provence. B: Alone? A: With my wife. B: When? A: In June.

This is a construction takeover. Once a syntactic built "foundation" remains valid until by a change of subject need to create a new one. Within such a structure, which is pronounced just, what ever is new and informative to the listener. If nevertheless supposedly superfluous information given is using the speaker complete sentences, although it could also be understood, it measures so that his statement of special relevance when that is perceived by the listener. So it may be an attempt to make their own linguistic competence. Ellipses are understandable, because the references generated by facial expressions, gestures or common knowledge to ensure that the parties can synchronize their syntax.

" Window of perception " and corrective phenomena

The speaker has a little advance planning capacity. The time frame varies in the range of about 3 seconds. The brain researcher and a gestalt psychologist Ernst Poppel speaks here of a " window of perception ", within which can occur integration of stimuli. Sequential ( between consecutive ) information, which can be learned when speaking, can be perceived as the same time. During this period succeeds ( apart from a few rhetorically trained people who have a large repertoire of " pre-cut " formulations) rarely a sentence " with a dot and comma". The speaker is generally the beginning of his statement currently no final syntactic structure. So often, the need arises to cancel the already initiated talk. Thought to be restructured in order to then begin new ( set of termination) or existing constructions in other transferred ( Anakoluth ), so that one can speak rightly of a " gradual Formulation of Thoughts in speech " ( Heinrich von Kleist ).

An oral statement can not be withdrawn as opposed to written language through corrections, but can be the way of speech production trace. Since it often comes here to redundancies, even corrections serve an important communicative purpose: disambiguation (creation of uniqueness), clarification and specification, content attenuation or distancing. Self-correction ( repair ) are used to fuse understanding, rarely also the image backup. The regularities are shown in Zifonun / Hoffmann / Strecker ( 1997:443 ff.) Terminations can also be caused by the interaction partners by a suitable receiver signal through non-verbal factors, such as a " doubtful " look or a shake of the head, but also simply by the absence of such signals. A popular game on the phone is the suppression of receiver signals such as "hm ", " yes". After a short time made ​​by the speaker an irritated " Are you still there? "

Outline signals as a communicative element of language

Until the mid- 60s was in Germany, the set of written language as a standard for the spoken language. As part of the " communicative- pragmatic turn" in linguistics, which came under the influence of pragmatic and sociolinguistic theories, the special features of spoken language over written language were rehabilitated at the beginning of the 70s. Played a major role and the communication theory of group around Paul Watzlawick, according to which any communication represents a unit of content and relationship aspect, a finding which is also the science of language in the long run could not close. Here it was specifically the breakdown signals that have been identified as a communicative element, having previously been regarded as a nuisance in the Verschriftung spoken texts and were repaid regularly. Lexical ( by sounds represented ) earpiece and speaker signals, such as " uh ", " er ", "so " and " not true" care in oral communication that the portioning of an utterance into smaller units made ​​possible, and the relationship of speaker and hearer in terms of speech acquisition ( turn-taking ) and the assurance of the right to speak is regulated. In addition to these lexical discourse markers and the content and thematic structure, it is primarily prosodic elements, that is vocal reduction and increase, filled and unfilled pauses that cause internal structure of the speaker posts into smaller communicative units. Many psychotherapeutic directions criticize the " inauthentic saying" what the use of introductory phrases like "I mean .. " " I think, dass. " Etc. concerns. It should be noted that it is usually not a referential (content -related ) concerns use of such phrases. It only made ​​the attempt to assert the right to speak. The redundant part of the utterance is thereby placed at the beginning, so in the award of the information the right to speak can be considered certain. With stories that require a longer attention called episode marks appear as an introduction: " Do you know what happened to me yesterday," "Have you heard" here signals the speaker that he expects the readiness of his audience, he for to leave a longer period of the word. Often with a false signal already the basis for a disturbed communication set. Who his sentences with " pass time on ... " initiates with friends, can be misunderstood with strangers, the phrase: could " Pay Attention! " As a threat or policy perceive.

Science

The study of the spoken language is the branch of linguistics, communication science, neuro linguistics and rhetoric.

Computational linguistics is concerned with the development of speech recognition systems with the spoken language.