Characteristics and Differences Between Written and Oral Language: The case of ‘Mandi’

Alqahtani, Deema S

doi:10.21608/ejlt.2023.240046.1042

Characteristics and Differences Between Written and Oral Language: The case of ‘Mandi’

Document Type : Research in linguistic and literary studies

Author

Deema S Alqahtani

English department, CSU CA,USA

10.21608/ejlt.2023.240046.1042

Abstract

There are several differences between written and oral language. All communication includes the transfer of information from one person to another, and while the transfer of information is only the first step in the process of understanding a complex phenomenon, it is an important first step. Writing is a fairly static form of transfer. Speaking is a dynamic transfer of information. The study of language communication- written or spoken is called discourse. So, there are many systems that discourse analysts can study such as, deixis. . In linguistics, deixis refers to words and phrases, such as “me” or “here”, that cannot be fully understood without additional contextual information. It is an expression whose interpretation is relative to the extra linguistic context of the utterance. Consequently, it is common to notice deixis in speech rather than writing. An excellent example is a native English speaker, Mandi who represents these differences between writing and speech. Mandi is an American lady from Florida. She is 32 years old. She is a dental hygienist. She is one of my best friends in the U.S. She is very elegant, smart and well-educated. She narrates a personal experience that she has never forgotten, in both written and oral form. She recorded her experience and has been speaking for approximately 8:36 minutes. Then she wrote the same experience again on a paper. The goal behind that, is to compare and contrast between writing and speech. Also, to show that writing and speech are characterized by different features.

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