Key Authentic speech features

Voiced Pauses

The use of the voice paused 'er' and 'um' as fillers to signal that the speaker is thinking and has not yet finished speaking - speaker is holding onto his/her turn.

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Pauses

Frequent pauses of various lengths. Some signal grammatical boundaries (the end of an 'utterance' or 'sentence'). If pauses are at non-grammatical boundaries they are usually non-fluency pauses ('I went to see a (.) girl'). Vary the pace.

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Repetition

Repetition of words or phrases for example 'not not', 'you get you get', 'I I I think'. This is sometimes a way of taking over the turn-taking or the speaker making sure they are being listened to.

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Repair / Self-correction

'Sign for signs of disease', 'get into get back into'.

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False starts

where the speaker changes his mind about what he wants to say next

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Fillers

To give thinking time and to hold onto turn 'you know' 'like' 'I mean'

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Elongated words

To give thinking time 'we:::ll', 'ye:::s'. Notice that the intonation on the extended vowel sound can convey a wide variety of attitudes, feelings and meanings.

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Elision

Where parts of words or sounds are omitted so that the two words are joined together for example 'you're', 'it's', 'they're'. Contraction of words so that the parts of them are not pronounced 'cos' for 'because' and 'flu' for 'influenza'

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Accent/pronounciation

Consider regional pronounciation

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Stress

Stress is often used to draw attention to contrasts.

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Simple monosyllabic lexis

Regular use of a simple or unsophisticated vocabulary, that is basic, short and simple

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Repetition

Of simple unsophisticated lexis

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Colloquialisms

Use of words and phrases commonly heard in fairly informal speech but generally avoided in writing

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Use of slang

bill - police, dosh, bouncer, git, codger, old fogy

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Vague language and hedges

Use of vague language that causes something to seem less certain or rather general, I think, kinda, gun thing, and stuff, thingy, and that - hedges

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Personal pronouns

I, me, we, us, you, he, him, she, her, they, them - attitudes of the speakers and relationships, inclusivity

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Term of address

This can tell you a lot about relationships between the speakers and attitudes.

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Monitors

Words or phrases used to check or monitor that the listener is still following what is being said.

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Markers of sympathetic circularity

Words and phrases used to signal or mark the assumption that both the speaker and listening share understanding of what has just been said.

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Deictic referencing

Words and expression which depend for their meaning on context, the actual time and place, in which there are used for example, you, I and we, that and it, there. They indicate the relative positions of the speaker and the listener.

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Idiomatic expressions

Common expressions in a language where the meaning is not determinable from the meanings of the individual words - hit the roof, you're in his black book, a little bird told me, often methaphorical

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Dialect

or regional words associated with young or old people, jargon, technical words.

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Ellipsis

The omission of words that would normally be included in the composition of a grammatically complete sentence- I almost got (caught), but which do not prevent the meaning being clear. Ellipsis is the term for loss of words without the loss of meaning

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Minor sentences

Ellipsis of sentence elements (that are understood by the speakers) may often create minor sentences. Phatic expressions are often minor constructions, morning, all right?, see you later.

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Incomplete utterances

When the speaker just tails off or doesn't complete the sentence. This may happen when the speaker is interrupted.

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Exclamations

Wow - these may be in the form of vocalisations (Oh!) interrogatives (What!) and imperatives

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Topic markers

Usually adverbs or adverbial's that show the structure of speech by breaking it up into separate chunks. These make clear the sequence of thought in terms of stages, topic switches, asides, summaries.

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Informal structure and development of ideas

Unexpected and brief changes of topic, digressions, asides and parenthesis.

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Non-standard grammatical constructions

'there's speed restrictions' - where you would write 'there are' not 'there is'

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Interrogatives

These may not be shown by grammatical structure because they are conveyed by rising intonation. The actual words spoken may be in the form of a declarative 'you remember' rather than 'do you remember'.

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Imperatives

Look at these also in relation to turn-taking and who is in control of agenda setting

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Tag questions

When a declarative or imperative is changed into a question by adding a tag at the end. Can reflect timidity and insecurity or assertiveness or aggression. Added to an imperative it can create contradictory impression of assertiveness and timidity.

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Loose grammatical structure

with non-standard constructions. The language may lack the grammatical coherence of scripted speech. In scripted speech this may be suggested by frequent dashes.

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Multiple co-ordination

Frequent use of and to link clauses with and and but often used in the initial position in an utterance

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Cataphoric referencing

When a pronoun refers forward to something which is said later, it was great, the party.

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Key Authentic speech features

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