UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL EXPERIMENTAL

FRANCISCO DE MIRANDA

Lidia Govea Pia (2010)

Speech: characteristics
1. Speech is dynamic
2. Speech behavior has many features of continuous
movements (rather than a chain of successive states).
3. The whole interaction between speaker and listener is
dependent on the situation (context) in many extremely
important ways.
4. Communication through speech is a resource available for
all normally equipped human beings across different social
groups and cultures.

Lidia Govea Pia (2010)

Writing: Characteristics
1. A written text and its components parts (letters, words, sentences,
paragraphs etc) have the character of objects; they are persistent
and static (spatially but not temporally organized).
2. The written text is made up of discrete symbols, i.e. letters (at least
in print) and (graphic) words, and these are organized in certain
regular spatial patterns (according to syntactic rules as well as
various conventions of punctuation and paragraph division).
3. Unlike spoken utterances, a written text lacks an immediate
context.
4. The acquisition of the ability to read and write is quite different
from learning to speak and understand speech

Lidia Govea Pia (2010)

Writing vs. Speaking

Lidia Govea Pia (2010)

Speaking vs. Writing

Lidia Govea Pia (2010)

Lets practice!
Decide whether the examples shown correspond to a
speech or to a written sample and why.
Improvements in
technology have reduced
the risks and high costs
associated with
simultaneous installation

Because technology has

improved, its less risky
than it used to be when
you install them at the
same time, and it doesnt
cost so much either

Lidia Govea Pia (2010)

References
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/vivian.c/Speech&Writing.htm
http://langs.eserver.org/linell/chapter02.html
Halliday, M.A.K. (1985). Spoken and Written Language. Oxford University
Press.

Lidia Govea Pia (2010)