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TEMA 4 “EOI”

LA LENGUA ORAL. SITUACIONES DE

COMUNICACIÓN ORAL. ELEMENTOS Y NORMAS
QUE RIGEN EL DISCURSO ORAL. ESTRATEGIAS
PROPIAS DE LA COMUNICACIÓN ORAL.

UNIT 4 ‘EOI’

ORAL LANGUAGE. ORAL COMMUNICATION

SITUATIONS, ELEMENTS AND RULES DEFINING
THE ORAL DISCOURSE. TYPICAL ORAL
COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES.

Cristóbal Martínez Alfaro

OUTLINE

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1. INTRODUCTION.

2. ELEMENTS AND RULES OF ORAL DISCOURSE.

3. LINGUISTIC ROUTINES AND FORMULAIC LANGUAGE.

4. CONCLUSION.

5. BIBLIOGRAPHY.

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1. INTRODUCTION.
Many of the principles that apply to written communication apply to spoken
communication, as well. That is, you need to organize your ideas, convey them
clearly in individual sentences, and generally avoid distracting lapses in grammar. In
some cases, furthermore, you may need to conduct research, make an argument,
and cite sources. If you have mastered all of these skills, you are on your way to
becoming an effective speaker. Along the way, though, you will need to develop
some additional skills peculiar to spoken communication.
Communication is widely understood as the exchange and negotiation of
information between at least two individuals through a common code.
Brown and Yule (1973), considering other parameters of communication,
draw a useful distinction between two basic language functions. These are the
transactional function, which is primarily concerned with the transfer of
information, and the interactional function, in which the primary purpose of
speech is to maintain social relationships. Therefore, we are faced with a two-
sided phenomenon: on the one hand, communication as the exchange of
meaning, and on the other, communication as a means of social interaction.
Among all the communication codes which are used by human beings
music, kinesics, sign-language, etc. written and spoken language is the most
efficient for the transmission and reception of information, thoughts, feelings,
experience and opinions. In addition, these linguistic codes are the ones
which best define human communication, since most of the messages we
send and receive are expressed through such codes, the majority of them
orally.
Focusing therefore on the subject of this unit of study, oral
communication can be defined as a two-way process in which both speaker
and hearer must be present in the same situational context-unless we talk
about special cases of oral communication such as telephone conversations.
We are therefore talking about an interactive situation directly related and
dependent on the communicative function and the speech situation involving
speaker and hearer.

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In a communicative event both speaker and hearer perform highly

complex processes. They must encode and decode messages under time
pressure always bearing in mind their purposes for interaction.
Quoting R. Scott (Johnson, K et a 1981: 70)
”Oral communication is typified as an activity involving two (or more)
people in which the participants are both hearers and speakers having
to react to what they hear and making their contributions at high speed.
Each participant has an intention... (...). Each participant has to be able
to interpret what is said to him, (...) and reply with what language he
has at his disposal in a way that takes account of what has just been
said and which reflects his own intentions, at this point in the
interaction.”

The complexity of the process results in syntactic alterations, the need

for tags to negotiate the intended meaning as well as a misuse of links and
the use of time fillers such as "er" or "um" to hold the channel. The oral
message therefore, unlike the written language where sentences are carefully
structured and linked together, is often characterised by incomplete and
sometimes ungrammatical utterances, and by frequent repetitions and types
of overlapping.
The apparently chaotic oral message would be difficult to interpret, as M.
Geddes (Johnson, K et al, 1981:70) points out, without the help of our
knowledge of the meaning of gestures, facial expressions, body postures and
eye-contact. The use of these paralinguistic codes together with the help of
prosodic features such as pitch, stress, intonation or rhythm are important
aspects of oral communication.
At classroom level, the content of this unit connects with All the
different strategies put into practice within the Day by Day Planning which
imply the active use of L2, mainly through Speaking activities referred to:
 Dialogues.
 Interviews.
 Surveys.
 Role-play activities.

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 Drama activities.
 Simulation Activities.
 Exchanging oral information.
Thus, to get used to communicating according to the interlocutor’s
characteristics, the appropriate context and the appropriate communicative
situation.

2. ELEMENTS AND RULES OF ORAL DISCOURSE.

 Elements.
The nature of oral communication makes oral discourse contain
redundant information, so it is important to point out that it is not only the
words we utter that matter, but also many other linguistic and extralinguistic
elements which reinforce our words.
o Linguistic Elements.
At a linguistic level prosodic elements provide us with that extra
information needed to help oral communication. These prosodic elements are:
STRESS, RHYTHM and INTONATION. Routines are also important but will be
dealt with separately in part III.
A) STRESS .
Stress occurs when we give more emphasis to some parts of the
utterance than to other parts; we can make a syllable stand out with respect
to its neighbouring syllables in a word or we can make some words stand out
with respect to the rest of the words in a longer utterance.
Within a word one or more accents can be found. The most important
one is called primary stress and the second is called secondary stress , e.g.:
",secre'tarial".
It is very important for students of the L2 to apply this, that is, to stress
the right syllable. If, by error, the stress in a word is changed, it may sound
completely different and could confuse the hearer.
Closely related to stress is emphasis. Emphasis is essential in oral
transmission of ideas because it gives sense to what we say. In a sentence

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there are words that must be highlighted as the most interesting so as to

understand the correct meaning and sense of the sentence.
B) RHYTHM .
Rhythm is another important element within the prosodic elements that
characterise oral communication. It is the relationship between accents and
pauses. In a more theoretical way, we can say that rhythm is determined by
the succession of prominent and non-prominent syllables in an utterance.
If that relationship takes place in short or equal units of time we obtain a
quick and monotonous rhythm. This absolute isochrony will seldom be found
in real speech. If, on the other hand, those units of time are longer of
irregular, rhythm will be inexistent or chaotic.
In this way contrasts in rhythm are very important to give expressiveness
and sense to our speech. Spanish students of English as a L2 must pay
attention to rhythm because they tend to make it monotonous as Spanish
rhythm is.
Closely connected with rhythm is pause. This feature may either be
predictable and then fit in naturally within the rhythm groups, or on the other
hand, it may break these rhythm groups in unpredictable places, particularly
in spontaneous speech.
Predictable pauses are those required for the speakers to take breath or
to separate grammatical units (sentences, clauses). They are predictable as
they coincide the boundaries of the rhythmic groups.
E.g.: "My sister, who lives here, is a teacher"
Unpredictable pauses are those produced by hesitation or false starts,
and they may occur at any point in the utterance.
Used properly they contribute to keeping attention as they easily allow
voice inflection, change of intonation and change of meaning.
E.g.: "I liked that film. It was called...er, I've forgotten!"
However, if they are used wrongly they can be confusing for the hearer,
like the use of inadequate punctuation in a written text.
C) INTONATION .

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Intonation is the rising and falling of voice during speech, e.g.: in

statements we generally use falling intonation and in questions we use rising
intonation.
It can be assumed that in most situations speakers make use of a
"normal" intonation and any departure from that norm will show special effects
(anger, incredulity, enthusiasm). In this way tone can, to a great extent, be
responsible for changes of meaning. L2 learners must take into account the
different intonations if they don't want to be misunderstood in a real situation.
In general, three basic attitudes can be established:
a) Falling tones tend to be conclusive, the utterance end there is nothing
further to be added. They suggest certainty, determination, confidence:

I'll do it.
Rising tones tend to be inconclusive, the speaker has not finished the
utterance and intends to continue or not to continue, but the rising tone
implies that something has been left unsaid. It suggests query, indecision and
doubt.

I'll do it,....if you help me.
b) Uppers range tones generally indicate animation on the part of the
speaker. Lower ranges are more frequently used to express an unanimated
attitude.
c) Wide range of tone can be said to be more emotive than narrow
ranges which tend to be unemotive: when telling fairy-tales to children we use
wider ranges than usual.
As we can see, intonation, together with rhythm, has an important role to
play in the expression of emotions and attitudes.
o Extralinguistic Elements.
At an extralinguistic level in oral discourse, it is important to consider
non-verbal elements of communication such as facial and bodily gestures and
the like.
We cannot consider verbal communication without remembering that the
whole body takes part. The body and its movements are very important in oral

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communication, in fact it is clear that sometimes, a slight movement of our

shoulder or the expression that hand movements transmit, are more revealing
than a hundred words. A person can, without speaking, express sympathy,
hostility or indifference by means of those body and face movements called
gestures.
Gestures are universal features, and we have to refer to that universality
in order to understand their importance when communicating. It has to be
taken into account that some non-verbal behaviour seems to be "natural" to
all humans; in fact, most features of non-verbal communication are language
and culture specific and are learned in the same way verbal behaviour is
learned.
Gestures are word complements and sometimes they even replace
words. They have been defined as those body or face movements made on
purpose to reinforce or demonstrate what we say. There are several kinds of
gestures:
 Those made with our hands and arms.
 Those made with our head and shoulders.
 Conventional ones such as pointing, denial, refusing, etc.
 Gestures used to describe things like size, strength, speed, etc.
 Facial gestures.
We must bear in mind the necessity of spontaneity in gestures if we want
them to be effective. This is why there is a lack of concrete rules to govern
gestures, just because those roles would affect natural manner and
spontaneity in oral communication.
To conclude with this point, regarding extralinguistic elements, we will
consider facial gestures. The importance of facial expression in
communicating, ideas and feelings is generally acknowledged. These
expressions are often more eloquent than words and some of them are
universal and always convey the same emotions. Some typical features are:
 Surprise: raised eyebrows.
 Agreement: nodding.
 Smiles.

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 Rules.
Language is defined as a system of interrelated signs. In the description
of the units of language, each of them acquires its real significance only when
the whole, or the complete system, is referred to. Therefore, it should not be
forgotten that when dealing with discourse, which is the heart of the language
system observable in text, the use of rules at the three levels (phonetic-
phonological, morphosyntactical and semantic) depends both on the general
communicative function and on the actual situation of production and
reception of the message. As a consequence, a communicative approach to
language teaching goes beyond the sentence and must account for textual
globalising .
According to this, we have structured this section under two headings,
namely: rules of usage and rules of use. Rules of usage concern the language
user's knowledge of linguistic or grammatical rules, whereas rules of use
concern the language user's ability to use his knowledge of linguistic rules for
effective communication. Rules, therefore, have two different implications: the
construction of effective communicative text and their adequacy in specific
communicative events.
In this section about rules, we could also point out the distinction
between rule for native speakers and rules for foreign language learners.
On the other hand, linguistic knowledge is unconsciously acquired by
native speakers. However the same unconscious ability to speak and
understand and to make judgements about sentence correctness reveals their
knowledge of the rules of their language. This internalised, unconscious set of
rules represents what Chomsky called competence .
In is then our business as teachers to make our pupils develop this
competence, which, whilst unconsciously acquired by native speakers, needs
to be "learnt" by our pupils.
o Rules of Usage.
Language can be viewed as the ability to speak and be understood by
others who know that language. This means, one has the capacity to produce
sounds with certain meanings and to understand or interpret the same sound
produced by others. This language capacity involves certain linguistic

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knowledge which traditional grammarians have analysed according to four (or

three, depending on how we group them) levels of organisation, namely:
phonetic-phonological, morphological, syntactic and semantic levels).
PHONOLOGICAL .
Phonological knowledge allows a speaker to do things such as produce
sounds which form meaningful utterances. To recognise a foreign "accent", to
add the appropriate phonetic segments to form plural and past tenses, to
produce aspirated and unaspirated voiceless stops in the appropriate context
or to know what is or is not a sound belonging to that language.
Although knowing the sounds (the phonetic units) of a language is only a
small part of the phonological knowledge of a native speaker, this will be our
main target as foreign language teachers. When learning a foreign language
we have to learn which speech sounds occur in the target language and how
they pattern according to regular rules.
MORPHOLOGICAL .
The fact that the internal structure of words is subject to rules is easily
seen in the following example. Nobody would doubt that words such as
uneaten, or unadmired are words in English, whereas *eatenun or *admiredun
are not. That is due to the fact that in English we do not form a negative
meaning of a word by suffixing "un", but by prefixing it.
By means of this morphological rules and many others, new words have
entered the dictionary and continue to so. These new words, depending on
the rules applied in their formation, are called derivatives, compounds, blends
or back-formations.
Rules such as the ones that determine the phonetic form of the plural
morpheme or the formation of the past tense of verbs in English are called
MORPHOPHONEMIC RULES, because their application is determined by both
the morphology and phonology.
SYNTACTIC .
As we mentioned earlier in the unit, knowing a language also includes
the ability to put words together to form phrases and sentences that express
our thoughts. That part of the grammar that represents a speaker's knowledge
of the structure of phrases and sentences is called syntax.

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In English and in every language, every sentence is a sequence of

words, but not every sequence of words is a sentence. Sequences of words
that conform to the rules of syntax are said to be well-formed or grammatical
and those which violate the syntactic rules are therefore ill-formed and
ungrammatical.
However, the rules of syntax do not only account for the grammaticality
of sentences. They also account for the double meaning, or ambiguity or
expressions such as fresh orange juice which could be interpreted either as
orange juice which is fresh or as a juice made out of fresh oranges. Syntactic
rules also reveal the relations between the words of a sentence, and tell us
when structural differences result in meaning differences and when they do
not. And finally, it is also the syntactic rules which permit speakers to produce
and understand an unlimited number of sentences never produced or heard
before, which has been called by linguists the creative aspect of language
use.
SEMANTIC .
Semantic is the part of our linguistic competence responsible for our
capacity to combine words to produce phrase and sentence meaning.
We are not free to change the meanings of words at will, for if we did we
would be unable to communicate with anyone. However, the capacity to speak
a language involves more than just knowing the meaning of words. We
comprehend sentences because we know the meaning of individual words.
We know the meaning of individual words, and we know rules for combining
their meanings.
As an example let's mention the semantic rules governing the expression
"The red balloon". We know the meanings of "red " and "balloon ". The
semantic rule to interpret the combination "red balloon" adds the property
"redness" to the properties of "balloon". The phrase "the red balloon",
because of the presence of the definite article "the", means "a particular
instance of redness of balloonness". A semantic rule for the interpretation of
"the" accounts for this.
There are many more kinds of rules involved in the semantics of the
sentence. Just to mention a few of them as examples: rules to interpret

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prepositional phrases, those to interpret the different semantic relationships

determined by verbs, adverb-verb relationships or verb-subject number
concord.
Although linguistic rules are broken everyday by everybody, there are
three kinds of semantic rule violation which have been institutionalised,
namely: anomaly , a violation of semantic rules to create "nonsense";
metaphor or nonliteral meaning; and idioms , in which the meaning of an
expression may be unrelated to the meaning of its parts. For example:
Anomaly: "My brother is an only child"
Metaphor: "Walls have ears"
Idioms: "Pull one's leg".
o Rules of Use.
Having dealt with the grammatical rules that speakers of a language use
in order to produce grammatically correct sentences, we will move on to
another set of rules used in order to produce effective communicative texts.
By this we mean that when we speak or write we need to take into account
other parameters apart from just the grammatical.
Nobody would doubt that the following utterances is an example of a
correct English sentence.
"My name is Sarah"
However, if the some sentence is produced in the following linguistic
context.
A: Could you tell me the time, Please?
B: My name is Sarah.
We would hesitate to say that B had a good knowledge of English. That
is due to the fact when we learn a language, apart from learning the
grammatical rules we also learn how to use sentences appropriately. We learn
to construct texts according to rules of APPROPRIATENESS , COHERENCE
and COHESION .
APPROPRIATENESS: Any language presents variations. In other words,
not all the members of a linguistic community speak or write in the same way.
We also find that the same speaker does not always use the same variety of
language irrespective of the situation. On the contrary each person chooses

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the language variety and the appropriate register according to the situation. In
order to do so, he takes into account factors such as: the topic, the channel of
communication, the purpose, or the degree of formality.
COHERENCE: Everybody has the experience of talking to someone who
speaks too much or to someone who is difficult to follow because he does not
explain things enough. These two opposite examples make us think that there
is a certain amount of information which is necessary whereas other
information is irrelevant or redundant.
In the following exchange we will find examples of redundant information
which makes communication slow and difficult.
A: Well, did you talk to her?
B: Yes, I did talk to her .
A: When did she say the parcel would be returned?
B: She said the parcel would be returned tomorrow.
The underlined items are actually superfluous, stopping communication
from being direct. That is due to the fact that unnecessary repetition of what is
already known or given over-shadows the important, unknown parts of the
proposition.
Apart from selecting relevant information, a speaker or writer also needs
to structure the content of his message. If we do not organise information in a
logical and comprehensible way (introduction, development, conclusion...)
COHESION: As we say earlier in the unit, there is a wide range of
semantic and syntactic relationships within the clause. However, when
dealing with texts we need to take into account the ways in which sentences
are related to each other forming a cohesive unit. There are four devices in
English by which cohesion is created: by reference, ellipsis, conjunction, and
lexical organisation.
According to Halliday (1985), these four devices are defined as follows:
Reference : "A participant or circumstantial element introduced at one
place in the text can be taken as a reference point for something that follows
(*). Words such as "the" and "he" do this.
(*) (the writer or speaker can also refer forwards to other parts of the
text)

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Ellipsis : "A clause, or a part of a clause, or a part of a verbal or nominal

group, may be presupposed at a subsequent place in the text by the device of
positive omission".
As an example let's take the following exchange.
A: Will you go and get it?
B: No, not me.
Where B's turn is meant to signify: No, I will not go and get it.
Conjunction : "A clause or clause complex, or some longer stretch of text,
may be related to what follows it by one or other of a specific set of semantic
relations"..."The most general categories are those of opposition and
clarification, addition and variation, and the temporal and causal-conditional".
Lexical cohesion : "Continuity may be established in a text by the choice
of words. This may take the form of word repetition; or the choice of a word
that is related in some way to a previous".
Widdowson sees cohesion as more easily described in terms of rules of
use; i.e.: the devices are actually put to use in conversation, he qualifies them
as procedures.
Cohesion and coherence procedures are therefore considered by him as
rules of performance, i.e.: particular ways of using the existing rules.
(Coherence, however, belongs to the domain of usage, in Widdowson's
opinion).
o Conversational Studies.
The study of conversation as such seems to have just started, according
to Coulthard (1977) it started in 1925 when J.R. Firth urged linguistics to
study conversation in order to have a better understanding of what language
is and how it works. Since then , studies from several fields of study have
been undertaken.
For the purpose of this unit we will make reference to three areas of
study, namely: the Ethnography of Speaking, Conversational Analysis and
Grice's Principle of Co-operation .
- ETHNOGRAPHY OF SPEAKING.
To describe the normative structure of the oral language is one of the
targets of the ETHNOGRAPHY OF SPEAKING. This branch of sociolinguistics

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was developed by Harold Garfinkel and it tries to describe not only the
structure of the oral language but also how language is used in oral
interaction i.e.: The rules of speaking: the ways in which speakers associate
particular mode of speaking, topics or message forms, with particular settings
and activities.
Although the number of rules we handle in oral communication is very
high, we use them (in most cases) unconsciously. That is why, the discovery
of communicative norms is not easy and they often become obvious only
when they are broken. For example, one of the rules we follow in conversation
is that of maintaining a certain physical distance with our interlocutors. We all
know the distance we have to keep with a friend during a conversation at the
same time that we know that we can be closer-even touching-when talking to
our mother than when talking to our lecturer or boss. However, we may not be
aware of this norm until someone we have just met tries to keep closer than is
socially accepted. In this case, this rule breaking becomes meaningful and
this behaviour would be classified as impolite or odd.
One of the basic assumptions of the ethnography of speaking is that
communication in societies tends to be categorised into different kinds of
events rather than an undifferentiated string of discourse, each event having
certain defined boundaries and different behavioural norms appropriate for
each kind. Therefore, rules of speaking cannot be listed in the abstract; on the
contrary, they have to be defined in relation with a particular speech event.
Every speech event - a lecture, a formal dinner, a party, an encounter
with a friend in the street - has its own rules associated, rules which derive
from its own components. The elements or components of a speech event can
be easily remembered by means of the following rule of thumb:
S: setting.
P: participants.
E: ends, purposes.
A: act sequence.
K: key or tone.
I: instrumentalities.
N: norms of interaction.

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G: genre.
To illustrate the rules of a certain speech event let's take as an example
a lecture .
Elements of a lecture as an speech event .
Setting: A room with certain characteristics: a prominent place for the
lecture, a number of seats for the audience and certain visibility
conditions.
Participants: A lecturer (or lecturers) plus a number of listeners.
Ends: To explain a certain topic or subject.
Act Sequence: The lecture is supposed to talk from beginning to end
without interruptions. Questions from the audience at the end.
Key or Tone: Formal but allowing little jokes.
Instrumentalities: Code: Oral language (one particular language
normally).
Channel: air but they can also make use of
microphones and visual aids.
Norms of Interaction: The audience should be in silence listening to the
lecture who is supposed to talk. Nobody leaves the room until the end
when the lecturer thanks the audience.
Genre: formal lecture. Certain stylistic variety.
Once the components have been formulated the rules can be easily
identified. One rule or more could be derived from each one of the
components.
1st: A lecture should be held in a room of certain characteristics (a
lecture room).
2nd: a lecture requires one speakers at least and a number of
listeners.
3rd: The lectures should talk about a given particular topic.
4th: No interruptions to the speaker are allowed.
5th: It must have a formal overall tone.
6th: The lecturer must speak in English (let's say), although visual
aids can be used.

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7th: The audience should be in silence listening to the lectures who

is supposed to talk. Nobody leaves the room until the lecturer
thanks the audience.
8th: Standard formal English is expected.
The "existence" of the rules of speaking does not imply that they have
always to be followed. In fact they are broken many times in everyday
conversation, especially in intercultural communication. However, when both
parties are supposed to share the same norms, the breaking of the rules
becomes meaningful.
One of the most remarkable examples of rule breaking can be found in
the 16th century English Literature. At that time it was customary for nobles to
use "you" reciprocally, to receive "you" from their inferiors but to address
them as "thou". If a speaker broke the rules, the rule-breaking was meaningful
and so they were able to insult their equals by addressing them as "Thou?".
- CONVERSATIONAL ANALYSIS .
Some of the findings of sociologists such as Sacks, Schegloff and
Jefferson who represent the most advanced positions in conversational
analysis, are of some relevance for the topic under consideration.
In particular we will deal aspects such as TURN TAKING and
CONVERSATIONAL STRUCTURE.
In conversation the roles of speaker and listener change in turns which
typically occur successively without overlaps or gaps between them.
Sacks suggests that there is an underlying rule in conversation (perhaps
less obvious in Latin societies): "at least and not more than one party talks at
a time".
Although we seem to follow the rule quite effectively, how do we achieve
it? Sacks suggests that a current speaker can exercise three degrees of
control over the next turn.
At the highest degree of control he can select the next either by naming
or alluding to him / her. In a second degree of control the speaker can
constrain the next utterance but without selecting a particular speaker. And
finally, a third option is to select neither the next speaker nor utterance and
leave it to one of the other participants.

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This organised exchange of roles needs certain norms since speakers

usually don't like to be interrupted or ignored in their turns.
In doing so speakers listeners make use of certain cues in order to signal
their intentions.
Whereas Kendon (1967) suggests that gaze in an important factor in the
exchange of roles, Ducan (1973) suggests that the cues can be either
grammatical, paralinguistic, kinesic or a combination of all three. Ducan
(1973) gives a set of six possible cues.
1. Intonation: pitch terminal juncture.
2. Paralanguage: Drawl on the final syllable.
3. Body motion: Hand gesture or relaxation of a position.
4. Sociocentric sequences: Stereotyped expressions such as "but",
"well", "you know".
5. Paralanguage: Drops in pitch or loudness.
6. Syntax: The completion of a grammatical clause.
- CONVERSATIONAL STRUCTURE .
Very briefly we will mention the findings which conversational analysis
have made about the structure of conversation.
Sacks observes that a conversation is a string of a least two turns. He
finds that there are turns which are more closely related than others.
Exchanges in which the first part of the pair predicts the occurrence of the
second are called by him ADJACENCY PAIRS. An utterance such as "Good
morning" requires the following utterance, "good morning" from a different
speaker.
Adjacency pairs are the basic structural units in conversation. For
conversational analysis, therefore, sequences typically consists of a chain of
different types of pairs. There is a class of first parts which includes
questions, greetings, challenges, threats, warnings, offers, requests,
complaints, invitations, announcements. For some first pair parts the second
pair part is reciprocal: greetings-greeting. For some there is only one
appropriate second part: Question-Answer, for some more than one,
complaint-Apology/justification.
- GRICE'S CO-OPERATIVE PRINCIPLES .

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In Grice's view (1975), and in fact as many other conversational analysts

have argued, we co-operate in a conversation in order to produce a rational
and efficient exchange of information. In other words, assuming that we have
accepted the purpose and direction of the talk exchange, we try to make our
contribution as it is required at that stage in the conversation. According to
Grice we do that by following four maxims, namely: Maxim of Quality, Maxim
of Quantity, Maxim of Relevance and Maxim of Manner .
Widdowson talks about the notion of conversational correctness which he
bases on Grice's Principles of Co-operation. In Widdowson's opinion we
behave conversationally correctly if we produce correct utterances with
respect to the four maxims mentioned by Grice.
Maxim of Quality . Maxim which requires our contribution to be sincere.
We should believe what we say and we should not say things for which we
lack adequate evidence. As an example of the Maxim of Quality: we would
like to mention an interview shown on TV, where the interviewer, Iñaki
Gabilondo, interviewed Al Kassan, the interviewee. The Syrian businessmen
told lies all the time, not adding any information supporting what he said to be
the truth.
Maxim of Quantity . We should make our contribution as informative as
required with respect to the goal of the exchange. If we deviate from this
maxim we normally apologise by saying "Sorry, but I can't tell you more" or
"Sorry, I'm talking too much".
Maxim of Relevance . An utterance has to be relevant within the
conversation with respect to the stage the conversation has reached.
Maxim of Manner which concerns the manner of expression, i.e.: avoid
obscurity, avoid ambiguity, be brief and be orderly.

3. LINGUISTIC ROUTINES AND FORMULAIC LANGUAGES.

Man's ability to be creative with language is something obvious but there
are times when he chooses how, when, and why not to be creative, to repeat
what has been heard and said many times, often in exactly the same form. It
is in these situations that he uses linguistic routines and inside them,
formulaic language.

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According to Seaville and Troike linguistic routines are fixed utterances

or sequences of utterances which must be considered as single units,
because meaning cannot be derived from consideration of any segment apart
from the whole. The routine itself fulfils the communicative function, and in
this respect is performative in nature. Communication essentially defines the
situation.
Routines must be learnt as well as analysed as single units although they
may vary in length, from single syllables as in Hi!, to phrases as in "How do
you do?", "April fool", and finally they can also be a sequence of sentences,
as in the well rehearsed pitch of a door-to-door salesman. Because of this,
some are learned at an earlier age than others. For instance, Please! And
Thank you! Are usually the first routines taught to English-speaking children,
and in fact they don't know at first what they are really saying. Seaville points
out that perhaps the first sign of acquired meaning comes when a child looks
sad or cries when parents say "Goodbye". This shows that routines are
memorised as fixed forms. The process through which we acquire ritual
competence is perhaps the most fundamental socialisation we make of
language.
Non-native speakers of English often complain that native speakers do
not really care about the state of their health when they ask "How are you?
The non-native does not recognise that this question is part of a greeting
routine, which by nature, has no meaning apart from its phatic function in
communication. If English speakers really want to know how someone is
feeling, they repeat the question with contrastive intonation to indicate it is for
information and not part of the routine. Applying this to L2 learners, the
teacher must give information about these linguistic features, so that they
won't be lost in a real communicative situation. Culture is an important aspect
to take into account when learning a language. Pupils must be introduced to
the L2 culture so that their learning is complete.
Understanding routines require shared cultural knowledge because they
are generally metaphorical in nature and must be interpreted at a non-literal
level. They include greetings, curses, hiccoughs or other involuntary noises,
which often require linguistic routines to repair the situation.

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People are often quite opposed to routines and rituals at a conscious

level because they are meaningless and depersonalise the ideas expressed.
One occasion where a prescribed routine is considered too impersonal is the
bereavement of a friend, condolence therefore often takes the form of "I don't
know what to say" which has itself become a routine. This contrasts sharply
with other speech communities where fixed condoling routines are considered
as essential components of the funeral ritual.
There are many situations in our lives in which we have to use formulaic
language, as those situation are considered routines. That is the case of
rituals. They are made up of routines but these are given far greater cultural
significance for being part of a ritual context. The meaning of symbols cannot
be interpreted in isolation but only in the context of the meaning of the ritual
situation.
Examples of ritual include funeral condolences, magical incantation,
religious ceremonies and so on.
As routines often mark the boundaries of speech events by opening and
closing them, ritual serve as boundary markers for major changes in social
status: weddings, funerals, graduation ceremonies, etc.:
To conclude this point in which we have dealt with formulaic language let us say
that perhaps the most important characteristic of routines and rituals in that literal
semantic value is largely irrelevant. Their meaning is dependent on shared beliefs
and values of the speech community coded into communicative patterns and they
cannot be interpreted out of social and cultural context.

4. CONCLUSION.

At its most basic level, oral communication is the spoken interaction

between two or more people. However, what we intend to teach is that the
interaction is far more complex than it seems. Oral communication is
composed of multiple elements which, when taken as a whole, result in the
success or failure of the interaction, Not everyone is an effective
communicator.

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In order to function successfully academically and professionally, you

need to learn effective oral communication skills. For many, conversational
speech comes naturally. However, in more formal speech, effective
communication skills are essential. A poorly conducted interview, sales
presentation, or legal argument could have ramifications that affect many
more people than yourself. By becoming an effective communicator you will
be able to conduct yourself in a variety of speaking environments.
Oral communication is a unique and learned rhetorical skill that requires
you to understand what you say and how you say. Unlike conversational
speech, speech in more formal environments does not come naturally. What
you will learn is how to critically think about how you present yourself as a
speaker on all occasions and then how to function in a variety of speaking
environments.
Once having studied oral communication, it is worth mentioning some
important aspects dealing with the transfer of information: communication as
an exchange of meaning and communication as a social interaction. We have
already established how efficient written and spoken language is for the
transmission and reception of information, thoughts, feelings, experience and
opinions.
Both the speaker and the hearer must be present in the same
situational context.
It is also important to consider non-verbal elements of communication
such as facial and bodily gestures and the like.
We have dealt with daily life situations in which we have to use
formulaic language.

5. BIBLIOGRAPHY.

 Coulthard, R. M., An Introduction, to Discourse Analysis , chapters 3, and 4.

New York. Longman, 1985, new edition,.
 Halliday M. A. K., An Introduction. to Functional Grammar , chapter 9.
London, Edward Arnold, 1990, new edition.

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 Haynes, J. (1989), Introducing Stylistics , chapter 4. London. Unwin Hyman,

1989.
 Johnson K. Morrow K Communication in the Classroom , Burnt Mill, Essex.
Longman, 1982.
 Saville-Troike. The Ethnography of Communication , chapters 2, and 4.
Baltimore, University Park Press. Blackwell, 1989, 2 nd ed.
 Sinclair, J. A Course in Spoken English Grammar , introduction. London.
Oxford University Press, 1972.
 Tannen, D. 1984. Conversational Style , chapter 8. Norwood, NJ. Ablex
Publishing Corporation, 1990.

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