Spoken and written English - The Communicative Grammar of English Workbook

The Communicative Grammar of English Workbook (2013)

UNIT ONE. Spoken and written English

1.1. Informal spoken English

Sections 17–19

Informal spoken English has many features which, if written down, make it appear rambling and unstructured:

silent pauses, often indicated by a dash (-) in transcription.

voice-filled pauses (e.g. –erm) indicating hesitation.

repetition (unplanned repeat, e.g. I – I – I get)

false starts (e.g. I mean, you know, etc.)

discourse markers and fillers (e.g. well, you see, etc.)

short forms and contractions (e.g. don’t, we’ll, gonna)

Task one **

In the following text, underline the features, especially the features of grammar, that show it is spoken language.

I’ll tell you a little tale. –er- When me mother was alive in Cambridge and -erm-we had some coal delivered – me mother was a terror if anything was wrong, you know – and –er- it got some rocks and bits of scale in it. And I was going. I was quite young then, and she said –er- get a, get a, we had a a bag. It was a, quite a strong bag. She said fill it up with some of the coal and stuff. And we got it on the bus and we went all the way to the bottom of Hills Road Bridge. Was –er- in fact the building’s still there – the coal office. And inside was an old table, an oak –er- front. Was about as long as this room. And –er- I didn’t know what she was going to do with it. Just take it back and probably tell them, you know, the coal’s not very good. And as she went, she bent down and picked it up and WHOOSH! Straight across the counter. Dust coal everywhere. “Take it back,” she said. “And come back and get the rest of it.” They couldn’t believe it. I can see their faces today.

(from R. Carter & M. McCarthy, Exploring Spoken English, C.U.P. 1997, pp. 37–38)

Task two **

Rewrite task one as a written story.

Task three ***

Below are the instructions on how to vote in a British election. Each person receives a voting card with the instructions on. Rewrite the instructions as if you were explaining them orally to somebody. The first one has been done for you.

Example: This card is for information only. You can vote without it, but it will save time if you take it to the polling station and show it to the clerk there.

Answer: The card tells you what to do. You don’t need it when you go and vote. But take it to the polling station to show to the clerk. It’ll save time.

1.When you go to the polling station, tell the clerk your name and address as shown on the front of the card. The Presiding Officer will give you a ballot paper; see that (s)he stamps the official mark on it before (s)he gives it to you.

2.Go to one of the compartments. Mark only one cross (X) as stated in the polling booth in the box alongside the candidate you are voting for. Place only one mark on the ballot paper, or your vote will not be counted.

3.If by mistake you spoil a ballot paper, show it to the Presiding Officer and ask for another one.

4.Fold the ballot paper into two. Show the official mark to the Presiding Officer, but do not let anyone see your vote. Put the ballot paper in the ballot box and leave the polling station.

5.If you have appointed a proxy to vote in person for you, you may nevertheless vote at this election if you do so before the proxy has voted on your behalf.

6.If you have been granted a postal vote, you will not be entitled to vote in person at this election, so please ignore this poll card.

Task four ***

Underline grammatical features in the above text which show that it is probably a written text. Give reasons for your decisions.

1.2. Cooperation in conversation

Sections 21–23

A conversation is not just a matter of giving and receiving information. It is a form of social interaction and participant cooperation is a basic feature of conversation. There is a give-and-take process which is manifested in several ways:

turn-taking, where the role of speaker is shared in a conversation. This is shown in the interplay of questions, answers and positive follow-up comments.

using fillers or discourse markers. These usually add little information, but tell us something of the speaker’s attitude to their audience and what they are saying.

Task ***

Look at the text below.

1.Comment on features of turn-taking.

2.Note the discourse items and indicate whether they are

i.

purely interactive, e.g. ah, aha, mhm, mmm, oh, yes, yeah, yup, uhuh

ii.

mainly interactive, e.g. no, please, I see, I mean, you know, you see, OK, that’s OK, all right, thank you, that’s right, that’s all right, well, sure, right

iii.

also interactive, e.g. anyway, in fact, maybe, perhaps, probably, absolutely, of course, certainly, obviously, indeed, wasn’t it (and other tags), really, honestly

EXTRACT

Speaker One who is a woman of 78 is telling speaker Two, a woman of 30, and speaker Three, a man of 47, about a plane journey she had.

S.1

……. somebody said to me the pilot says you can go in the cabin you see, well my mouth dropped open …….

S.2

(laughs)

S.1

No idea you see. Now I thought oh, I’d had a joke with one of the girls, you know …….

S.2

Yes

S.1

……. the stewardess girls, and –er- maybe it was her. Or there was a young man with us who had been in our hotel. Maybe he’d said something. Somebody had anyway. So they took me, and Jeanne went with me, of course, in case I fell …….

S.2

Yeah.

S.1

……. Right into where the two pilots were. It was absolutely fantastic.

S.3

Marvellous, wasn’t it.

S.2

Was that the first time you’ve ever been …….

S.1

In the cabin?

S.2

Yeah.

S.1

Yeah.

S.3

Yeah. Normally they only take children and V.I …….

S.2

That’s right.

S.3

And V.I.Ps

S.1

Yeah.

S.3

So I don’t know which …….

S.1

Well, this was a V.I.P.

S.2

Yeah (laughs)

S.3

(laughs)

S.1

And –er- I went through this door and below was a city. All, all the lights and that. And it was fantastic.

S.2

What was the city?

S.1

Er – I was just, you know …….

S.2

Oh, you’re coming to that.

S.1

And I kept thinking I wonder where we are now. Just, you know, and –er – one of the pilots said you’re looking down on Budapest.

S.3

Mmm

S.1

He said the top side of that river is Buda and at this side is Pest. That’s why it’s called Budapest.

S.2

Oh, is it. I didn’t know.

S.1

Well, I’d never heard that before.

S.3

Yeah, it is two …….

S.2

No, I hadn’t.

S.3

……. two towns.

S.2

Oh.

S.1

I was absolutely transfixed with that.

S.2

Mmm

S.1

It was like looking on Fairyland.

S.3

Mmm. It was lovely, wasn’t it?

(from R. Carter & M. McCarthy, Exploring Spoken English, C.U.P. 1997, pp. 32, 33)

1.3. Tag questions and ellipsis

Sections 24–25; 245; 384; 684

With tag questions the speaker asserts something and then invites the listener’s response. Initial ellipsis is a characterisation of informal talk. It creates the sort of relaxed atmosphere that we try to achieve in a cooperative social situation.

Task one *

Complete the statements below by adding tag questions.

1.You saw Anne last week, ……………?

2.I was sorry for you on your holiday. It rained every day, ……………?

3.I’d like to be back in England now. The Spring flowers are out, ……………?

4.They’re very young, so we won’t tell them about Uncle David, ……………?

5.I know they were late, but the car broke down, ……………?

6.He hasn’t failed the exam again, ……………?

7.I can see it in your face. You don’t remember meeting me, ……………?

8.The bank wouldn’t lend them the money, ……………?

9.I am coming with you, ……………?

10.We’ll meet again next week to discuss this further, ……………?

Task two *

Complete the sentences below by adding what has been omitted through initial ellipsis.

1.Quite a comic, isn’t he?

2.Sound like my mother, don’t I?

3.Very difficult, isn’t it?

4.Something to do with a strike, wasn’t it?

5.Not coming with us, are you?

6.Didn’t believe all that nonsense, did you?

7.Couldn’t tell him that, could I?

8.Solve the problem, won’t he?

9.Get the money, won’t you?

10.Seen that before, haven’t we?

Task three *

Complete the sentences below by adding what has been omitted through initial ellipsis.

1.Thought it was a good film.

2.Mind coming a bit earlier, say 5.30?

3.Had a good day in Siena.

4.Bought some good local wine.

5.Hope you had a good holiday.

6.Tell me where Elizabeth Street is, please?

7.Wasn’t me! I wasn’t there.

8.Can’t help you! Sorry!

9.Really think it was me? I can’t believe that.

10.Gotta be off now, haven’t we?

Task four **

Rewrite the following sentences, omitting part of the sentences.

1.I hope you don’t mind my asking, but did you really threaten to resign?

2.You can’t believe a word he says.

3.I saw them out together again last night. They’re getting on very well, aren’t they!?

4.It didn’t help that you were half-an-hour late.

5.I’ve gotta get this in the post by tonight.

6.It doesn’t matter if you don’t get the best grades.

7.I don’t know why he thought we weren’t coming.

8.There’s no problem about leaving so early.

9.You didn’t bother to let him know, did you?

10.I can’t help thinking we should have done more to help her.

1.4. Coordination

Section 26

A preference for coordination of clauses, rather than subordination of clauses, is often a characteristic of speech. Phrasal coordination, on the other hand, is a characteristic of writing.

Task one **

Rewrite the sentences below using clause-level coordination rather than subordination or phrasal coordination.

1.If you are late again, you’ll be fired.

2.Now that he’s been to Italy, he wants to live there.

3.Neither John nor Mary can answer the question.

4.You’ll meet Sally if you go to the new coffee bar.

5.Now that you’ve been paid, you should be happy.

6.Neither Irene nor I can understand this tax form, although we’re both accountants.

7.When that tree grows higher, it will damage the telephone lines.

8.If you stop eating so late, you’ll sleep better.

9.Both the Wilsons and the Brooks went to Egypt for their holiday.

10.Because he upset the old lady, I don’t want to meet him.

Task two **

Rewrite the sentences below using subordination rather than coordination.

1.Finish that work tonight and you can take the rest of the week off.

2.He’s got the manager’s job and won’t speak to his old friends.

3.They’ve got a new car and will be telling everyone how much it cost.

4.I don’t like that house. It’s too dark and miserable.

5.He’s been all over the world and thinks he knows everything.

6.We’ve changed our money from Francs to Euros and everything costs more.

7.The fire spread quickly and the whole factory was destroyed.

8.The crowds were waiting patiently at the side of the road. Then suddenly it began to rain.

9.Get there early or they won’t let you in.

10.Get the early train and you’ll have a good day in the city.

1.5. Finite clauses in spoken English

Section 27; 360–374

In written English, we often use non-finite and verbless clauses as adverbials and modifiers. Such constructions would be highly unlikely in speech, where finite clauses and coordination are preferred.

Task one **

The sentences below are more likely to be formal, written English. Rewrite them in a form more likely in spoken English.

1.After winning the race, he enjoyed the prize money.

2.Having been in trouble in school before, the boy was afraid to tell his mother why he was home so late.

3.Having missed the last train, he stayed at his sister’s overnight.

4.Feeling ill, he decided not to go to work that day.

5.Built in 1903, the theatre was too big for small, contemporary plays.

6.Of all the mothers interviewed not in paid work, the majority intended to return to work when their children were older.

7.Given the steepness of the stairs, it was an accident waiting to happen.

8.Taking the dog for a walk across the fields, he realised that the new road they were going to build would go very near his own house.

9.On reading the biography of Sophia Loren, she determined to become an actress.

10.Getting home late, he found everyone had gone to bed.

Task two ***

The sentences below are more likely to be informal, spoken English. Rewrite them in a form more suitable for formal, written English.

1.Pete reminded her about the visit and hoped she would come.

2.They reorganised the shop but still didn’t get a lot of customers.

3.I saw her in the street and told her the good news.

4.They bought an old house, modernised it and made a lot of money when they resold it.

5.When you get to the top of the hill, you get a good view over the plain.

6.I didn’t like that stuff they gave us to eat last night. I left most of it on my plate.

7.He went to a lot of trouble to get the picture and so expected they would pay him a good price.

8.They felt very depressed – their team had lost for the third time.

9.I haven’t been to Mexico before so I don’t know what to expect.

10.We yelled at the top of our voices, but nobody took any notice.

1.6. Stress

Sections 33–35; 633; 743–745

The rhythm of spoken English can be felt in the sequence of stressed syllables. Between one stressed syllable and another there may occur one or more unstressed syllables.

Stressed syllables:

(i)

one-syllable words belonging to one of the major word-classes

(ii)

accented syllables of words of more than one syllable of major word-classes.

Unstressed syllables:

(i)

one-syllable words belonging to one of the minor word-classes

(ii)

unaccented syllables of words of more than one syllable.

In most contexts, prepositional adverbs are normally stressed while one-syllable prepositions are usually unstressed.

Task one *

Put stress marks in front of stressed syllables in the following sentences.

1.The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.

2.The tourist forgot to buy a ticket at the counter.

3.Janet is throwing a party for her twentieth birthday.

4.We met in Rome, visited the sights and then flew home.

5.John is fond of chocolate but Mary thoroughly dislikes it.

6.I was admiring the landscape that unfolded in front of my eyes.

7.This unexpected encounter with my worst enemy really upset me.

8.Do you remember the dramatic events of September the eleventh?

9.The United Nations decided to lift the embargo imposed on military equipment.

10.As a true democrat, I sincerely hope that democracy will always prevail over tyranny.

11.Slow progress has been made to persuade the warring factions to accept a compromise.

12.The photographer had taken a dozen pictures, all of which appeared in glossy magazines.

Task two **

Specify whether the underlined words in the following text are stressed or not.

Many people tend to be put off learning foreign languages as it also means taking in a lot of foreign grammar and vocabulary. Having attended two or three classes, they simply give up and put the whole thing on the backburner.

As time goes by, however, those who dropped out are beginning to wonder how they will be getting on in the country they’ve chosen to go to for their next holiday. So they happily turn to a popular phrasebook written for the average tourist, convinced that they will easily get by under foreign skies.

After their plane has touched down, these tourists cheerfully get through customs control, where the stock phrases come out all right. Then they set off in a hired car, driving on and on … until they run out of petrol or the car breaks down, leaving them stranded on a lonely road. The nearest farm is miles away but, fortunately, a local person happens to drive by, slow down and back up their car. Now the poor tourists are in for a nasty surprise: no more stock phrases but sentences they’ve never heard or used before. So the conversation virtually breaks down and all of a sudden the tourists remember their language classes, making a silent vow to pick up again where they left off.

Task three **

(a)

Arrange the underlined words in two groups depending on which word-class they belong to.

(b)

Check whether there is a match between stress and word-class.

1.7. Nucleus and tone units

Sections 36–37

Some stressed syllables have greater prominence than others and form the nucleus, or focal point, of an intonation pattern.

The basic unit of intonation is the tone unit, a stretch of speech which contains one such nucleus. A sentence contains one or more tone units, depending on its length and the degree of emphasis given to its various parts.

Task **

Mark any tone unit boundaries in the following sentences with vertical bars, underlining the syllables which would normally form the nucleus of the respective tone units.

1.My only sister is married to an accountant.

2.Would you give me the bottle opener, please.

3.Shirley was watching a film by Alfred Hitchcock, the master of suspense.

4.Hurricane Freddy swept across Indonesia last night and is now heading for Japan.

5.Although the war has been over for years, there are still occasional clashes along the border.

6.The new car model comes in four colours: red, dark blue, grey and white.

7.Driving on the left-hand side is something most people get used to in no time at all.

8.I haven’t got the faintest idea if the evidence given by Karen will prove her innocence.

9.Either your informant is completely ignorant of the facts or he is deliberately deceiving us, which is even worse.

10.In contrast with conventional wisdom, forests in northern countries are expanding rather than shrinking.

11.The politician said he wasn’t involved in the cover-up but he was, as appeared from an incriminating document found in the flat of his former mistress.

12.For Christ’s sake, why couldn’t you behave properly in the company of such distinguished guests, whose only fault was that their English sounded slightly pompous?

1.8. Tones

Sections 38–42

Tone is the type of pitch change which takes place on the nucleus. There are three basic types of tone in English, each of which tends to express a number of related meanings:

(i)

falling tone: certainty, completeness, independence (esp. straightforward statements, wh-questions)

(ii)

rising tone: uncertainty, incompleteness, dependence (esp. yes-no questions, subsidiary information)

(iii)

fall-rise: combines the meaning of ‘certainty, assertion’ with that of ‘incompleteness, dependence’ (esp. reservation, implied contrast, etc.).

Task one **

Assign one of the three basic tones to each tone unit in the following sentences, underlining the nuclear syllable on which the pitch change takes place.

1.Are any of these titles still available?

2.Don’t lean too far out of the window.

3.I don’t want to spend ALL my dollars.

4.How many passengers survived the plane crash?

5.You’ve seen some of these films before?

6.George Stephenson was the inventor of the steam engine.

7.In terms of profitability, the current year has been quite exceptional.

8.Why didn’t you turn up at the meeting, because you had overslept again?

9.Technically speaking, these devices are extremely sophisticated.

10.If you haven’t got enough time now, you can write those letters tomorrow.

11.Edith may not be a very good cook, she knows at least how to appreciate good food.

12.There’s a wide choice of cheese here: Cheddar, Stilton, Camembert, Gorgonzola and Danish blue.

Task two ***

For each sentence, first mark tone unit boundaries with vertical bars. Second, underline the nuclear syllable on which the pitch change takes place. Third, assign one of the three basic tones to each tone unit. (cf Section 42 in CGE)

1.Members of the jury, I thank you for your attention during this trial. Please pay attention to the instructions I am about to give you.

Henry Johnson, the defendant in this case, has been accused of the crimes of First Degree Murder with a Firearm and Aggravated Assault with a Firearm.

In this case Henry Johnson is accused of First Degree Murder with a Firearm.

Murder in the First Degree includes the lesser crimes of Murder in the Second Degree, Murder in the Third Degree and Manslaughter, all of which are unlawful.

If you find Mr. Peter Smith was killed by Henry Johnson, you will then consider the circumstances surrounding the killing in deciding if the killing was First Degree Murder, Second Degree Murder, Third Degree Murder or Manslaughter.

(slightly adapted from www.pbcountyclerk.com)

2.

Ruth:

Steve, where’s my handbag?

Steve:

Over there, on the windowsill. You’re not going out shopping, are you?

Ruth:

Of course I am. How else am I to prepare dinner tonight?

Steve:

Oh, I thought we were going to a restaurant.

Ruth:

The last time we went to a restaurant you kept complaining about the food.

Steve:

It was one of those very exotic places. You know I don’t like them.

Ruth:

What would you suggest then? As long as it isn’t fish and chips, of course.

Steve:

Well, shall we go to an Italian restaurant? That’s not too exotic as far as I am concerned.

Ruth:

All right. You still remember the terms of the agreement we made last time?

Steve:

I don’t, quite frankly.

Ruth:

In that case, let me just refresh your memory. Whoever chooses the restaurant pays the bill for the two of us.

Steve:

You will have your revenge, won’t you.