INTRODUCTION
A spoken language is a human language in which words are articulated through the mouth. Almost all languages consist of spoken forms. Computer languages and sign languages fall outside the category of spoken languages. Everyone desires to possess command over communication skills when interacting with people or delivering a speech before an audience. However, the success of any spoken communication activity relies on the simple method of listening, understanding, and speaking. The term 'spoken language' is often used in contrast to written language; the most widely spoken languages globally all have written forms. The difference between the spoken and written versions of a language can sometimes be substantial.
OBJECTIVES
At the end of this unit, you should be able to:
- Explain the difference between writing and speech.
MAIN CONTENT
What is speech?
According to Knowsley (2004), "speech is the universal means of oral communication, distinguishing humans from the rest of the animal kingdom. Linguists consider speech (not writing) as the primary material for study."
There are many varieties of spoken language, often used on an individual basis. Interestingly, speech is innately acquired, unlike writing, which is a learned skill. It's a known fact that speech is constantly used by everyone for various functions, from passing information to sharing emotions. Additionally, legal, religious, medical, and technical languages are all examples of spoken occupational jargon.
While there are no designated human speech organs, respiratory and digestive organs are adapted to produce speech. Indeed, speech and writing are two separate systems, and an individual's linguistic competence depends on the ability to make a clear distinction between the two.
Below are some commonly used speech-related expressions in the study of language:
- Speech community: Describes a group of people with shared language, including all speakers of a single language or dialect, even if geographically dispersed.
- Speech recognition (computer understanding of speech): Refers to a computer system recognizing spoken words and transforming them into digitized commands or text, allowing voice commands or dictation input.
- Speech synthesis (computer’s imitation of speech): Refers to computer-generated audio output resembling human speech.
Sign Language and Speech:
A sign language uses gestures, motion, and expression instead of sound to convey meaning. This includes combinations of hand shapes, hand and body movements, and facial expressions. Sign languages are used by people who are deaf or hearing-impaired. Contrary to popular belief, sign language is not international. Wherever communities of deaf people exist, sign languages develop, varying from country to country. Like spoken languages, sign languages are not based on the spoken language of the country of origin and have developed in antiquity, being no more or less amendable than any spoken language.
Factors that can affect the quality of speech:
1. Diseases and disorders of the lungs or vocal cords, including paralysis, respiratory infections, and cancers of the lungs and throat.
2. Diseases and disorders of the brain, such as alogia, aphasias, and speech processing disorders, where impaired perception of the message (rather than the actual sound) results in poor speech production.
3. Articulatory problems like stuttering, lisping, cleft palate, ataxia, or nerve damage leading to articulation issues. Tourette syndrome and tics can also impact speech.
4. Problems in the perception of sound and auditory information can affect speech. Aphasias, anomia, and certain types of dyslexia can hinder auditory perception and expression. Hearing impairments and deafness fall into this category.
Speech involves both expressive and receptive elements. Its purpose can be to convey meaning or enhance social bonds between individuals and/or groups, often both. For the latter, shallowness is not an issue. The success of a speech act depends on various factors, including the presence or absence of speech disorders, the speaker's ability to express the intended message, and the audience's ability and willingness to play the role of recipient.
An important concept affecting speech quality is Glossophobia, referring to the fear of public speaking. The term is derived from the Greek 'glosso,' meaning 'tongue,' and 'phobia,' meaning 'fear or dread.' It is believed to be the most common phobia, affecting up to 75% of people. Glossophobia is considered a social phobia and may be linked to or precede a more severe anxiety disorder. Symptoms include intense anxiety before or at the thought of verbally communicating with a group, avoidance of events focusing attention on individuals, and may include physical distress, nausea, or panic in such circumstances. Some people report stress-induced speech disorders only present during public speech.
Differences between speech and writing:
As mentioned in 3.1 above, speech and writing are distinct systems, and an individual's linguistic competence relies on the ability to differentiate between the two.
Speech typically includes false starts, hesitations, repetitions, and 'fillers' like 'ums' and 'ers,' along with sounds unrelated to written communication. Non-verbal features such as intonation, stress, facial expressions, gestures, and bodily posture accompany speech, affecting communication. In the study of language, speech is considered primary and entirely separate from writing, as humans acquire speech innately, unlike writing, which is a learned skill.
Some societies still solely depend on speech without a written form of language. Sign language, used by the profoundly hearing-impaired, performs all communication functions similar to spoken language, with hands adapting instead of respiratory and digestive organs.
Organs used in speech include lips, teeth, tongue, palate, glottis, uvula, nose, trachea, lungs, and pharynx. Speech is a continuous stream of sound, unlike writing, not divided into separate parts. People speak spontaneously without planning, and speech cannot be revised like writing. Language changes more rapidly in speech than in writing.
Summarizing speech characteristics:
- Speech is time-bound, with both participants usually present.
- No time-lag between production and reception, allowing immediate reaction.
- Intonation and pause divide long utterances, but sentence boundaries may be unclear.
- Participants rely on extra-linguistic cues like facial expression and gesture for meaning.
- Contraction, slang, obscenities, and meaningless vocabulary are more tolerated.
- Lengthy co-ordinate sentences are normal, often of considerable complexity.
- Intonation includes contrasts of loudness, tempo, rhythm, pause, and other tones that cannot be written down.
How writing differs from speech:
The Written Language
A written language represents a language through a writing system, serving as a system of human intercommunication using visible marks. Unlike spoken language, which evolves instinctively, written language is an invention that must be taught.
Written language complements specific natural languages (English, French, American Sign Language, etc.), and purely written languages (except for computer languages, which aren't natural languages) are rare. Many extinct languages exist purely in written form.
Written and spoken English differ significantly; writing consists of silent marks on paper perceived by the eye, while speaking involves organized, meaningful sounds heard by the ear.
T.S. Eliot noted that an identical spoken and written language would be intolerable; they must not be too close or too far apart. Written and spoken language aspects are often studied separately. Written texts are categorized as planned, organized, and transactional, while spoken communication is seen as unplanned, less structured, and interactive. However, features of written language can be found in speech, and vice versa.
Speech is believed to be innately acquired, unlike writing, which is a learned skill. Speech is used constantly for various functions, from passing information to sharing emotions.
Writing systems convey meaning using symbols representing sounds or symbols with no phonetic information. Different scripts combine these elements in varying proportions.
Speech and writing are distinct systems, and linguistic competence relies on the ability to make a clear distinction between the two.
Advantages of spoken language over written language:
1. Evolutionary Adaptation:
Spoken language has evolved over time to meet the changing needs of civilizations. It has a dynamic nature that responds to cultural and societal shifts.
2. Peculiarity to Humans:
Language, defined as a system of spoken or written symbols for communication, is a unique possession of humans. While other animals communicate through sounds and body movements, humans have developed a systematic symbolism through language.
3. Multidimensional Experience:
When language is spoken, a complex series of events occurs across various planes of experience, including physical, chemical, physiological, psychological, cultural, linguistic, and semantic aspects.
4. Intimacy and Identity:
The spoken word is intimate, closely tied to the speaker's breath and health. It carries emotional intonations and identifying characteristics (pitch, tone, timbre) that link speech to a specific speaker. Voices in speech are distinctive and unique, contributing to a sense of identity.
5. Emotional Richness:
Speech conveys emotional nuances more effectively than writing. It allows for the expression of feelings and emotions through intonation, pitch, tone, and other subtle vocal cues.
6. Immediate Recognition:
Even on the phone, we can immediately recognize the voices of our loved ones, highlighting the distinctiveness and immediacy of spoken communication.
7. Personalization:
Speech is more idiosyncratic than writing. While writing may display styles, it lacks the unique and personal characteristics found in the voices of individuals during speech.
Spoken language offers advantages in terms of evolutionary adaptability, human uniqueness, multidimensional experience, intimacy, emotional richness, immediate recognition, and personalization compared to written language.
Indeed, the history of writing involves the discovery and representation of structural levels of spoken language in the pursuit of constructing an efficient, general, and economical writing system capable of serving various socially valuable functions. Literacy, then, is the competence with a writing system and the specialized functions that written language serves in a society.
Languages are systems of symbols, and writing is a system for symbolizing these symbols. A writing system is any conventional system of marks or signs representing the utterances of a language. Writing makes language visible, providing permanence compared to the ephemeral nature of speech.
Both speaking and writing rely on the underlying structures of language. However, writing is not merely the transcription of speech; it often involves special forms of language, such as those found in literary and scientific works. Writing, being related directly to language but not necessarily directly to speech, can lead to distinctive forms and functions in spoken and written language.
Despite these complexities, most contemporary linguists consider spoken language more fundamental and important to study than written language. Reasons for this perspective include the universality of speech, the existence of cultures lacking written communication, the ease of learning and processing spoken languages, and the belief in a brain "language module" primarily shaped by studying speech as an evolutionary adaptation.
While acknowledging the value of studying written language, linguists highlight its convenience for certain research methods like corpus linguistics and computational linguistics, where large amounts of linguistic data are more easily processed in written form. The study of writing systems is considered a branch of linguistics.
CONCLUSION
Human communication operates on two levels: speech and writing. Speech involves articulating sounds and pronouncing meaningful words through the mouth. It holds primary importance as every normal human possesses the natural ability to speak, unlike writing, which is a deliberate skill requiring systematic teaching and learning.
The significance of speech as the primary medium of human interaction in various communication situations cannot be overstated.
SUMMARY
In this unit, we explored the meaning of speech and closely analyzed factors affecting the quality of a person's speech. Additionally, we delved into the advantages of speech over writing.
REFERENCES/FURTHER READINGS
Abercrombie, D. (1967). Elements of General Phonetics. Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press.
Awonusi, S. (2001). Coping with English Pronunciation. Lagos: Obaro
and Ogbinaka publications.
Bamgbose, A. (1998) ‘Torn between norms: innovations in world
Englishes’. World Englishes 17, 1: 1-14.
Carr, P. (1999). English Phonetics and Phonology: An Introduction.
Oxford: Blackwell
Crystal, D (2004). Language and the Internet. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Elugbe, B. (2000). Oral English for Schools and Colleges. Ibadan: Heinemann
Knowsley LEA (2004) “Speech”
http://www.buzzin.net/english/speech.htm
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