Planned & Unplanned

Discourse

Spontaneous talk and

polished writing differ
syntactically

Discourse Mode

The language of oral and written modes differ.

In school, students and teachers must use the L of
academic life.
What is the language of academic life?
Reading, writing and oral.
The term planned and unplanned dichotomy came
about.
Spoken or written could possibly be planned or
unplanned.
Life requires expertise with highly planned (eg.
writing, refined speech) or unplanned (eg. oral or
written) discourse modes.
Prepared lectures share many features with written
L; some written L (eg. Notes) share features with
spoken L

Six Features

Clausal or phrasal versus sentential

organization
Left dislocation & topic-comment
structures
Nextness
Parallelism
Repair
Conjoined versus embedded clauses

Clausal or phrasal versus sentential

organization
Interactive talk is clausal or phrasal in
structure
Example: T: Could youall get in your
group+form a circle+face
each other+discuss the
question+group leader
take charge please.
A written version of the oral message
should read. (Sentential)

Left dislocation and Topic-comment structures

In spontaneous talk, we introduce a new topic, shift the focus,

or shade into a new topic by using topic-comment structure

Example:
21:18 S24> Well muslims (T) , we must be true muslims
21:21 S24 > got to read the books yknow about the prophets(T)
21:21 S24 > But, mmmm the muslim ummah (T) dont do that
21:22 S24 > they watch tv and listen to music
21:22 S37 > yeah, we must follow the Quran and hadith
21:22 S24 > Muslims(T)..they know favorite actress favorite
singer.star
21:23 S24 > i am sure ,many muslims(T) know britney spears
21:23 S24 > but not rasul saw
21:24 S24 > sometimes i cry alone.........
21:24 S24 > not many wants to be real muslim
Convert these utterances to the written version.

Qs for discussion

Based on your observation, do native

speakers use topic-comment
structures?
Do you as adult non-native speaker
adopt topic-comment structures?
Should learners be discouraged to
use such forms?
Why or why not?

Nextness

In unplanned talk, phrases are often produced one

after another, this nextness shows that they are
related .
Example: The weekend yknow + I was so very tired +
went to Melaka+ visit my son

In written discourse, syntactic structures and

explicit cohesive ties can mark these relationships.

Parallelism

In spontaneous talk, words and phrases are

repeated and words seem to touch off the use of
words having similar sound sequences.
Example page. 241 (Hatch2001)
Repetition of sounds and words, and lexical
collocations across turns, give the extra cohesion.
In written text, we use parallelism while avoiding
too much repetition. Poetry is the ultimate
example of effective parallelism (rhythm, rhyme,
alliteration, and lexical, phrasal and syntactic
parallelism.)
Poetry is the ultimate example of planning (Hatch,
2001)

Assignment

Review one of your favorite poems.

List types of parallelismphonological, lexical or syntactic.
How do these parallelisms work with
the rhythm of the poem?

Repair

Unplanned discourse is marked by repair

Example: All right - I will - I sure will - give you a call tonight
later
tonight yeah.

In written discourse, such repairs are

removed

Question: In which context would repair be

more appropriately used?

Conjoined vs Embedded Clauses

Unplanned talk is often delivered

clause by clause or phrase by phrase.

Example: When I was in the States +and I was just 18 +

you know
I went in the 80s + I was already very
independent + and
thank God, I decided to wear the hijab there+
and no it
was not fashion then but commitment.
What does the ands suggest?
How would this excerpt be written?
Unplanned talk seldom uses subordinating clause markers
such as if, that, because, etc.