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Applying English Grammar: Functional Vs. Written Language

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A Comparison In the past, spoken language was downgraded while the written language was essentially regarded as a reliable benchmark for what is standard or appropriate. Recently, however, there has been a growing recognition of its significance. In fact, the renowned linguist Micheal Halliday adamantly argued that the language system’s potential is much more realized in spoken than in written discourse. (Coffin, Hewings and O'Halloran, Applying English Grammar: Functional and Corpus Approaches 26) Do these two unique languages differ? The answer to this intriguing question is obviously yes and determining the extent of their difference is this academic essay’s core objective. The ability to speak is ingrained in people and goes back to …show more content…
A high degree of structure and organization is displayed within the written discourse whereas talk can appear rather loose and fragmented. . (Coffin, Hewings and O'Halloran, Applying English Grammar: Functional and Corpus Approaches 27) Having established some general differences, I will compare the first task’s texts in order to identify specific ones. The spoken text contains more simple clauses and less complex ones than the written text which leads us to conclude that speakers can’t construct over-elaborate clauses as a result of the spontaneous quality of conversation and if they did they might come across as bookish or self-conceited. In contrast, writers masterfully manipulate parts of speech since they have time on their hands. (Coffin, Hewings and O'Halloran, Applying English Grammar: Functional and Corpus Approaches 36) In the second text, the author utilized adjectives such as worst, modern, new, and unfixable in addition to nouns like law, sports, slot, poker in order to expand the head noun. This potential is unavailable to Jorge and the charismatic Martha seeing that they are expressing their identity through the personal pronouns I and you. These pronouns lack the referential content provided by the head noun as such they can’t be premodified. (Coffin and O'halloran, Getting Started: …show more content…
This is the use of hesitators, pauses, and repetition. While the spoken text contains two hesitators which are Mmm and Urm and both of them reflect the difficulty of mental planning at speed, these sounds are non-existent in the written text seeing that their grammatical class is unclear as a result utilizing them is equivalent to defying the grammatical conventions of writing. (Coffin and O'halloran, Getting Started: Describing the grammar of speech and writing 23-24) The texts’ participants and processes is another noteworthy difference. In the written version, they are very long as a result of premodification and postmodification, In addition, they are often abstractions like machines, cameras, casinos, tables, laws, and fans whereas in the spoken version they refer to concrete entities are realised by shorter noun phrases such as you, I, Maria, and Puerto Rico. (Coffin and O'halloran, Getting Started: Describing the grammar of speech and writing 79) In the first text, the majority of the processes are concerned with actions such as hit, recharge, and drive thus they are identified as material processes. With the second text, processes like have, had, was, and were focus on setting up relationships between things as a result they are classified as relational processes. (Coffin and O'halloran, Getting Started: Describing the grammar of speech and writing

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