Premium Essay

Written and Spoken Language

In:

Submitted By researchpp
Words 311
Pages 2
What are the similarities and the differences between written and spoken language?

In this composition I am going to reflect on the similarities and the differences between the written and spoken language. Let us see first the similarities and after that the differences.

Both written and spoken language need to be acquired by individuals. This is the first similarity between the two kinds of language, that we have to develop our writing and speaking skills beginning from babyhood.
We use written and spoken language for the same goals: to communicate, to express our thoughts, feelings, ideas, belief, knowledge.
Another parallelism is that written language and spoken language can be precise if a person use carefully them.

We know, that we need to learn to speak and write. But there is a big difference in time. We begin to learn to speak from the age of two (circa), while we learn to write only at the age of seven or eight.
When we use written language, we have more time to think, to correct, to rewrite our thoughts, ideas, we can be more precise and accurate. But when we speak, we do not think too much, this cause that we commit mistakes on vocabulary and grammar level.
There is a Latin maxim: "Verba volant, scripta manent." - which means, that writing can lost long, while the spoken word slips away like a bird.

Summing up, the biggest similarity between written and spoken language is that both require learning, and the biggest difference is marked by time.

(255 words)

Used literature:
Differences Between Oral and Written Communication, by Vincent Ferraro and Kathryn C. Palmer https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/speech/differences.htm Advenced Composition for Non-Native Speakers of English http://www.eslbee.com/compcont.htm Written Language vs. Spoken Language

Similar Documents

Free Essay

Spoken

...LANGUAGE WRITTEN AND SPOKEN, WHICH ONE IS MORE IMPORTANT? INTRODUCTION As we already know for humans since childhood becomes easily to learn spoken language before written language. However, after learn how to speak, written language becomes more stable than spoken language, it is because human rely on their eyes more than ears. Since spoken language and it written form represent the same meaning, it is necessary to find out which is determinate and which is secondary. In this report will be explained which characteristic of the language is more important. GENERAL ASPECTS First of all, we must separate speech and writing. We know that speech and writing are two forms of human language. Speech and writing both represent meaning. They both possess language's property. To work around the concept 'language' that is a term for both speech and writing, we do not regard them as language, but as visual and auditory info. Apparently, the fundamental distinction between speech and writing is: speech is auditory (acoustic), while writing is visual. Since we are born we are capable to learn real life sounds, so that we are also able to reproduce this sounds whereby spoken language may be more effective than written language on the other hand sometimes speech and writing are the same. Some people like writing more than speaking. Speaking is more important in public gathering, while writing more important for making notes. In terms of usage, neither of speech and writing has absolute...

Words: 1333 - Pages: 6

Free Essay

Oral Language

...------------------------------------------------- Oral Language: Introduction Oral language is about speaking. This section describes what happens when people talk. For most of the time, we take oral language for granted. Young children appear to learn to speak without the intervention of parents or teachers. It just seems to happen naturally. When something goes wrong with speech - through deafness, strokes, accidents - we begin to realise what a complex achievement it is. Someone learning or teaching English as a second language will also be conscious of the complexities of oral language. In writing this section, we were very aware of the unsuitability of the written medium for discussing spoken language. It is much easier to describe syntax and morphology because these appear in the written form of the language, which is what books are designed for. Writing involves no sound; the symbols are taken in by the eye. When we speak, however, we are using organised sounds that are taken in by the ear. It is very much harder, therefore, to convey spoken language because understanding depends on being able to hear different sounds, rhythms, and patterns of intonation. The examples need to be heard rather than seen. This part of the book can deal with only some of the concepts and information about speech and suggest other elements to look for. A videotape, entitled Oral Language, accompanies this book. We were also aware that for most teachers, the study of oral language is completely new territory. We...

Words: 1551 - Pages: 7

Premium Essay

History of English

...English language 1. Some effects of the Renaissance. The introduction of printing and the fixation of the written standard. 2. Growth of Literature in the Early English Language. 3. The formation of the spoken standard. 4. New sources of information about Language History in the 15th and 16th Centuries. The formation of the national English language, or Standard English, is considered to date from the period between the 15th and the 17th centuries. After that time the language continued to change, so one can speak of the evolution of Standard English instead of tracing the similar or different trends in the history of its dialects. We must mention at least two of the external factors that led to this development: the unification of the country and the progress of culture. Other historical events, such as the increased foreign contacts, produced a more specific kind of influence on the language: they affected the wordstock. The changes in the economic and social conditions were accompanied by the intermixture of people coming from different regions, the growth of towns with a mixed population, and the strengthening of social ties between the various regions. All these processes played an important role in the unification of the English language. All over the world the victory of capitalism over feudalism was linked up with the consolidation of people into nations and the unification of the regional dialects into a nation language or rather...

Words: 2058 - Pages: 9

Free Essay

Typography and Expression

...Expression starts from thoughts, which takes shape of words. Spoken word is very different from written. Having said that, all of us would agree as to how the closest form of verbal expression is written. Does this arise from a mere lack of choices (our ancestors and their developments to the field of language), or is there really something that despite of all its negativities, is as effective a tool as Text? Linguists and minions alike strive to revive the Art of Conversation, one where two or more people are in each others’ vicinity so as to not miss out on nuances of facial expression, that further reinforce what someone has to express; because that to them is expression in its purest sense. Though it is not always possible to face the person you are talking to, voice alone acts as expression; thus making it somewhat difficult to assume what someone is doing while a deep conversation is in progress over the phone. Where a verbal conversation is not possible, people prefer to write what they want to say. (Chat, mail, the lot) Literature also acts as an effective carrier of culture in the form of language; whether it is as efficient as dialogue or not, is debatable. Language : the ease with which a person expresses him/herself in a more tangible format than thoughts. Language as we now know, keeps us from being savages because of how effortlessly and naturally we use it, both in vocal and written form to emote. Language over the years has come to be a lynchpin in the machinery...

Words: 854 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Applying English Grammar: Functional Vs. Written Language

...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...

Words: 766 - Pages: 4

Free Essay

The Arab Language History

...The Arab Language History Arabic belongs to the Semitic family of languages, which also includes Hebrew, Syriac, Aramaic, and several languages of Ethiopia, such as the Amharic and the Tigrinya. Arabic and Hebrew are the only Semitic languages that are still used today both in their writing and speaking forms. Arabic is widely spoken on two continents, from North Africa to the Arabian Peninsula. It is the official language of twenty countries with more than 220 million inhabitants, placing it among the top ten languages of the world in number of speakers. The numerical, political, cultural, and religious status of the language was formally recognized by the United Nations in 1973 when Arabic was made the sixth official language of that body (the others are Chinese, English, Russian, French, and Spanish). Most people know that Arabic is the written and spoken language of the 220 million people of the Arab world, but few realize that the Arabic script is used by approximately one-seventh of the world's population. Its alphabet, with some modification, is used to write non-Semitic languages as well, such as Persian, Urdu and Kurdish (i.e. The Arabic Zaa' with the addition of two dots, becomes the sound 'Zhe' as in Zhivago; the Arabic Faa' with the addition of two dots, makes the 'V' sound and so on—sounds that do not exist in Arabic, but do in Kurdish, Persian and Urdu). The Turkish language employed Arabic script until the 1920's. Several African and Asian languages, such as...

Words: 5355 - Pages: 22

Premium Essay

Historical Papers for Sixth Formers

...English Language – comparing spoken and written language (film review) I will be comparing the crudely spoken Tron film review to its well written counterpart. Firstly, I can see that the spoken ‘review’ is very spontaneous as both people look to compliment what the other says with agreement and they both use phatic talk and hedging to vaguely outline to each other why the think the film was good, “very good film actually” “yeah. He’s very good”. In comparison, the written film review is obviously planned as it is checked before publishing and it uses sophisticated language to depict what happens in the film and how it is presented, “After that, it gets sluggish and the visuals-as so often happens in 3-D films-are far too dingy”. This analysis of the film creates a sense of professionalism as it not only criticises the film but the way it is presented also, showing the reviewer has taken into account more than one aspect of the overall presentation of the movie. The audience for the spoken conversation will be aimed at a younger teenage audience as there are lots of pauses and very little informational dialect involved, “yeah (.) He’s very good (.)”, this means it is easy to understand and interpret. The written review on the other hand, is aimed at more intelligent/developed people and goes into detail to give the reader a detailed analogy of the film and its presentation, “Tron would like to evoke the future”. In the spoken review, there are three voices which are very much...

Words: 595 - Pages: 3

Free Essay

Academic Writing

...is in the standard written form of the language.There are eight main features of academic writing that are often discussed. Academic writing is to some extent: complex, formal, objective, explicit, hedged, and responsible. It uses language precisely and accurately. Complexity Written language is relatively more complex than spoken language. Written language has longer words, it is lexically denser and it has a more varied vocabulary. It uses more noun-based phrases than verb-based phrases. Written texts are shorter and the language has more grammatical complexity, including more subordinate clauses and more passives. Written language is relatively more complex than spoken languageWritten texts are lexically dense compared to spoken language Written language is grammatically more complex than spoken language. Formality Academic writing is relatively formal. In general this means that in an essay you should avoid colloquial words and expressions. In general this means in an essay that you should avoid: a. colloquial words and expressions; ""stuff", "a lot of", "thing", "sort of", b. abbreviated forms: "can't", "doesn't", "shouldn't" c. two word verbs: "put off", "bring up" d. sub-headings, numbering and bullet-points in formal essays - but use them in reports. e. asking questions. Precision In academic writing, facts and figures are given precisely. Do not use "a lot of people" when you can say "50 million people". Objectivity Written language is in general objective...

Words: 624 - Pages: 3

Free Essay

To Do What You Have to

...Language and Literacy As the geographic territory under Roman control grew, the use of Latin as a common language also spread. In areas under Roman control, Latin was the spoken and written language of the courts and commerce, as well as the language of the Christian church. As the Roman Empire expanded, Latin served as a common language that allowed for people of diverse linguistic backgrounds to be able to communicate. Latin, like other languages past and present, had more than one form and changed over time because it was both written and spoken, and the educational level or social status of the writer or speaker often determined the final form of the language. Latin was also influenced by local languages spoken or written within the larger territory under the influence of what later came to be known as the Roman Empire. During the Carolingian Renaissance, throughout the reign of Charlemagne and his successors, the development of Latin literacy was greatly promoted. Although reading and writing were skills that some people had, literacy was not widespread before that time. Literacy in Latin was generally limited to people of the upper classes and members of the clergy. Charlemagne invited Alcuin of York to become his personal tutor and the head of his court school. Charlemagne charged Alcuin with the development of a literacy curriculum for children that would provide for their instruction in reading and writing, as well as for further study in the liberal arts and theology...

Words: 626 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Anthropology and Language

...system is often seen as the best for accurately conveying ideas and all others are somehow less clear or concise. This idea stems from the inherent belief that one’s culture is superior to others. In our culture, our orthographic and verbal universes often do not extend beyond the languages and writing systems with which we are familiar. Our egotism for our own culture and its linguistic systems (by no means a unique feature in the world) only becomes apparent when we choose to, or are forced to interact with other cultures. At a basic and reactionary level, these other cultures with which we interact often feel the same entitlement to chauvinism as ourselves. To objectify and quantify the superiority of ourselves over the “other”, we compare features of other languages with our own. Any feature present in our language but absent in another, is a deficiency in the other language, and any feature it possesses which our language lacks, is seen as superfluous, or an aberration. When we use autometry to measure other languages against our own, those most similar to ourselves inevitably appear better than those that are more dissimilar. If a culture is missing an entire category such as a written language system, then we assume that their deficiencies must be quite fundamental. The anthropological ideas of cultural relativity and linguistic relativity allow us a new perspective. (Duranti, 1997, p. 60) According to cultural relativism, the behaviors and patterns, such as writing...

Words: 1822 - Pages: 8

Free Essay

Why You Should Learn Spanish Before You Learn French?

...Essay Why you should learn Spanish before you learn French? Speaking a new language helps you to get to know another people and culture, as language and culture go hand in hand. Because language simultaneously is defined by the world around us, learning another language opens one's mind to new ideas and new ways of looking at the world. While most of us can't hope to learn the languages of more than one or two cultures other than that of our own, those that we can learn help us to learn how other people learn and think. In North American, most people choose French and Spanish as their second or third language. Many people believe that Spanish is actually more useful than French, and obviously the foreign language most spoken and studied--by far--in the North America is Spanish. Compare with French, Spanish can offer a wealth of literature of Latin language, both modern and traditional. For example, when you are reading a Latin American websites, you may find that you could gain a sense of how other people think and fee if you know Spanish. As a matter of fact, both of the languages belong to the Latin group of languages. Hence, they show some similarities too. On the one hand, French is spoken by the country of France in the continent of Europe. On the other hand, Spanish is spoken in the country of Spain in the continent of Europe. However, French and Spanish are two languages that show enormous differences between them when it comes to the pronunciation of their...

Words: 1469 - Pages: 6

Premium Essay

Business Man

...Explore the ways power an authority shape spoken language using the extract from the boardroom scene in the apprentice In this essay I shall be analysing ways that power and authority and used through spoken language in the board room scene and many sections of the Apprentice. Firstly The differences between spoken and written language is that, spoken language are the different ways which people communicate verbally, For example some people could speak with an accent or with some slang words or fillers, this is spoken language, the way you speak. Written language is different because it’s what you write and it doesn’t always contain accents, dialect, or fillers etc. My reason for choosing to look at the sections of the apprentice is because we see that in the apprentice a lot of language is used to show power and authority between the candidates and Lord Sugar, therefore I shall analyse language during the apprentice in this essay and show how power and authority is shown. When talking about spoken language we know that many people are judged by how they talk and the language in which they use. Nowadays everyone is expected to speak Standard English because they think if you do it makes you seem and look like a better person. For example we see that if someone was to talk Standard English people would assume they are well educated, literate and classify them as being middle-higher class person. However if someone was to not speak standard English then they would be seen...

Words: 377 - Pages: 2

Free Essay

Short Messages Service

...SMS Text Analysis: Language, Gender and Current Practices Muhammad Shaban Rafi1 Abstract This article tests the assumption that SMS language is like a pidgin in every speech community. The article also examines the assumption that a great motor of SMS lives among females whose lexical and morpho-syntactic choices are different from males. It further speculates influence of SMS language on language of media. One hundred messages were taken randomly from 20 cell phones and perceptions of 25 males and 25 females were recorded on an ordinal scale for analysis. The text was analyzed to look into lexicology, morphology and syntactic levels of texters, and influence of SMS on language of commercials. The results show that a novice intelligible language has evolved through SMS, which is influencing language of media. A significant difference is found between male and female texters’ linguistic properties. Introduction Short Message Service (SMS) language tends to create a novice language, which has become an integral part of the multilingual world. It pursues simple sentences structure for communication. It is assumed that SMS syntactic and lexical choices by the texters are not so different from a child language. A child expresses his feelings through simple present progressive tense e.g. mom eating for ‘Mom is eating’ and Eating for ‘I am eating’. The empirical data show that SMS language over-looks orthographic and syntactic rules of a language with a great emphasis...

Words: 8425 - Pages: 34

Free Essay

Vernacular Languages

...Vernacular language is native of a particular group, region or country; mainly spoken as opposed to written. Until the 12th century, Latin was the language used among the educated and within literature. It is no surprise that Latin had such an impact on the medieval world. Latin owes its dominance to the rise of the Roman Empire from several hundred years B.C. to its demise around 1200 A.D. All through the time that it reigned supreme, Rome exported not only its values, architecture, law and art, but also its language. When the empire began to fall, the Latin language began to lose its hold on the people of Europe and North Africa. Since the empire began shrinking as early as the eighth and ninth century it is not surprising that the people living furthest from Rome itself were the first to undergo a cultural and ethnic revival, an integral part of this revival would be the use of their own vernacular language rather than the use of Latin. Latin became widely spread with the expansion of the Roman Empire. Latin eventually became the dominant the dominant language in the western half of the Empire. There were several Italic languages all belonging to the Indo-European linguistic family, Latin was among languages and its development was influenced by other tongues, including Celtic, Etruscan and Greek languages. All languages undergo development and changes and in each period of its evolution, significant differences between the written and spoken languages of the...

Words: 793 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Cognitive Process Associated with Language

...Cognitive Processes Associated With Language Gwendolyn Spillman, University of Phoenix Cognitive Psychology PSYCH/640 Gaston Weisz March 21, 2014 Cognitive Processes Associated With Language Language is a cognitive function that most humans take for granted. The basic means of communication among individuals is through language. Language allows people to communicate with each other, share his or her thoughts and feelings, share ideas and concepts, fears, and affirmations. Different cultures have different languages as well as vocabulary and grammatically components that each one understands. The goal of this paper is to explain what language is and the many methods behind it, the cognitive process of perception and how it affects language, and the cognitive process of language comprehension. Cognitive Processes Associated with Comprehension There are three processes concerning the cognitive processes associated with language comprehension. These processes begin with the perceptual processes that encode spoken or written words (Anderson, 2010). Parsing is the second stage, in which people try to extract as much information from every word in order to put meaning to a sentence. Individuals will use syntactic cues, such as word order to arrive at an interpretation of a sentence (Anderson, 2010). When sentences contain ambiguity, people will use the principle of minimal attachment to help them interpret a sentence. This is a process where a person will choose an interpretation...

Words: 775 - Pages: 4