Differences between writing and speech

Written and spoken language differ in many ways. However some forms of writing are
closer to speech than others, and vice versa. Below are some of the ways in which these
two forms of language differ:

Writing is usually permanent and written texts cannot usually be changed once
they have been printed/written out.
Speech is usually transient, unless recorded, and speakers can correct themselves
and change their utterances as they go along.

A written text can communicate across time and space for as long as the particular
language and writing system is still understood.
Speech is usually used for immediate interactions.

Written language tends to be more complex and intricate than speech with longer
sentences and many subordinate clauses. The punctuation and layout of written
texts also have no spoken equivalent. However some forms of written language,
such as instant messages and email, are closer to spoken language.
Spoken language tends to be full of repetitions, incomplete sentences, corrections
and interruptions, with the exception of formal speeches and other scripted forms
of speech, such as news reports and scripts for plays and films.

Writers receive no immediate feedback from their readers, except in computerbased communication. Therefore they cannot rely on context to clarify things so
there is more need to explain things clearly and unambiguously than in speech,
except in written correspondence between people who know one another well.
Speech is usually a dynamic interaction between two or more people. Context and
shared knowledge play a major role, so it is possible to leave much unsaid or
indirectly implied.

Writers can make use of punctuation, headings, layout, colours and other
graphical effects in their written texts. Such things are not available in speech
Speech can use timing, tone, volume, and timbre to add emotional context.

Written material can be read repeatedly and closely analysed, and notes can be
made on the writing surface. Only recorded speech can be used in this way.
Some grammatical constructions are only used in writing, as are some kinds of
vocabulary, such as some complex chemical and legal terms.

Some types of vocabulary are used only or mainly in speech. These include slang
expressions, and tags like y'know, like, etc.

Differences between spoken and written English

Students need to see the difference between spoken and written English.
The following are some generalizations, to which there are certain exceptions.
1. Permanence
Written discourse is fixed and stable so the reading can be done at whatever
time, speed and level of thoroughness the individual reader wishes. Spoken
text in contrast is fleeting, and moves on in real time. The listener though
he or she may occasionally interrupt to request clarification must in
general follow what is said at the speed set by the speaker.
2. Explicitness
The written text is explicit; it has to make clear the context and all references. In
speech the real-time situation and knowledge shared between speaker and
listener means that some information can be assumed and need not be
made explicit.
3. Density
The content is presented much more densely in writing. In speech, the
information is diluted and conveyed through many more words: there are
a lot of repetitions, glosses, fillers, producing a text is noticeably longer
and with more redundant passages.
4. Detachment
The writing of a text is detached in time and space from its reading; the writer normally
works alone, and may not be acquainted with his or her readers. Speaking usually takes
place in immediate interaction with known listeners, with the availability of immediate
feedback.
5. Organization
A written text is usually organized and carefully formulated, since its composer has time
and opportunity to edit it before making it available for reading. A speaker is improvising
as he or she speaks: ongoing alterations, in the shape of glosses, self-corrections and so
on produce an apparently disorganized 'stream-of-consciousness' kind of discourse. Thus
a written text conforms more to conventional rules of grammar, and its vocabulary is
more precise and formal.

6. Slowness of production, speed of reception

Writing is much slower than speaking. On the other hand, we can usually read a piece of
text and understand it much faster than we can take in the same text if we listen while
someone reads it aloud to us.
7. Standard language
Writing normally uses a generally acceptable standard variety of the language, whereas
speech may sometimes be in a regional or other limited-context dialect. In some
languages (Chinese, for example), the various spoken dialects may even be mutually
incomprehensible, while the written language is universally understood.
8. A learnt skill
Most people acquire the spoken language (at least of their own mother tongue)
intuitively, whereas the written form is in most cases deliberately taught and learned.
9. Sheer amount and importance
Spoken texts are far longer, normally (in the sense that they contain more words), than a
representation of the same information in writing. It is also, I think, true to say that most
people speak far more than they write. Associated with this point is a third: that speech is
more important for survival and effective functioning in society than writing is.

What's the Difference between Speech

and Writing?
William Bright
When we talk about 'language', sometimes we mean speech (spoken language),
sometimes writing (written language). How are they different? Of course, speech is
spoken and heard, while writing is written and read. But there are many other differences:
Age. Speech goes back to human beginnings, perhaps a million years ago. Writing is
relatively recent, however; it was first invented by the Sumerians, in Mesopotamia,
around 3200 B.C. Since then, the idea of writing has spread around the world and
different writing systems have evolved in different parts of the world.
Universality. Humans everywhere can speak. But before the Sumerian invention, people
were nonliterate. Even now there are many nonliterate groups (e.g. in New Guinea), and
many nonliterate people in officially literate societies.

Acquisition. People everywhere start speaking during the first two years of life; many of
the abilities involved are probably inborn rather than learned. Learning to write typically
builds on learning to speak.
Levels of Structure. Speech consists of two types of basic units: 'Phonemes' or units of
sound, which are themselves meaningless, are combined into 'morphemes', which are
meaningful units; so the phonemes /b/, /i/, /t/ form the word 'bit'. Alphabetic scripts work
the same way. In a different type of script, the syllabary, the basic unit, corresponds to a
spoken syllable; Japanese and Cherokee use this system. In logographic script, e.g.
Chinese, each character corresponds to an entire morpheme (usually a word). (For further
information on scripts, see Daniels and Bright 1996.)
Interdependence. Most literate people can convey the same messages in either speech or
writing, but speech typically conveys more explicit information than writing. Hebrew and
Arabic scripts indicate consonants but often omit symbols for vowels. In Chinese, the
symbols that correspond to words may give no indication of pronunciation, or only partial
cues. The spoken and written forms of a given language tend to correspond on one or
more levels and may influence each otheras when 'through' is spelled 'thru'.
Conversely, in spelling pronunciation, people may come to pronounce the 't' in 'often'
even though historically it had been lost. Some formal literary styles, like Classical
Chinese, acquire a life of their own in written form and have little direct relationship to
speech.
Retrievability. Until the invention of magnetic recording, speech could not be captured
or preserved, except by fallible memories and by writing. But writing can be preserved
for millennia. Its permanence has made possible such human institutions as libraries,
histories, schedules, dictionaries, menus, and what we generally call 'civilization'.
Literary Use. Nonliterate societies have traditionssongs, rituals, legends, myths
composed orally and preserved by memory. Such texts may be called oral literature. By
contrast, writing permits what is more often called 'literature', i.e. bodies of text which are
much larger and more codified than memory permits. Yet even in literate societies,
dramatic performance and reading aloud remain important traditions.
Prestige. Written language is associated with political and economic power, admired
literature, and educational institutions, all of which lend it high prestige. In literate
societies, people often come to think of their written language as basic; they may regard
speech as inferior. Nevertheless, writing can be perceived as colder or more impersonal
than speech.
Standardization. Spoken languages have dialectsforms varying across geographical
areas and social groups. But in complex societies that use writing, the needs of
communication encourage moves toward a single written norm, codified by
governmental, educational, and literary institutions. The prestige of the written standard
is then likely to influence speech as well.

Formality. Communication may be formal or casual. In literate societies, writing may be

associated with formal style and speech, with casual style. In formal circumstances
(oratory, sermons), a person may 'talk like a book', adapting written style for use in
speech. Formal and informal styles may be very distinct, e.g. in Arabic, and can virtually
be different languages.
Change. Spoken language, everywhere and always, undergoes continual change of which
speakers may be relatively unaware. Written language, because of its permanence and
standardization, shows slower and less sweeping changes; the spelling of English has
changed much less than its pronunciation since Chaucer's time. This in turn is linked to
the factors of formality and prestige.

Suggested Readings
Coulmas, Florian. 1996. The Blackwell encyclopedia of writing systems. Oxford:
Blackwell.
Coulmas, Florian. 1989. The writings systems of the world. Oxford: Blackwell.
Daniels, Peter T., and William Bright (eds.). 1996. The world's writing systems. New
York: Oxford University Press.
Sampson, Geoffrey. 1985. Writing systems. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Some fragments from an article on the differences

between spoken and written texts
and write formally at school Based upon the principles of Skinnerian behaviorism,
Relational Frame Theory (RFT) posits that children acquire language purely through
interacting with the environment. Most spoken language is spontaneous and rapid and
usually involves thinking on the spot. However, formal spoken language such as can be
accurate, but it's a great deal of preparation and compression. As one speaks, the
audience provides its own visual cues about whether it is finding the argument coherent,
comprehensible, or interesting. Speakers should avoid focusing on single individuals
within an audience. The spoken language utilizes first and second person in spoken
language mainly expresses the speaker's desire of interaction with their participants or
audience so as to get closer to them. Based on this point the monologues of the written
communication uses less of the first and second pronoun compared to spoken language.
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In contrast, in speech the language is more dialogues in nature as there is a dynamic

interaction between two or more individuals.Spoken language is spontaneous and
transient, unless recorded, and speakers can correct themselves. Once spoken, words
cannot be retracted, although one can apologize for a mistake and improvise a
clarification. Halliday said that spoken language is more complex than written language
in terms of its grammatical intricacy. Based on the example given from the LTTC Unit 1
reading materials: Context and shared knowledge play a major role, so it is possible to
leave much unsaid or indirectly implied. Spoken language can be delivered using various
gestures, intonation, inflection, volume, pitch, pauses, movement, visual cues such as
appearance, and a whole host of
other ways to communicate meaning. Some words and constructions
such as
thingamajig

and

whatchamecallit

, and phrases like

bla bla bla

only
occur in spoken language. Spoken language contains less around 16.4% of verbs that
occurs in the non finite clause while in written discourse the non finite clauses accounts
for 27.5% of all the verbs. Spoken register has a lower nominalization frequency There is
a bigger grammatical deviation in spoken language due to local dialects and shortage of
mental processing capacity during conversation as grammatical disfluencies were
transcribed in fidelity to the original speech. Grammatical deviations from the standard
grammar are more frequent in spoken language. Such deviations are due to local dialects
as well as shortage of the mental processing capacity, which seems to be excessively
engaged by focus on the content or other issues. The other factor is
due to speakers language
deficiency. Spoken language accommodates more clauses and prepositions. The spoken
language carries less lexical items, but is more complex in terms of grammatical
intricacy. Normally genre analysis is conducted in written language on the grammatical
and linguistic structure. The studies on grammar, linguistic structures (mainly in
structuralism), and genre analysis have frequently been based and conducted in writing
language. The way spoken language differs from written language lies in their functions.
We can express ourselves intimately in a speech by
I
donno-La, her bf left her
and
hug her friend to console her. In contrast, this situation is rare in writing. Furthermore,
there are some small words like discourse markers in a conversation that does not appear
in written .An example of a

transcript of two teenagers plating Scruples

from Exploring English reproduced by New
Zealands Ministry of
Education:

C: Do you put them face down - hang on H: Oh - ha C: Then we get one ballot card each
and you put them aside until the vote is called V: Oh - sorry Spoken language describes
"actions" while writing, language expresses "things". Halliday, 2002 elaborates that in
many written text, especially the academic genre, there is a buildup of abstraction and
this nominalization turns actions into things. The main differences are sum up in a
comparison chart Basis Written Communication Spoken Communication Form
Essentially words Essentially sound Basic Unit Sentences Tone Group Formality It is
more formal
Would you like to have lunch?
It is less formal unless in planned speech
You wanna have lunch?
Interaction and Feedback It is planned and feedback will take time It is spontaneous with
immediate feedback Accuracy It is more precise as the response is carefully planned It is
less accurate in conversation and is accurate in speech Acquisition The person needs to be
trained and learned The person pick up naturally through exposure and meaningful
communication Record It is recorded permanent There is no record unless effort is made
to record.
Mistakes It is hard to be rectified Once spoken, words cannot be retracted, although one
can apologize for a mistake and improvise a clarification. Legality It can be considered as
a legal document It cannot be admissible as a legal evidence Delivery It can be written on
any surface or medium .It is more organized with paragraphing and can be deliberately
styled using punctuation, headings, layout, colors and other graphical effect letters,
words, sentences, paragraphs etc) have the character of objects It is spoken and in order
to stress intonation , gesture and inflection, volume, pitch, pauses, movement, visual cues
is used. Grammar It is lexically dense and has more verbs based phrase and predicative
adjective. The sentences may have many subordinate clauses and uses less of the first and
second pronoun It has fewer complex words and phrases , accommodates more clauses
and prepositions. It carries less lexical items, but is more complex in terms of
grammatical intricacy Description The writing, language expresses "things". Spoken
language describes "actions"
Conclusion
Halliday (1989, 2007), Tillmann (1997), Aijmer and Stenstrm (2004), Wikberg (2004),
Nelson, Balass and Perfetti (2005), Biber (2006), Miller (2006), McCarthy and Slade
(2007) and Wichmann (2007) emphasize the different nature and aspects of written and
spoken discourse, implicationally instilling the worthiness of further research on the
differences between written and spoken discourse Language is not only the vehicle of

thought, it is a great and efficient instrument in thinking. Both spoken and written
languages are equally important. Both spoken and written dialects are linked to the social
background, age, race, and gender of the writer, speaker and
audience.
References:
Coulmas, Florian. 1996.
The Blackwell encyclopedia of writing systems.
Oxford: Blackwell. Coulmas, Florian. 1989.
The writing systems of the world.
Oxford: Blackwell. Coleridge (n.d.). Quotation on Language. About.com, retrieved from
http://grammar.about.com/od/grammarfaq/f/whatislang.htm on the 25th of May 2014.
Daniels, Peter T., And William Bright (Eds.). 1996.
The world's writing systems.
New York: Oxford University Press English Online (n.d.) Speaking and Writing.
Retrieved from http://englishonline.tki.org.nz/English-

General Information on Spoken Texts

Differences between spoken and written texts
In general, the same rules apply for spoken texts as for written ones:

use simple language

keep subordinate clauses short
prefer verbs to nouns (not: The meaning of this is that , but: This means that )
avoid slang and techy language

As listeners cannot take up as many information as readers, do also keep the following
rules in mind when preparing a text that is to be presented orally:

Keep your sentences short and simple.

Avoid participal constructions. (In written texts they are often used to increase the
density of information in a sentence. In spoken texts, however, they make it more
difficult for the listeners to follow.)

Listeners' attention
You surely know that it is not always easy to follow a lecture or presentation. On the
other hand, imagine how a speaker must feel if nobody is listening. With just a few tricks,
however, you can win your audience's attention:

Speak clearly and slowly. Use simple words and short sentences.
Have little breaks in between the sentences to allow your audience to reflect on
what has been said.
Communicate freely (don't read the whole text from a piece of paper).
Outline to the audience how your paper is structured. (e.g. I will first explain /
Then I will / After that / Finally ) and indicate when you come to another
sub-topic (I will now talk about ). This way your audience can follow your
presentation more easily.
Use pictures and graphics as an illustration.
Use a rhetorical question or hypophora from time to time. Your listeners will think
that you've asked them a question and thus listen more attentively.
Use enumerations starting first / second / third. This also draws your audience's
attention.

Tip: Depending on the topic or your audience, you can also hand out questions that your
listeners have to answer during the presentation, or you announce that there will be a quiz
in the end. That will definitely make your audience listen very attentively.
For an even more sophisticated presentation, use some of the stylistic devices typical for
spoken texts, e.g.:

alliteration
allusion
anaphora
antithesis
hyperbole
hypophora
metaphor
rhetorical question
simile

A joke or a quotation might also help you keep your listeners' attention. Don't overdo it,
however. Using stylistic devices, jokes or quotations where they don't fit in might not
have the effect you want.
Very important: Don't try to show off your knowledge of English using complex
sentences or difficult words. Always keep your audience in mind: they need to follow
your presentation and will therefore appreciate simple language and sentence structure.

Contact
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Features of academic spoken English

Spoken language is different from written language for many reasons. One important
reason is that it usually has to be understood immediately whereas written language can
be read many times. For that reason, spoken language has many different features.
Spoken language has the following characteristics (Halliday, 1989, p. 31):

Variation in speed - but it is generally faster than writing

Loudness or quietness
Gestures - body language
Intonation
Stress
Rhythm
Pitch range
Pausing and phrasing

As well as this, there are differences in the actual language used (Biber, 1988; Biber,
Johansson, Leech, Conrad & Finegan, 1999; Chafe, 1982; Cook, 1997; Halliday,1989).

Less Complex
Spoken language is less complex than written language.
Spoken language is grammatically less complex than written language. It has fewer
subordinate clauses, fewer "that/to" complement clauses, fewer sequences of
prepositional phrases, fewer attributive adjectives and more active verbs than written
language.
Spoken texts are longer. This means that there is more repetition. According to Ure
(1971), the percentage of different words in a text is generally below 40% for spoken
texts and above 40% for written texts.
Spoken texts also have shorter, less complex words and phrases. They have fewer
nominalisations, more verb based phrases, and a more limited vocabulary. Spoken texts
are lexically less dense than written language - they have proportionately more
grammatical words than lexical words.
Spoken language has more words that refer to the speaker, more quantifiers and hedges,
and less abstractness.
^
Spoken language has:

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more verb based phrases

(e.g. having treatment (W), being treated (S), hospital care (W), go to hospital (S))
more predicative adjectives
(misleading statistics (W), statistics are misleading (S))
more pronouns (it, they, you, we)
more lexical repetition
more first person reference (I)
more active verbs than written language
fewer complex words and phrases

Spoken texts are:

more fragmented - more simple sentences and more use of coordination and, but,
so, because rather than subordination (embedding)
lexically less dense
longer

Halliday (1989, p.79) compares a sentence from a written text:

The use of this method of control unquestionably leads to safer and faster train running in
the most adverse weather conditions.
with a typical spoken variant:
If this method of control is used trains will unquestionably (be able to) run more safely
and faster (even) when the weather conditions are most adverse
and a more natural spoken version:
You can control the trains this way and if you do that you can be quite sure that they'll be
able to run more safely and more quickly than they would otherwise, no matter how bad
the weather gets.
The main difference is the grammar, not the vocabulary.
Another example from (Halliday, 1996, p. 347).
The written text:
Obviously the government is frightened of union reaction to its move to impose
proper behaviour on unions.
is more lexically dense than the spoken version:
Obviously the government is frightened how the unions will react if it tries to
make them behave properly.

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Other equivalents are given below (1989, p.81):

Written

Spoken

Every previous visit had left me with a Whenever I'd visited there before, I'd ended up
sense of the futility of further action on feeling that it would be futile if I tried to do
my part.
anything more.
Violence changed the face of once
peaceful Swiss cities.

The cities in Switzerland had once been

peaceful, but they changed when people became
violent.

Improvements in technology have

reduced the risks and high costs
associated with simultaneous
installation.

Because the technology has improved its less

risky than it used to be when you install them at
the same time, and it doesn't cost so much either.

Opinion in the colony greeted the

promised change with enthusiasm.

The people in the colony rejoiced when it was

promised that things would change in this way.

Active verbs
In formal written English, we often use a passive when we do not want to specify who the
agent is. In spoken English we can use a subject such as "people", "somebody", "they",
"we", or "you".
Compare:
They're installing the new computer system next month.
The new computer system is being installed next month. (more formal)
^

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