David Navarro Sarabia Secondary Unit 5 Updated Edition EPO

UNIT 5

ORAL COMMUNICATION, ELEMENTS AND

RULES DEFINING THE ORAL DISCOURSE.
COMMON ROUTINES AND FORMULAS.
LANGUAGE STRATEGIES.
By

By David Navarro Sarabia

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David Navarro Sarabia Secondary Unit 5 Updated Edition EPO

OUTLINE

1. INTRODUCTION.

2. ELEMENTS AND RULES OF ORAL DISCOURSE.

3. LINGUISTIC ROUTINES AND FORMULAIC LANGUAGE.

4. CONCLUSION.

5. BIBLIOGRAPHY.

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David Navarro Sarabia Secondary Unit 5 Updated Edition EPO

1. INTRODUCTION.
Many of the principles that apply to written communication apply to spoken
communication, as well. That is, you need to organize your ideas, convey them clearly in
individual sentences, and generally avoid distracting lapses in grammar. In some cases,
furthermore, you may need to conduct research, make an argument, and cite sources. If
you have mastered all of these skills, you are on your way to becoming an effective
speaker. Along the way, though, you will need to develop some additional skills peculiar to
spoken communication.
Communication is widely understood as the exchange and negotiation of
information between at least two individuals through a common code.
Brown and Yule (1973), considering other parameters of communication, draw
a useful distinction between two basic language functions. These are the
transactional function, which is primarily concerned with the transfer of information,
and the interactional function, in which the primary purpose of speech is to
maintain social relationships. Therefore, we are faced with a two-sided
phenomenon: on the one hand, communication as the exchange of meaning, and
on the other, communication as a means of social interaction.
Among all the communication codes which are used by human beings , music,
kinesics, sign-language, etc. written and spoken language are the most efficient for
the transmission and reception of information, thoughts, feelings, experience and
opinions. In addition, these linguistic codes are the ones which best define human
communication, since most of the messages we send and receive are expressed
through such codes, the majority of them orally.
Focusing therefore on the subject of this unit of study, oral communication
can be defined as a two-way process in which both speaker and hearer must be
present in the same situational context, unless we talk about special cases of oral
communication such as telephone conversations. We are therefore talking about
an interactive situation directly related and dependent on the communicative
function and the speech situation involving speaker and hearer.
In a communicative event both speaker and hearer perform highly complex
processes. They must encode and decode messages under time pressure always
bearing in mind their purposes for interaction.
Quoting R. Scott (Johnson, K et a 1981: 70)
” Oral communication is typified as an activity involving two (or more) people
in which the participants are both hearers and speakers having to react to
David Navarro Sarabia Secondary Unit 5 Updated Edition EPO

what they hear and making their contributions at high speed. E ach
participant has an intention... (...). Each participant has to be able to
interpret what is said to him, (...) and reply with what language he has at his
disposal in a way that takes account of what has just been said and which
reflects his own intentions, at this point in the interaction.”
The complexity of the process results in syntactic alterations, the need for
tags to negotiate the intended meaning as well as a misuse of links and the use of
time fillers such as "er" or "um" to hold the channel. The oral message therefore,
unlike the written language where sentences are carefully structured and linked
together, is often characterised by incomplete and sometimes ungrammatical
utterances, and by frequent repetitions and types of overlapping.
The apparently chaotic oral message would be difficult to interpret, as M.
Geddes (Johnson, K et al, 1981:70) points out, without the help of our knowledge
of the meaning of gestures, facial expressions, body postures and eye -contact.
The use of these paralinguistic codes together with the help of prosodic features
such as pitch, stress, intonation or rhythm are important aspects of oral
communication.
At classroom level, the content of this unit connects with all the different
strategies put into practice within the day-by-day planning which implies the active
use of L2, mainly through speaking activities referred to:
 Dialogues.
 Interviews.
 Surveys.
 Role-play activities.
 Drama activities.
 Simulation Activities.
 Exchanging oral information.
Thus, getting used to communicating according to the interlo cutor’s
characteristics, the appropriate context, and the appropriate communicative
situation.

2. ELEMENTS AND RULES OF ORAL DISCOURSE.

• Elements.
David Navarro Sarabia Secondary Unit 5 Updated Edition EPO

The nature of oral communication makes oral discourse con tain redundant
information, so it is important to point out that it is not only the words we utter that
matter, but also many other linguistic and extra -linguistic elements which reinforce
our words.
o Linguistic Elements.
At a linguistic level, prosodic elements provide us with that extra information
needed to help oral communication. These prosodic elements are: stress, rhythm
and intonation. Routines are also important but will be dealt with separately in part
III.
A) Stress.
Stress occurs when we give more emphasis to some parts of the utterance
than to other parts; we can make a syllable stand out with respect to its
neighbouring syllables in a word or we can make some words stand out with
respect to the rest of the words in a longer utterance.
Within a word one or more accents can be found. The most important one is
called primary stress and the second is called secondary stress, e.g.:
"secre'tarial".
It is very important for students of the L2 to apply this, that is, to stress the
right syllable. If, by error, the stress in a word is changed, it may sound completely
different and could confuse the hearer.
Closely related to stress is emphasis. Emphasis is essential in oral
transmission of ideas because it gives sense to what we say. In a sentence there
are words that must be highlighted as the most interesting so as to understand the
correct meaning and sense of the sentence.
B) Rhythm.
Rhythm is another important element within the prosodic elements that
characterise oral communication. It is the relationship between accents and
pauses. In a more theoretical way, we can say that rhythm is determined by the
succession of prominent and non-prominent syllables in an utterance.
If that relationship takes place in short or equal units of time we obtain a quick
and monotonous rhythm. This absolute isochrony will seldom be found in real
speech. If, on the other hand, those units of time are longer of irregular, rhythm will
be inexistent or chaotic.
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In this way contrasts in rhythm are very important to give expressiveness and
sense to our speech. Spanish students of English as a L2 must pay attention to
rhythm because they tend to make it monotonous as Spanish rhythm is.
Closely connected with rhythm is pause. This feature may either be
predictable and then fit in naturally within the rhythm groups, or on the other hand,
it may break these rhythm groups in unpredictable places, particularly in
spontaneous speech.
Predictable pauses are those required for the speakers to take breath or to
separate grammatical units (sentences, clauses). They are predictable as they
coincide the boundaries of the rhythmic groups.
E.g.: "My sister, who lives here, is a teacher"
Unpredictable pauses are those produced by hesitation or f alse starts, and
they may occur at any point in the utterance.
Used properly they contribute to keeping attention as they easily allow voice
inflection, change of intonation and change of meaning.
E.g.: "I liked that film. It was called...er, I've forgotten!"
However, if they are used wrongly they can be confusing for the hearer, like
the use of inadequate punctuation in a written text.
C) Intonation.
Intonation is the rising and falling of voice during speech, e.g.: in statements,
we generally use falling intonation and in questions we use rising intonation.
It can be assumed that in most situations speakers make use of a "normal"
intonation and any departure from that norm will show special effects (anger,
incredulity, enthusiasm). In this way tone can, to a great extent, be responsible for
changes of meaning. L2 learners must take into account the different intonations if
they don't want to be misunderstood in a real situation.
In general, three basic attitudes can be established:
a) Falling tones tend to be conclusive, the utterance ends and there is nothing
further to be added. They suggest certainty, determination, and confidence:

I'll do it.
Rising tones tend to be inconclusive, the speaker has not finished the
utterance and intends to continue or not to continue, but the rising tone implies
that something has been left unsaid. It suggests query, indecision and doubt.

David Navarro Sarabia Secondary Unit 5 Updated Edition EPO

I'll do it,....if you help me.

b) Upper range tones generally indicate animation on the part of the speaker.
Lower ranges are more frequently used to express an unanimated attitude.
c) Wide range of tone can be said to be more emotive than narrow ranges
which tend to be unemotive: when telling fairy-tales to children we use wider
ranges than usual.
As we can see, intonation, together with rhythm, has an important role to play
in the expression of emotions and attitudes.
o Extralinguistic Elements.
At an extralinguistic level in oral discourse, it is important to consider non-
verbal elements of communication such as facial and bodily gestures and the like.
We cannot consider verbal communication without remembering that the
whole body takes part. The body and its movements are very important in oral
communication, in fact it is clear that sometimes, a slight movement of our
shoulder or the expression that hand movements transmit, are more revealing than
a hundred words. A person can, without speaking, express sympathy, hostility or
indifference by means of those body and face movements called gestures.
Gestures are universal features, and we have to refer to that universality in
order to understand their importance when communicating. It has to be taken into
account that some non-verbal behaviour seems to be "natural" to all humans; in
fact, most features of non-verbal communication are language and culture specific
and are learned in the same way verbal behaviour is learned.
Gestures are word complements and sometimes they even replace w ords.
They have been defined as those body or face movements made on purpose to
reinforce or demonstrate what we say. There are several kinds of gestures:
− Those made with our hands and arms.
− Those made with our head and shoulders.
− Conventional ones such as pointing, denial, refusing, etc.
− Gestures used to describe things like size, strength, speed, etc.
− Facial gestures.
We must bear in mind the necessity of spontaneity in gestures if we want
them to be effective. This is why there is a lack of concrete rule s to govern
gestures, just because those roles would affect natural manner and spontaneity in
oral communication.
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To conclude with this point, regarding extralinguistic elements, we will

consider facial gestures. The importance of facial expression in comm unicating,
ideas and feelings is generally acknowledged. These expressions are often more
eloquent than words and some of them are universal and always convey the same
emotions. Some typical features are:
− Surprise: raised eyebrows.
− Agreement: nodding.
− Smiles.
• Rules.
Language is defined as a system of interrelated signs. In the description of
the units of language, each of them acquires its real significance only when the
whole, or the complete system, is referred to. Therefore, it should not be forgotten
that when dealing with discourse, which is the heart of the language system
observable in text, the use of rules at the three levels (phonetic-phonological,
morphosyntactical and semantic) depends both on the general communicative
function and on the actual situation of production and reception of the message. As
a consequence, a communicative approach to language teaching goes beyond the
sentence and must account for textual globalising.
According to this, we have structured this section under two headings,
namely: rules of usage and rules of use. Rules of usage concern the language
user's knowledge of linguistic or grammatical rules, whereas rules of use concern
the language user's ability to use his knowledge of linguistic rules for effective
communication. Rules, therefore, have two different implications: the construction
of effective communicative text and their adequacy in specific communicative
events.
In this section about rules, we could also point out the distinction between
rule for native speakers and rules for foreign language learners.
On the other hand, linguistic knowledge is unconsciously acquired by native
speakers. However, the same unconscious ability to speak and understand and to
make judgements about sentence correctness reveals their kno wledge of the rules
of their language. This internalised, unconscious set of rules represents what
Chomsky called competence.
In is then our business as teachers to make our pupils develop this
competence, which, whilst unconsciously acquired by native spe akers, needs to be
"learnt" by our pupils.
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o Rules of Usage.
Language can be viewed as the ability to speak and be understood by others
who know that language. This means, one has the capacity to produce sounds with
certain meanings and to understand or interpret the same sound produced by
others. This language capacity involves certain linguistic knowledge which
traditional grammarians have analysed according to four (or three, depending on
how we group them) levels of organisation, namely: phonetic -phonological,
morphological, syntactic and semantic levels).
Phonological
Phonological knowledge allows a speaker to do things such as produce
sounds which form meaningful utterances. To recognise a foreign "accent", to add
the appropriate phonetic segments to form plural and past tenses, to produce
aspirated and unaspirated voiceless stops in the appropriate context or to know
what is or is not a sound belonging to that language.
Although knowing the sounds (the phonetic units) of a language is only a small
part of the phonological knowledge of a native speaker, this will be our main target
as foreign language teachers. When learning a foreign language we have to learn
which speech sounds occur in the target language and how they pattern according
to regular rules.
Morphological
The fact that the internal structure of words is subject to rules is easily seen
in the following example. Nobody would doubt that words such as uneaten, or
unadmired are words in English, whereas *eatenun or * admiredun are not. That is
due to the fact that in English we do not form a negative meaning of a word by
suffixing "un", but by prefixing it.
By means of these morphological rules and many others, new words have
entered the dictionary and continue to so. These new words, depending on the
rules applied in their formation, are called derivatives, compounds, blends or back -
formations.
Rules such as the ones that determine the phonetic form of the plural
morpheme or the formation of the past tense of verbs in English are called
morphophonemic rules, because their application is determined by both the
morphology and phonology.
Syntactic
David Navarro Sarabia Secondary Unit 5 Updated Edition EPO

As we mentioned earlier in the topic, knowing a language also includes the

ability to put words together to form phrases and se ntences that express our
thoughts. That part of the grammar that represents a speaker's knowledge of the
structure of phrases and sentences is called syntax.
In English and in every language, every sentence is a sequence of words, but
not every sequence of words is a sentence. Sequences of words that conform to
the rules of syntax are said to be well-formed or grammatical and those which
violate the syntactic rules are therefore ill-formed and ungrammatical.
However, the rules of syntax do not only account for the grammaticality of
sentences. They also account for the double meaning, or ambiguity or expressions
such as fresh orange juice which could be interpreted either as orange juice which
is fresh or as a juice made out of fresh oranges. Syntactic rules also reveal the
relations between the words of a sentence, and tell us when structural differences
result in meaning differences and when they do not. And finally, it is also the
syntactic rules which permit speakers to produce and understand an unlimited
number of sentences never produced or heard before, which has been called by
linguists the creative aspect of language use.
Semantic
Semantic is the part of our linguistic competence responsible for our capacity
to combine words to produce phrase and sentence meaning.
We are not free to change the meanings of words at will, for if we did we
would be unable to communicate with anyone. However, the capacity to speak a
language involves more than just knowing the meaning of words. We comprehend
sentences because we know the meaning of individual words. We know the
meaning of individual words, and we know rules for combining their meanings.
As an example, let us mention the semantic rules governing the expression
"The red balloon". We know the meanings of "red" and "balloon". The semantic
rule to interpret the combination "red balloon" adds the property "redness" to the
properties of "balloon". The phrase "the red balloon", because of the presence of
the definite article "the", means "a particular instance of red ness of balloonness".
A semantic rule for the interpretation of "the" accounts for this.
There are many more kinds of rules involved in the semantics of the
sentence. Just to mention a few of them as examples: rules to interpret
prepositional phrases, those to interpret the different semantic relationships
determined by verbs, adverb-verb relationships or verb-subject number concord.
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Although linguistic rules are broken everyday by everybody, there are three
kinds of semantic rule violation which have been institutionalised, namely:
anomaly, a violation of semantic rules to create "nonsense"; metaphor or nonliteral
meaning; and idioms, in which the meaning of an expression may be unrelated to
the meaning of its parts. For example:
Anomaly: "My brother is an only child"
Metaphor: "Walls have ears"
Idioms: "Pull one's leg".
o Rules of Use.
Having dealt with the grammatical rules that speakers of a language use in
order to produce grammatically correct sentences, we will move on to another set
of rules used in order to produce effective communicative texts. By this we mean
that when we speak or write we need to take into account other parameters apart
from just the grammatical.
Nobody would doubt that the following utterances are an example of a correct
English sentence.
"My name is Sarah"
However, if the same sentence is produced in the following linguistic context:
A: Could you tell me the time, Please?
B: My name is Sarah.
We would hesitate to say that B had a good knowledge of English. That is due
to the fact when we learn a language, apart from learning the grammatical rules we
also learn how to use sentences appropriately. We learn to construct texts
according to rules of appropriateness, coherence and cohesion.
Appropriateness
Any language presents variations. In other words, not all the members of a
linguistic community speak or write in the same way. We also find that the same
speaker does not always use the same variety of language irrespective of the
situation. On the contrary, each person chooses the language variety and the
appropriate register according to the situation. In order to do so, he takes into
account factors such as: the topic, the channel of communicati on, the purpose, or
the degree of formality.
Coherence
Everybody has the experience of talking to someone who speaks too much or
to someone who is difficult to follow because he does not explain things enough.
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These two opposite examples make us think that there is a certain amount of
information which is necessary whereas other information is irrelevant or
redundant.
In the following exchange we will find examples of redundant information
which makes communication slow and difficult.
A: Well, did you talk to her?
B: Yes, I did talk to her.
A: When did she say the parcel would be returned?
B: She said the parcel would be returned tomorrow.
The underlined items are actually superfluous, stopping communication from
being direct. That is due to the fact that un necessary repetition of what is already
known or given over-shadows the important, unknown parts of the proposition.
Apart from selecting relevant information, a speaker or writer also needs to
structure the content of his message. If we do not organise in formation in a logical
and comprehensible way (introduction, development, conclusion...)
Cohesion
As we say earlier in the unit, there is a wide range of semantic and syntactic
relationships within the clause. However, when dealing with texts we need to t ake
into account the ways in which sentences are related to each other forming a
cohesive unit. There are four devices in English by which cohesion is created: by
reference, ellipsis, conjunction, and lexical organisation.
According to Halliday (1985), these four devices are defined as follows:
Reference: "A participant or circumstantial element introduced at one place in
the text can be taken as a reference point for something that follows (*). Words
such as "the" and "he" do this.
(*) (the writer or speaker can also refer forwards to other parts of the text)
Ellipsis: "A clause, or a part of a clause, or a part of a verbal or nominal
group, may be presupposed at a subsequent place in the text by the device of
positive omission".
As an example, let's take the following exchange.
A: Will you go and get it?
B: No, not me.
Where B's turn is meant to signify: No, I will not go and get it.
Conjunction: "A clause or clause complex, or some longer stretch of text, may
be related to what follows it by one or other of a specific set of semantic
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relations"..."The most general categories are those of opposition and clarification,

addition and variation, and the temporal and causal -conditional".
Lexical cohesion: "Continuity may be established in a text by the choice of
words. This may take the form of word repetition; or the choice of a word that is
related in some way to a previous".
Widdowson sees cohesion as more easily described in terms of rules of use;
i.e.: the devices are actually put to use in conversation, he qualifies them as
procedures.
Cohesion and coherence procedures are therefore considered by him as rules
of performance, i.e.: particular ways of using the existing rules. (Coherence,
however, belongs to the domain of usage, in Widdowson's opinion ).
o Conversational Studies.
The study of conversation as such seems to have just started, according to
Coulthard (1977) it started in 1925 when J.R. Firth urged linguistics to study
conversation in order to have a better understanding of what language is and how
it works. Since then, studies from several fields of study have been undertaken.
For the purpose of this unit we will make reference to three areas of study,
namely: the Ethnography of Speaking, Conversational Analysis and Grice's
Principle of Co-operation.
Ethnography of Speaking
To describe the normative structure of the oral language is one of the targets
of the ethnography of speaking. This branch of sociolinguistics was developed by
Harold Garfinkel and it tries to describe not only the structure of the oral language
but also how language is used in oral interaction i.e.: The rules of speaking: the
ways in which speakers associate particular mode of speaking, topics or message
forms, with particular settings and activities.
Although the number of rules we handle in oral communication is very high,
we use them (in most cases) unconsciously. That is why, the discovery of
communicative norms is not easy and they often become obvious only when they
are broken. For example, one of the rules we follow in conversation is that of
maintaining a certain physical distance with our interlocutors. We all know the
distance we have to keep with a friend during a conversation at the same time that
we know that we can be closer-even touching-when talking to our mother than
when talking to our lecturer or boss. However, we may not be aware of this norm
until someone we have just met tries to keep closer than is socially accepted. In
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this case, this rule breaking becomes meaningful and this behaviour would be
classified as impolite or odd.
One of the basic assumptions of the ethnography of speaking is that
communication in societies tends to be categorised into different kinds of events
rather than an undifferentiated string of discourse, each event having certain
defined boundaries and different behavioural norms appropriate for each kind.
Therefore, rules of speaking cannot be listed in the abstract; on the contrary, they
have to be defined in relation with a particular speech event.
Every speech event - a lecture, a formal dinner, a party, an encounter with a
friend in the street - has its own rules associated, rules which derive from its own
components. The elements or components of a speech event can be easily
remembered by means of the following rule of thumb:
S: setting.
P: participants.
E: ends, purposes.
A: act sequence.
K: key or tone.
I: instrumentalities.
N: norms of interaction.
G: genre.
To illustrate the rules of a certain speech event let's take as an example a
lecture.
Elements of a lecture as a speech event.
− Setting: A room with certain characteristics: a prominent place for the
lecture, a number of seats for the audience and certain visibility conditions.
− Participants: A lecturer (or lecturers) plus a number of listeners.
− Ends: To explain a certain topic or subject.
− Act Sequence: The lecture is supposed to talk from beginning to end
without interruptions. Questions from the audience at the end.
− Key or Tone: Formal but allowing little jokes.
− Instrumentalities: Code: Oral language (one particular language
normally).
− Channel: air but they can also make use of microphones and visual aids.
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− Norms of Interaction: The audience should be in silence listening to the

lecture who is supposed to talk. Nobody leaves the room until the end when
the lecturer thanks the audience.
− Genre : formal lecture. Certain stylistic variety.
Once the components have been formulated the rules can be easily identified.
One rule or more could be derived from each one of the components.
1st: A lecture should be held in a room of certain characteristics (a lecture room).
2nd: a lecture requires one speaker at least and a number of listeners.
3rd: The lectures should talk about a given particular topic.
4th: No interruptions to the speaker are allowed.
5th: It must have a formal overall tone.
6th: The lecturer must speak in English (let's say), although visual aids can be
used.
7th: The audience should be in silence listening to the lectures who is supposed to
talk. Nobody leaves the room until the lecturer thanks the audience.
8th: Standard formal English is expected.
The "existence" of the rules of speaking does not imply that the y have always
to be followed. In fact they are broken many times in everyday conversation,
especially in intercultural communication. However, when both parties are
supposed to share the same norms, the breaking of the rules becomes meaningful.
One of the most remarkable examples of rule breaking can be found in the
16th century English Literature. At that time it was customary for nobles to use
“you" reciprocally, to receive "you" from their inferiors but to address them as
"thou". If a speaker broke the rules, the rule-breaking was meaningful and so they
were able to insult their equals by addressing them as "Thou?".
Conversational Analysis
Some of the findings of sociologists such as Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson
who represent the most advanced positions in conversational analysis, are of
some relevance for the topic under consideration.
In particular, we will deal aspects such as turn taking and conversational
structure.
In conversation, the roles of speaker and listener change in turns whic h
typically occur successively without overlaps or gaps between them.
Sacks suggests that there is an underlying rule in conversation (perhaps less
obvious in Latin societies): "at least and not more than one party talks at a time".
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Although we seem to follow the rule quite effectively, how do we achieve it?
Sacks suggests that a current speaker can exercise three degrees of control over
the next turn.
At the highest degree of control, he can select the next either by naming or
alluding to him / her. In a second degree of control the speaker can constrain the
next utterance but without selecting a particular speaker. And finally, a third option
is to select neither the next speaker nor utterance and leave it to one of the other
participants.
This organised exchange of roles needs certain norms since speakers usually
don't like to be interrupted or ignored in their turns.
In doing so, speakers and listeners make use of certain cues in order to
signal their intentions.
Whereas Kendon (1967) suggests that gaze i n an important factor in the
exchange of roles, Ducan (1973) suggests that the cues can be either
grammatical, paralinguistic, kinesic or a combination of all three. Ducan (1973)
gives a set of six possible cues.
1. Intonation: pitch terminal juncture.
2. Paralanguage: Drawl on the final syllable.
3. Body motion: Hand gesture or relaxation of a position.
4. Sociocentric sequences: Stereotyped expressions such as "but",
"well", "you know".
5. Paralanguage: Drops in pitch or loudness.
6. Syntax: The completion of a grammatical clause.
Regarding conversational structure, very briefly we will mention the findings
which conversational analysis have made about the structure of conversation.
Sacks observes that a conversation is a string of at least two turns. He finds
that there are turns which are more closely related than others. Exchanges in
which the first part of the pair predicts the occurrence of the second are called by
him adjacency pairs. An utterance such as "Good morning" requires the following
utterance, "good morning" from a different speaker.
Adjacency pairs are the basic structural units in conversation. For
conversational analysis, therefore, sequences typically consist of a chain of
different types of pairs. There is a class of first parts which includes questions,
greetings, challenges, threats, warnings, offers, requests, complaints, invitations,
announcements. For some first pair parts the second pair part is reciprocal:
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greetings-greeting. For some there is only one appropriate second part: Question-
Answer, for some more than one, Complaint-Apology/justification.
Grice’s Cooperative Principles.
In Grice's view (1975), and in fact as many other conversational analysts have
argued, we co-operate in a conversation in order to produce a rational and efficient
exchange of information. In other words, assuming that we have accepted the
purpose and direction of the talk exchange, we try to make our contribution as it is
required at that stage in the conversation. According to Grice we do that by
following four maxims, namely: Maxim of Quality, Maxim of Quantity, Maxim of
Relevance and Maxim of Manner.
Widdowson talks about the notion of conversational correctness which he
bases on Grice's Principles of Co-operation. In Widdowson's opinion we behave
conversationally correctly if we produce correct utterances with respect to the four
maxims mentioned by Grice.
Maxim of Quality
A Maxim which requires our contribution to be sincere. We should believe
what we say and we should not say things for which we lack adequate evidence.
As an example of the Maxim of Quality: we would like to mention an interview
shown on TV, where the interviewer, Iñaki Gabilondo, interviewed Al Kassan, the
interviewee. The Syrian businessmen told lies all the time, not adding any
information supporting what he said to be the truth.
Maxim of Quantity.
We should make our contribution as informative as required with respect to
the goal of the exchange. If we deviate from this maxim we normally apologise by
saying "Sorry, but I can't tell you more" or "Sorry, I'm talking too much".
Maxim of Relevance.
An utterance has to be relevant within the conversation with respect to the
stage the conversation has reached.
Maxim of Manner
It concerns the manner of expression, i.e.: avoid obscurity, avoid ambiguity,
be brief and be orderly.

3. LINGUISTIC ROUTINES AND FORMULAIC LANGUAGES.

Man's ability to be creative with language is something obvious but there are
times when he chooses how, when, and why not to be creative, to repeat what has
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been heard and said many times, often in exactly the same form. It is in these
situations that he uses linguistic routines and inside them, formulaic language.
According to Saville-Troike linguistic routines are fixed utterances or
sequences of utterances which must be considered as single units, because
meaning cannot be derived from consideration of any segment apart from the
whole. The routine itself fulfils the communicative function, and in this respect, is
performative in nature. Communication essentially defines the situation.
Routines must be learnt as well as analysed as single units although t hey may
vary in length, from single syllables as in Hi! to phrases as in "How do you do?",
"April fool", and finally they can also be a sequence of sentences, as in the well-
rehearsed pitch of a door-to-door salesman. Because of this, some are learned at
an earlier age than others. For instance, Please! And Thank you! Are usually the
first routines taught to English-speaking children, and in fact they don't know at
first what they are really saying. Saville points out that perhaps the first sign of
acquired meaning comes when a child looks sad or cries when parents say
"Goodbye". This shows that routines are memorised as fixed forms. The process
through which we acquire ritual competence is perhaps the most fundamental
socialisation we make of language.
Non-native speakers of English often complain that native speakers do not
really care about the state of their health when they ask "How are you? The non -
native does not recognise that this question is part of a greeting routine, which by
nature, has no meaning apart from its phatic function in communication. If English
speakers really want to know how someone is feeling, they repeat the question
with contrastive intonation to indicate it is for information and not part of the
routine. Applying this to L2 learners, the teacher must give information about these
linguistic features, so that they won't be lost in a real communicative situation.
Culture is an important aspect to take into account when learning a language.
Pupils must be introduced to the L2 culture so that their learning is complete.
Understanding routines require shared cultural knowledge because they are
generally metaphorical in nature and must be interpreted at a non -literal level.
They include greetings, curses, hiccoughs or other involuntary noises, which often
require linguistic routines to repair the situation.
People are often quite opposed to routines and rituals at a conscious level
because they are meaningless and depersonalise the ideas expressed. One
occasion where a prescribed routine is considered too impersonal is the
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bereavement of a friend, condolence therefore often takes the form of "I don't know
what to say" which has itself become a routine. This contrasts sharply with other
speech communities where fixed condoling routines are considered as essential
components of the funeral ritual.
There are many situations in our lives in which we have to use formulaic
language, as those situations are considered routines. That is the case of rituals.
They are made up of routines but these are given far greater cultural significance
for being part of a ritual context. The meaning of symbols cannot be interpreted in
isolation but only in the context of the meaning of the ritual situation.
Examples of ritual include funeral condolences, magical incantation, religious
ceremonies and so on.
As routines often mark the boundaries of speech events by opening and
closing them, ritual serve as boundary markers for major changes in social status:
weddings, funerals, graduation ceremonies, etc.:
To conclude this point in which we have dealt with formulaic language let us say that
perhaps the most important characteristic of routines and rituals in that literal semantic
value is largely irrelevant. Their meaning is dependent on shared beliefs and values of the
speech community coded into communicative patterns and they cannot be interpreted out
of social and cultural context.

5. CONCLUSION.
At its most basic level, oral communication is the spoken interaction between
two or more people. However, what we intend to teach is that the interaction is far
more complex than it seems. Oral communication is composed of multiple
elements which, when taken as a whole, result in the success or failure of the
interaction, not everyone is an effective communicator.
In order to function successfully academically and professionally, you need
to learn effective oral communication skills. For many, conversational speech
comes naturally. However, in more formal speech, effective co mmunication skills
are essential. A poorly conducted interview, sales presentation, or legal argument
could have ramifications that affect many more people than yourself. By becoming
an effective communicator, you will be able to conduct yourself in a vari ety of
speaking environments.
Oral communication is a unique and learned rhetorical skill that requires you
to understand what you say and how you say. Unlike conversational speech,
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speech in more formal environments does not come naturally. What you will learn
is how to critically think about how you present yourself as a speaker on all
occasions and then how to function in a variety of speaking environments.
Once having studied oral communication, it is worth mentioning some
important aspects dealing with the transfer of information: communication as an
exchange of meaning and communication as a social interaction. We have already
established how efficient written and spoken language is for the transmission and
reception of information, thoughts, feelings, experience and opinions.
Both the speaker and the hearer must be present in the same situational
context.
It is also important to consider non-verbal elements of communication such as
facial and bodily gestures and the like.
We have dealt with daily life situations in which we have to use formulaic
language.

6. BIBLIOGRAPHY.
• Coulthard, R. M., An Introduction, to Discourse Analysis, chapters 3, and 4. New
York. Longman, 1985, new edition.
• Halliday M. A. K., An Introduction. to Functional Grammar, chapter 9. London,
Edward Arnold, 1990, new edition.
• Haynes, J. (1989), Introducing Stylistics, chapter 4. London. Unwin Hyman,
1989.
• Johnson K. Morrow K Communication in the Classroom, Burnt Mill, Essex.
Longman, 1982.
• Saville-Troike. The Ethnography of Communication, chapters 2, and 4.
Baltimore, University Park Press. Blackwell, 1989, 2 nd ed.
• Sinclair, J. A Course in Spoken English Grammar, introduction. London. Oxford
University Press, 1972.
• Tannen, D. 1984. Conversational Style, chapter 8. Norwood, NJ. Ablex
Publishing Corporation, 1990.