Conversational Style

Conversational style is also called familiar. This kind of English is also a means foreveryday communication, heard in natural conversational interaction between speakers.So phonetic stylists call it conversational. Some scholars also call it informal, because thisstyle occurs mainly in informal external and inter nal relationships in the speech of rela-tives, friends, well-acquainted people and so on.

In informal situations, where speakers are more relaxed, less attention is given bythem to the effect they produce on the listeners, because in everyday life a more naturaland spontaneous style will be used. It is the style at the extreme informal end of the sty-listic linear continuum that is known as "vernacular" [Brown 1977]. Thus all speakershave a vernacular style but its variations in the use of non-standard norms depend on the social background. In this style variation will be at its most consistent level. It is the most situationally influenced kind of English.

In conversational style the emotional reaction to the stimulating speech signals isvery important so the attitudinal function of intonation here comes to the fore. Therefore one is liable to find here a wider range of contrasts at any level than could be expected elsewhere.

In a conversation we do not just listen to words, we derive the meaning con-sciously or unconsciously from a number of other communicative systems and it couldbe that a lift of an eyebrow, a twitch at the side of the mouth, or a silence tell us morethan a dozen sentences.

But undoubtedly the verbal part of the communication plays a very important roleand has its own systems too but only linked with other effective ways contributed by thespeakers. The full effect is achieved and meanings are exchanged even with strangers and about unfamiliar topics.

Spontaneous, colloquial, informal conversations display certain common linguistic characteristics.

1. Firstly, talks of this kind are characterized by the inexplicitness of the language as the speakers rely very much upon the extralinguistic factors — context, kinesics, etc. This manifests itself in "incompleteness" of many utterances as the context makes it clear what was meant by the speaker, thus making redundant its vocal expression (see example 1):

Example 1

Jane: Well... maybe, but... take responsibility; the... the... you don't needas great a sense of responsibility for you... your kind of work as you doin teaching — all those children, all those parents...

Brenda: No, but you do have your... your... your colleagues at work — you have a certain amount of responsibility to them.

Occasionally, the listeners request recapitulation by all sorts of repeated and echo-ing questions (see example 2):Example 2

Richard: Well, I'm going tonight in fact.

Jane: Tonight? Oh, are you?

Richard: Yes, most nights really.

2. Secondly, conversations are characterized by the lack of planning and the ran-domness of subject matter. They are very often unpredictable, not guided to an overall theme as, for example, in our first conversation.

This is the most changeable variety of the language. It is, however, true that in manyeveryday communications certain semantic blocks are commonly repeated. For instance, the stereotyped exchange of greetings, partings, pleasantries, making acquaintance, start-ing the conversation, arresting attention, making contacts and so on.

One can easily spot phrases of speech etiquette functioning in colloquial talks suchas questions to keep the conversation going, asking for information, expressions leadingup to questions, polite formulas for attracting attention, requesting, agreeing and refus-ing, expressing gratitude and others. These devices and opening gambits are very helpful for speakers to build up conversational unity and are used by native speakers mechanically..

3. The third general feature of the conversational style talks is "non-fluency". Informal spontaneous conversation is characterized by a high proportion of "errors" involvinghesitation phenomena, slips of the tongue and all sorts of overlapping and si multaneousspeech (see example 3):

Example 3

Entire range of vocalic clusters, sounds, non-verbal signals are common in conver-sations, e.g. mmmm, sshh, ah, bn, etc.

Also, one can hear whistles, laughs, giggles, clearings of the throat, snorts and sniffs.

On the grammatical level informal conversation provides delimitation of utterancesand sentences. Other points to be noted on the grammatical level include:

1. High proportion of parenthetic compound types of sentence introduced by you see,you know, I mean, I say and others.

2. Frequent use of interrogative sentence types and very few imperatives.

3.Common use of vocatives, especially in initial position.

4.Rare use of nominal groups as subjects; the personal pronouns are more in evidence, the informal you is quite common in its impersonal function.

5. A great number of question tags.

6. The use of all sorts of repetitions and repetition structures. Even adverbial intensifiers such as very may be repeated several times.

7. The occurrence of contrasted verbal forms (he's, I’ll, I’ve).

8. The frequency of colloquial ellipses.

The most noticeable aspect of everyday conversations is their vocabulary. It is char-acterized by colloquial idioms, the use of words simple in structure, the avoidance of phraseology; also the informality of the text is achieved by the use of words and phrases specific for such conversations, e.g.

Yeah. Right. OK. I see. Oh, yes. Yes, yes. Oh, lovely. Oh dear. Alright. Sure. Good heavens! Thanks! Jol ly good! Really? Come off it! Oh, no! Hey!

and others [Crystal 1979].

On the prosodic level the field researchers provide us with data that help us to dosome generalizations [Crystal 1979; Диалогическая речь 1980].

1. Conversations fall into coordinated blocks, consisting of suprasegmental and supraphrasal units tied up by variations within the length of pauses, speed, rhythm,pitch ranges, pitch levels and loudness.

2. Since there are no restrictions on the range and depth of emotions which might be displayed in conversational speech situations they will allow entire range of prosodic effects.

3. Intonation groups are rather short, their potentially lengthy tone units tend to be broken. These short interpausal units are characterized by decen tralized stress andsudden jumps down on communicative centres

4. The heads are usually level, or rarely, falling. Falling heads occur only in groups consisting of several stressed syllables.

5. As for the nuclei, simple falling and rising tones are common. Emphatic tones occur in highly emotional contexts. High pre-nuclear syllables are very frequent.

6. The tempo of colloquial speech is very varied. The natural speed might be very fast but the impression of "slowness" may arise because of a great number of hesitation pauses both filled and non-filled (hesitant drawls) within the block. However, the speakers may have no pauses between their parts, very often theyspeak simultaneously, interrupt each other. Also a familiar point about informal conversation is the frequency of silence for pur-poses of contrastive pause as opposed to its being required simply for breath-taking. Pauses may occur randomly, not just at places of grammatical junctions. So, tempo is very flexible in this style. It is uneven with and between utterances.

7. Interpausal stretches have a marked tendency towards subjective rhythmic iso-chrony.

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