Stylistics of casual conversation.ppt

Stylistic features of casual conversation Definition of casual conversation A sample text of casual conversation Stylistic features Effect resulting from the stylistic features Casual conversation is a frequent phenomenon in our life. It refers to the type of conversation which is not motivated by pragmatic purpose such as buying and selling, giving information, making appointments and persuading Casual conversations are identified as everyday verbal interactions in which talk seems to be an end in itself, for example, getting together with friends over coffee or diner and just having a chat aimless appearance and apparently unstructured content Style is not something extra, added on like frosting on a cake. It is the stuff of which the linguistic cake is made: pitch, intonation, lexical, semantic and syntactic choice, rate of speech and turn-taking as well as what is said and how discourse cohesion is achieved. Stylistic features Phonological features Lexical features Semantic features Syntactic features to Frequent use of simple falling tones Variation within the tone-unit 1)—to avoid mechanical repetitiveness 2)– simple falling tone→low rising/ rise-fall tone =＞ effect Frequency of pause and uneven tempo 1) pause--- 2) tempo—slow down =＞ Free occurrence of paralinguistic effects eg: laugh, sob, cry =＞ free, unrestrained emotion home Preference for short words and vague expressions 1) short--syllable =＞ domesticity of subject 2) vague— “I can’t screw up the what’s-it.” Use of colloquial items and idioms and phrasal verbs 1) got, just, sort of, a bit, yeah, cos, just, ok, well, I mean, thing 2) in a minute, the simple truth is, 3) warm up, take to Use lexical hyperbole and of slang 1)hyperbole—awful, terrific =＞ for emphasis 2) slang--- =＞ add raciness