Spoken communication - dynamic, characterized by readiness and immediateness.

   Written communication - static, characterized by preservability and surveyability 
   (přehlednost).

   

   (Vachek, 1976)

   

   Spoken English -

   - lexical sparsity (lexikální střídmost)

   - simple vocabulary (r) potential polysemy

   - vagueness

   - opacity of meaning (neurčitost)

                   caused by    - impromptu speech (nepřipravený projev)

                                      - interactive meaning (i.e. the recipient expects that
   comprehension

                                         will be easy and that he/she will contribute to the
   interpretation of

                                         the meaning)

                                      - approximation (významové přizpůsobování) (i.e. the
   recipient cannot

                                         absorb too much factual and exact information (r) it is
   adapted, i.e.

                                         approximated)

                                      - some meaning is not carried by words, it is signalled by
   paralinguistic

                                         and extralinguistic features

                                      - context-bound meaning

   

   Typical features of the lexicon of spoken language:      

   - short, often monosyllabic words

   - phrasemes, idioms

   - colloquial expressions, slang words

   - interjections

   - discourse markers (e.g. I mean, you know, all right, I see, you see, so, anyway, yeah, ...) 

   - vague expressions (probably, possibly, a little, a bit, a sort of, ...)

   - deixis (r) to give authenticity

   - afterthoughts (dovětky), additional remarks

   - addresses (social deixis)

   - idiosyncratic expressions

   

   (Urbanová, Oakland, Úvod do anglické stylistiky, pp. 24-26)

   

   Written English -

   - social prestige

   - referential function (popisná funkce) - more objective and abstract than in speaking

   - condensation  (complex condensation of meaning) - frequent use of infinitives, gerunds,
   present and past participles; polovětné vazby) (r) economy, accuracy and conciseness of
   expression.

   Part of the nominal tendency in English. Supported by conversion.  

   (r) verbo-nominal phrases: copular verb (take, get, give, make, have, put, set, ...) + noun.

   Also frequent in spoken language.

   

   

   

   

   Grammar  of written English:

   - linear modification (+ punctuation, capitals, paragraphing, graphic layout)

   - complex condensation

   - paratactic, as well as hypotactic sentences (to express adverbial, i.e. causal, temporal,
   local, etc. relations)

   - distinctive lenghth of sentences - with clear boundaries (through punctuation and
   connectors)

   (Urbanová, Oakland, Úvod do anglické stylistiky, pp. 31-35)

   

   

   

   Formality      - social distance (odstup)

                           - official approach  (oficiálnost)

                                  - stiff manners (odměřenost)

   

   The politeness principle        - positive politeness

                                                  - negative politeness

   

   The cooperative principle - maxims of          - quantity

                                                                          - quality

                                                                          - relevance

                                                                          - manner

   (Paul Grice, 1975)

   

   "Varieties of a language according to the use to which it is being put, and the context in
   which it is uttered, are known as registers."  (Fowler, 1996)

   

   4 basic meta-functions of language communication:

     o ideational or experiential -- speaker´s cognitive awareness of the world  (Crystal, 1992)
     o interpersonal  -- to formulate ideologies and beliefs, to exchange views
     o textual -- creation and interpretation of text; message
     o logical  -- to create logical relations in a discourse