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"Psycholinguistic Peculiarities of Dialogical Speech"


Автор: Ольга Ивановна Ворник
Должность: учитель английского языка
Учебное заведение: МОУ Софьинская СОШ
Населённый пункт: село Софьино
Наименование материала: статья
Тема: "Psycholinguistic Peculiarities of Dialogical Speech"
Раздел: высшее образование





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Psycholinguistic Peculiarities of Dialogical Speech

O. Vornik, ICE

Summary.

Статья

посвящена

особенностям

устного

и

письменного

диалога.

Особое

внимание

уделено

т.н.

«гендерлекту», который является сравнительно новым аспектом психолингвистики. Анализируемый отрывок очевидно

подтверждает специфику гендерного фактора влияния на характер диалогической речи.

The purpose of the present article is to analyse psycholinguistic peculiarities of dialogical speech upon the basis of written

and oral speech. The matter to be analysed seems not to have a final decision, though the attempts to solve the problem are constantly

made. It is partially due to a wide variety of psychological and linguistic approaches and schools to which such men-of-letters as I.

Galperin, A. A. Leontiev, C. Osgood, T. Slama-Cazacu, L. Vygotsky, L. Iakubinsky, A. Luria, V. Belianin adhere. The analysis was

made upon the basis of various sources to represent a range of dialogues covering the main functional styles. The main method is a

comparative analysis of the data gathered. 31 literary excerpts including oral texts were selected and analysed concerning their

psycholinguistic and stylistic peculiarities.

Let us briefly analyse a pair of communicative forms: the opposition of monologue and dialogue. An excellent definition of

dialogue was given by A.A. Leontiev, “the essential characteristics of dialogical speech are likely to be its situational and reactive

features – the reply of the interlocutor in most cases is a simple restatement or repetition of a question or a remark:

It’s cold. – Yes,

it’s frosty. Are you going home? – Home, certainly. Yes, why? – Well, nothing. etc.” [4]. Dialogical speech is based on the “stimulus –

reaction” scheme, and it has no premeditated programming. The reply of the first interlocutor not infrequently presupposes a

comparatively small variety of possible replies. The speech function of the second interlocutor is restricted to a choice of the most

probable of these possible answers – in this situation and for this given person (“…one replied - Yes, it’s frosty. Another can answer:

- Really?”) [3]. As per its psychological and psycholinguistic peculiarities connected with its reactive character, we have taken into

consideration the works of such men-of-letters as L.S. Vygotsky [2] and A.R. Luria [5]. Both the authors note as the essential

peculiarity of dialogical speech in contrast to monologue “возможности недосказывания, неполного высказывания, ненужности

мобилизации всех тех слов, которые должны бы были быть мобилизованы для обнаружения такого же мыслимого комплекса

в условиях монологической речи.” [2]. Intonation, timbre, mimicry etc. can minimise the impact of the “direct” meaning of an

utterance and even contradict it.

According to L. Iakubinsky and L. Vygotsky, who emphasised the role of automatism in dialogical speech and,

consequently, its “natural character”, dialogical speech is primary in comparison with monologue. According to P. M. Iakobson, [6]

all motives of communication can be subdivided into three main groups: business communication, striving to influence a

communicant or a group of communicants and the necessity for communication.

According to V.P. Belianin [1], the “identification of a person by his speech can be fulfilled upon the ground of indirect

features of a personality, i.e. symptoms of functional state, motivation and emotional background of activities; individual features of

a person; peculiarities of motivational regulation”.

Investigations of men’s and women’s speech, so called “genderlect”, show certain differences between how men and

women speak and write. Thus, men interrupt more often, they are more categorical and bossy, and they strive for managing the

subject of a dialogue. Contrary to the prevalent opinion, men speak more than women. Men’s sentences are shorter than women’s

phrases. Men use more abstract nouns and adjectives while women use more concrete nouns, including proper names, and verbs.

Men use verbs of the perfect aspect in the passive voice more often. Women’s speech discovers a great concentration of emotive and

evaluative lexis while men’s evaluative lexis is mostly neutral. Women incline to intensify a positive evaluation. Men intentionally

use a negative evaluation, including stylistically lowered lexis and invectives, they more often use slang and jargonisms, while

women prefer neutral stylistically coloured words. When using syntactical constructions, men have propensity to use subordinating

constructions and clauses of time, place and purpose, while women prefer co-ordinating constructions and clauses of condition and

concession.

Now let us discuss dialogical speech when the act of communication is realised face-to-face.

John Galsworthy “The Man of Property” [7]

- “Don’t stand there as if you were made of stone!”

Irene laughed: “I wish to God I were!”

But June turned away: “Stop!” she cried, “don’t tell me! I don’t want to hear! I don’t want to hear what you’ve come for. I don’t want

to hear!”

Suddenly she broke out: “I was here first. We can’t both stay here together!”

She tore off her hat and cried defiantly: “You have no right here!”

Irene answered: “I have no right anywhere.”

- “What do you mean?”

- “I have left Soames. You always wanted me to!”

- “Don’t! I don’t want to hear anything! I don’t want to know anything. It’s impossible to fight with you! What makes you stand like

that? Why don’t you go?”

Irene’s lips moved, she seemed to be saying: “Where should I go?”

The dialogue above is developed in a highly emotional way. Though one of the speakers (June) expresses her rage and

disappointment (cried defiantly, tore off her hat, put her hands over her ears, began swiftly walking to and fro), she is helpless

against her interlocutor’s (Irene) soft strength and steadfastness of mind. Her speech is abundant in acute evaluations and clear

negative connotations (You’ve been a false friend to me!, It’s impossible to fight… I don’t want to hear anything. You have no right!

We can’t both stay here!). Nevertheless, she asked a lot of open questions (What do you mean? What makes you stand..? Why don’t

you go? How could you come?) as she is interested in Irene’s replies and strives for knowing more. In Irene’s speech allness terms

(no right anywhere, always) appear, and they are also the indicators of mental stress. The reactions of inhibitory type in her mind

prevails, that is why a kind of echolalia takes place – she repeats and paraphrases the last phrase she hears (You have no rights here –

I have no rights anywhere. Why don’t you go? – Where should I go?). The speech of this dialogue may be defined as communicative -

echolalic, controlled – unconscious, spontaneous, affective.

As it is seen from the analysis made, some common features are peculiar to various excerpts of dialogical fictional speech.

1.

The personality of speakers is reflected in his speech: oral speech of educated speakers is similar to written speech. Interlocutors

do not use words of lowered rank peculiar to oral speech. Speech of illiterate people is abundant in interjections, dialectal words,

vulgarisms, phrasal verbs, colloquial collocations, elliptical constructions and phonetic distortions.

2.

Social rank, educational level, nationality, age and gender predetermine the stylistic colouring of interlocutors’ speech.

Difference in social status also presupposes co-ordinated or subordinated relations between speakers. National traits are

reflected in foreigner’s speech creating a kind of local colouring. Though there is not a yawning gap between men’s and

women’s speech, the specificity of “genderlect” is evident.

3.

Every dialogue is structured: it has such features in common as opening remarks, exchange of information and closing remarks.

Sense gaps are restored in perception.

4.

Stylistic peculiarities of inner speech and monologues are akin to those used by the speakers in their oral or written discourse.

5.

Oral speech is, mainly, of spontaneous character as from the whole stock of words the most familiar ones are extracted from the

memory. Written speech is more premeditated and refined, thus, it is more persuasive and motivated despite the absence of

immediate feedback.

6.

Every excerpt analysed bears a strong imprint of the author’s style, personality, attitude to his characters and modern realia.

References

1. В.П. Белянин. Психолингвистика. М., 2003

2. Л.С. Выготский. Избранные психологические исследования. М., 1956

3. Зимняя И.А. Лингвопсихология речевой деятельности. М., 2001

4. А.А. Леонтьев. Основы теории речевой деятельности. М., 1974

5. А.Р. Лурия. Словесная система выражения отношений. М., 1965

6. П.М. Якобсон. Общение людей как психологическая проблема. М., 1973

7. John Galsworthy “The Man of Property”.



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