differentiating oral and Written language styles 12.1 237
For public speakers, like protestors, it is important to communicate mes
sages both clearly and accurately. At the same time, it is also important to pre
sent those messages in such a way that your audience will listen to, remember,
and perhaps act on what you have to say.
In this chapter, we will focus on the power of language. We will suggest
ways to communicate your messages to other people accurately and effectively.
We will also discuss how the choice of words and word structures can help give
your message a distinctive style.
Differentiating Oral and Written
Language Styles
12.1 Describe three differences between oral and written language styles.
Your instructor has probably told you not to write your speech out word for
word. The professor has said this because there are least three major differences
between oral and written language styles.
• Oral style is more personal than written style. When speaking, you can look
your listeners in the eye and talk to them directly. That personal contact
affects your speech and your verbal style. As a speaker, you are likely to use
more pronouns (I, you) than you would in writing. You are also more likely
to address specific audience members by name.
• Oral style is less formal than written style. Memorized speeches usually sound
as if they were written because the words and phrases are longer, more com
plex, and more formal than those used by most speakers. Oral style, on the
other hand, is characterized by “looser construction, repetition, rephrasing,
and comment clauses (‘you know’).. .”^2
However, there are great variations within both oral and written styles.
One speech may be quite personal and informal, whereas another may have
characteristics more often associated with written style. The personality of
the speaker or writer, the subject of the discourse, the audience, and the
occasion all affect the style of the language that is used.
• Oral style is more repetitive than written style. When you don’t understand
something that you are reading in a book or an article, you can stop and
reread a passage, look up unfamiliar words in the dictionary, or ask someone
for help. When you’re listening to a speech, those opportunities usually aren’t
available. For this reason, an oral style is and should be more repetitive.
When you study how to organize a speech, you learn to preview main
ideas in your introduction, develop your ideas in the body of the speech,
and summarize these same ideas in the conclusion. You build in repetition to
make sure that your listeners will grasp your message. Even during the proc
ess of developing an idea, it is sometimes necessary to state it first, restate it
in a different way, provide an example, and, finally, summarize it.12.1