Spoken and Written Language: Exploring Orality and Literacy

by Deborah Tannen, Roy O. Freedle (Editor)

As discourse analysis has turned linguistic attention to texts, it is crucial to understand the relationship between various kinds of texts. Spoken vs. written modes constitute one of the basic distinguishing characteristics of texts and is a natural stepping-off point for such an inquiry. Furthermore, all the issues of applied linguisticshow language affects and is used in everyday interaction, education, and various special settingswill be enlightened by an understanding of 1) the relationship of spoken to written language, and 2) how language attitudes and conventions associated with orality and literacy influence discourse. This volume addresses these issues of discourse analysis and embodies two crucial features that have characterized much recent work in this area. It is broadly interdisciplinary, including research in anthropology, psychology, and literature as well as linguistics, which is at the core. And it is deeply humanistic, looking at language always in context and as a human endeavor. The authors of these collected papers demonstrate that complexities found in discourse in context reflect not only its spoken or written mode but its interactive goals and genre, register, and speech event all play significant roles. A number of the chapters consider the relationship of literary to conversational language and find them closer, and distinctions between them foggier, than had previously been thought. Finally, we have a view of individuals and societies caught in changing traditions of orality and literacy intertwined with each other and with chirography, print, and technology.

286 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Deborah Tannen is best known as the author of You Just Don't Understand, which was on The New York Times Best Seller list for nearly four years years, including eight months as No. 1, and has been translated into 29 languages. It was also on best seller lists in Brazil, Canada, England, Germany, Holland, and Hong Kong. This is the book that brought gender differences in communication style to the forefront of public awareness. Her book Talking from 9 to 5: Women and Men at Work , a New York Times Business Best Seller, does for the workplace what the earlier book did for women and men talking at home. She has also made a training video, Talking 9 to 5. Her book, The Argument Culture, received the Common Ground Book Award. Her book, I Only Say This Because I Love You: Talking to Your Parents, Partner, Sibs, and Kids When You're All Adults, received a Books for a Better Life Award. Her latest book, You're Wearing THAT?: Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation, was recently published in paperback by Ballantine; it spent ten weeks on the New York Times Best Seller List after its initial publication in 2006.

Deborah Tannen is a frequent guest on television and radio news and information shows. In connection with You're Wearing THAT? she appeared on 20/20, Good Morning America, the Today Show, the Rachael Ray Talk Show, the CBS Early Show, and on NPR's Morning Edition and the Diane Rehm show. The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, 48 Hours, CBS News, ABC World News Tonight, Oprah, CNN, Larry King, Hardball, Nightline, and NPR are among the major television and radio shows on which Dr. Tannen has appeared in connection with previous books. She has been featured in and written for most major newspapers and magazines including The New York Times, Newsweek, Time, USA Today, People, The Washington Post, and The Harvard Business Review.

Dr. Tannen has lectured all over the world. Her audiences have included corporations such as Corning, Chevron, Motorola, Rolm (Siemens), McKinsey and Co., and Delta, as well as the Board of Trustees of The Wharton School and a gathering of United States senators and their spouses. Combining the results of years of research and observation with videotaped real-life footage of office interaction, Dr. Tannen gives her audiences a new framework for understanding what happens in conversations both in the workplace and at home.

In addition to her linguistic research and writing, Dr. Tannen has published poetry, short stories, and personal essays. Her first play, "An Act of Devotion," is included in The Best American Short Plays: 1993-1994. It was produced, together with her play "Sisters," by Horizons Theatre in Arlington, Virginia in 1995.

Deborah Tannen is on the linguistics department faculty at Georgetown University, where she is one of only two in the College of Arts and Sciences who hold the distinguished rank of University Professor. She has been McGraw Distinguished Lecturer at Princeton University, and was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Stanford, California, following a term in residence at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. She has published twenty-one books and over 100 articles and is the recipient of five honorary doctorates. Dr. Tannen is a member of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation Board and the Board of Horizons Theatre.