Lexical Sparsity In Spoken Language

Let us come back to the notion of lexical density. Here is a comparison between a sentence from a written text and a possible rendering ot it in spoken form:

The use of this method of control unquestionably leads to safer and faster train running in the most adverse weather conditions.

This is a single clause; it contains twelve lexical items, so it would have a lexical density of 12. A typical spoken variant might be:

If this method of control is used || trains will unquestionably (be able to) run more safely and faster || (even) when the weather conditions are most adverse

Here the same twelve lexical items are distributed among three clauses: density 4. The second version was still not very colloquial: the aim was to alter the vocabulary as little as possible. A more natural spoken version might go something like the following:

You can control the trains this way || and if you do that || you can be quite sure || that the’'ll be able to run more safely and more quickly || than they would otherwise || || no matter how bad the weather gets

Here the lexical items are control, trains, way, (not do, which is a pro­verb here.) sure, run, safely, quickly, had, weather, gets: ten altogether, including some very common ones. The number of clauses has now risen to five (not counting the embedded one); so the figure for lexical density is down to 2. But notice how this effect has been achieved. It is not by any signi­ficant change in the total number of lexical items. We have abandoned one or two unnecessary ones (leads to, conditions), and replaced one or two others (method by way, adverse by bad); but by and large the vocabulary has remained the same. What has changed is the grammar. Let us check this by taking a text in spoken English and ‘trans­lating’ it into writing:

Or they could be in an aeroplane || and there was a great electrical storm || and they were blown off course || and the electricity made all the radio go dead || so there were no radio sounds || and nobody could hear them

Six clauses with thirteen lexical items; lexical density just over 2. Here is a possible ‘translation:

Alternatively they might be in an aeroplane, || which was blown off course by a violent electrical-storm; || the electricity silenced the radio, || so that they could no longer be heard

Twelve lexical items distributed over four clauses; density 3. Taking a further step in the ‘written’ direction:

As a possible alternative, the aeroplane || in which they were travelling || might have been deflected from its course by a violent electrical storm, || which disrupted radio communication || and prevented them from being audible

Thirteen lexical items, three clauses – again, omitting the embedded one; density just over 4. (Embedded clauses are not counted separately, since they function inside another clause – if they were counted, then the lexical items inside them would have to be counted twice, as they would be occurring bothwithin the embedded clauseandwithin the outer clause.) We shall not continue with the counting – the figures themselves are of no great significance: they are necessary simply to establish the point. On the basis of various samples it is found that a typical average lexical density for spoken English is between 1.5 and 2, whereas the figure for written English settles down somewhere between 3 and 6, depending on the level of formality in the writing. Obviously, the figures themselves will vary considerably according to the theoretical basis of the analysis – criteria for deciding what is a lexical item, and criteria for deciding what is a clause, as well as whether to count only ranking clauses or to include embedded ones. But provided whatever criteria are adopted are applied consistently, the lexical density of written language is likely to be of the order of twice as high as that for speech; and the discrepancy will be greater if other factors such as the relative probability of lexical items are taken into account. In the next section we shall examine what it is that gives this low lexical density to spoken English.

Representing Experience In Talk

If we compare pairs of wordings that are paraphrases ofeach other, one typical of writing, the other typical of speech, we find regular patterns such as the following:

Written Spoken

Every previous visit had left me with Whenever I’d visited there before,

a sense of the futility of further action I’d ended up feeling that it would be

on my part. futile if I tried to do anything more.

Violence changed the face of once The cities in Switzerland had once peaceful Swiss cities. been peaceful, but they changed

when people became violent.

Improvements in technology have Because the technology has improved

reduced the risks and high costs it’s less risky than it used to be when

associated with simultaneous you install them at the same time,

installation. and it doesn’t cost so much either.

Opinion in the colony greeted the The people in the colony rejoiced promised change with enthusiasm. when it was promised that things

would change in this way.

The basis of the distinction is this. Written language represents phenomena as products. Spoken language represents phenomena as processes. And this corresponds to the difference between written and spoken discourse.

Each code represents reality as being like itself. A piece of writing is an object; so what is represented by written language is also given the form of an object. Hence visit, sense, futility, action, violence, improvements, costs, installation, opinion, change, enthusiasm are all nouns.

But when you talk, you are doing; so when you represent by talking you say that something happened or something was done. Hence had visited, had ended up feeling, tried to do, had been, has improved, install, doesn't cost, rejoiced, change are all verbs.

We can express the same thing from the point of view of the reader or listener. When you read, the text is presented to you synoptically: it exists, spread out on the page. So you arc predisposed to take a synoptic view of what it means. Behind it is a tableau – like the pictures from which writing originally evolved. When you listen, the text is presented to you dynamically: it happens, as waves travel through the air. So you are predisposed to take a dynamic view of what it means. Behind it, things are happening – the visual analogue is a film, not a painting.

With modern technology, the distinction is being blurred. We have tape repeaters and transcribing machines that enable us to listen to small chunks of speech, say two to five seconds of it, over and over again, so that it becomes just another kind of thing. And on the other hand, with computers, much of our reading matter is now fed to us in the form ofmoving text, line following line up the screen with only two or three lines visible at a time: here written text has turned into a process.

So the period of our semiotic history which began with the invention of printing in the Tang dynasty in China, and reached Europe just in time for the Renaissance, a period in which speech and writing were pushed very far apart by the application of technology to writing, may now be coming to an end. At least one of the factors that has led to the difference between spoken and written language, the effect of the medium on the message (to hark back to McLuhan’s formulation in the 1960s), may now be disappearing; not that the medium will cease to have an effect, but that in both cases – both speech and writing – the nature of the medium itself has begun to change.

This is not, of course, the only factor involved; there are also differ­ences between what tends to be written about and what tends to be spoken about, reflecting the different functions of speech and writing in our culture. But these are changing too. And just as in the past, when new demands are made on language so the language changes in response to them, as in the centuries after the age of Chaucer in English, now that once again we are making language work for us in ways it never had to do before, it will have to become a different language in order to cope. Exactly how this will happen – and whether we need to inter­vene with some language planning in order to help it to happen – is one of the fascinating problems confronting linguistics today.

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