Text 1

Monday 5 October Dear Dan, I'm writing you a quick note as I missed you this afternoon. Would it be possible for you to take my first-year stylistics seminar for me next Thursday at 3pm? Because Frank is ill the department needs someone senior to take his place at the University's Admissions Committee meeting, and our beloved leader says I'm the only person who knows all the relevant background details. The meeting clashes with my class, I'm afraid, which will be very difficult to reschedule, and as far as I can see, you are the best person to take it over. I hope you can you help me out. I'd be grateful if you could let me know tomorrow (Tuesday) at the latest. Best wishes, Mick

Our answer:

This is clearly a letter or memo, and so is an example of writing. The graphological layout, and formulaic opening and closing, is typical of a letter. The sentences are well-constructed and some of them (sentences 3 and 4) are quite complex grammatically. This is typical of writing. Writers have plenty of time to compose their sentences exactly as they want them to be. This often leads to longer and more complex sentences than in speech. The lexis is also relatively formal and polite, which is also typical of writing.

Text 2

got a minute dan? sorry to um barge in like this but I need a f-favour - suddenly I can't teach my thursday at 3 class - frank's gone down with some bug and er I've got got to reprerepresent the department at the er the university admissions committee starts at 2 - can you run it for me? yeah no problem you're a mate I owe you one no big deal I've already prepared the stuff for my class

Our answer:

This is a representation of some speech to roughly the same effect as the letter, in the form of a transcription of the conversation. Apart from the question marks, which we've put in to help you, the dashes representing small pauses and the new line each time a new speaker starts, there is no punctuation here. This is because punctuation is a feature of writing, not speech. Besides exhibiting the turn-taking typical of speech, this text contains examples of the non-fluency that is normal in rapid unscripted conversation (so-called 'normal non-fluency'). Because we have little time to edit what we say in rapid conversation, we typically produce 'performance disfluencies' as we speak:

1. the text contains voiced and unvoiced fillers to give the speakers time to formulate what they are trying to say - pauses, 'ums' and 'ers';
2. it has unnecessary repetitions of words and parts of words 'got got to reprerepresent';
3. the grammar is more fluid than the grammar of writing, making it difficult to decide where the sentence boundaries should be (indeed there is an issue about whether speech has sentences in the same way that writing does. At one point the speaker seems to move from one grammatical structure to another, without completing the first ('the department at the er the university admissions committee starts at 2')

The lexis is also much more informal than the memo, as is some of the grammar (cf. the elliptical 'got a minute dan' at the beginning.)

Text 3

From: Short, Mick Sent: 05 October 2002 To: McIntyre, Dan Subject: can you do me a favour Hi Dan I need a quick favour. Can you tyeach my class Tyhursday @3? Frank's got a bug and Tony wants me to take his place at the admissions cttee. Sorry to dump on you. M

Our answer:

This example is clearly an email message, with an automatically generated header. Its header could possible be a memo header, but when typing memo-headers, writers do not normally use '0' before the numbers 1-9. The subject line also contains a couple of orthographical oddities, which could well just be errors. The first word does not have a capital, and there is no question mark to accompany the interrogative grammatical structure.

This kind of disfluency is repeated in the body of the email itself. Typing errors have not been corrected. The informal email between friends or colleagues is often said to be a register which bears a mixture of features associated with speech on the one hand and writing on the other. Essentially, it is very rapid typing, with writing disfluencies (cf. the normal non-fluency of rapid speech) which are often only corrected if they would lead to a communication problem. The use of the abbreviated word forms '@' 'cttee' and 'M', and the elliptical last sentence also indicate informality and the need for speed. But the overall graphological design of the message itself resembles the letter form, and the salutation and signature are informal variants of that form.

Reading:

Crystal, D and D. Davy (1969) Investigating English Style, London: Longman.

Next: Task B - Domain