Enhancing Oral Presentation: Written to Spoken Discourse Tips

1. Writing/Composing for the Ear and the Eye: Or, Why Can’t I Read My Paper/Essay to the Class?

2. Two key (interrelated) characteristics of written discourse M.A.K. Halliday, Spoken and Written Language (Oxford UP, 1985)

3. Two key (interrelated) characteristics of written discourse 1. Lexical density

4. Two key (interrelated) characteristics of written discourse • Lexical density • (lexical or “content” vs. grammatical or “function”)

5. Two key (interrelated) characteristics of written discourse Lexical density 2. Nominal style (including nominalization)

6. Two key (interrelated) characteristics of written discourse Lexical density Lexical or “content” words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, most adverbs) dominate the text.

7. Two key (interrelated) characteristics of written discourse Lexical density Grammatical or “function” words (articles, pronouns, prepositions, and conjunctions) play a subordinate role.

8. Two key (interrelated) characteristics of written discourse Lexical density Challenge: convey (potentially) dense lexical information in oral or spoken form.

9. Two key (interrelated) characteristics of written discourse Lexical density Halliday suggests solution: recognize that “spoken language is more intricate than written”

10. Two key (interrelated) characteristics of written discourse Lexical density Halliday suggests solution: recognize that “spoken language is more intricate than written” which means we need to understand “the intricacy with which information is organized” in oral performance (62)

11. Two key (interrelated) characteristics of written discourse Lexical density Rhetoricians’ tips for intricate information organization:

12. Two key (interrelated) characteristics of written discourse Lexical density Rhetoricians’ tips for intricate information organization: preview

13. Two key (interrelated) characteristics of written discourse Lexical density Rhetoricians’ tips for intricate information organization: transitional devices (e.g. questions, internal summaries, “deictic expressions”)

14. Two key (interrelated) characteristics of written discourse Lexical density Rhetoricians’ tips for intricate information organization: transitional devices can indicate and/or reinforce relationships between ideas

15. Two key (interrelated) characteristics of written discourse Lexical density Rhetoricians’ tips for intricate information organization: transitional devices “even more important than ‘x’ is ‘y’” or “a subsidiary factor in this process is . . .” (value)

16. Two key (interrelated) characteristics of written discourse Lexical density Rhetoricians’ tips for intricate information organization: transitional devices “along these same lines . . .” or “a similar problem exists among” (similarity)

17. Two key (interrelated) characteristics of written discourse Lexical density Rhetoricians’ tips for intricate information organization: transitional devices “in contrast to the views held by . . .” (difference)

18. Two key (interrelated) characteristics of written discourse Lexical density Rhetoricians’ tips for intricate information organization: content repetition (marked)

19. Two key (interrelated) characteristics of written discourse Lexical density Rhetoricians’ tips for intricate information organization: structural repetition (parallelism), lexical repetition (e.g. anaphora), and sound repetition (alliteration)

20. Two key (interrelated) characteristics of written discourse Lexical density Rhetoricians’ tips for intricate information organization: simplify syntax

21. Two key (interrelated) characteristics of written discourse Lexical density Rhetoricians’ tips for intricate information organization: avoid structures more common in writing (appositive phrases and clauses, absolute phrases

22. Two key (interrelated) characteristics of written discourse 2. Nominal style (including nominalization)

23. Two key (interrelated) characteristics of written discourse 2. Nominal style (including nominalization) “Written language represents phenomena as products. Spoken language represents phenomena as processes” (81).

24. Two key (interrelated) characteristics of written discourse 2. Nominal style (including nominalization) “Writing creates a world of things; talking creates a world of happening” (93).

25. Two key (interrelated) characteristics of written discourse 2. Nominal style (including nominalization) products/things (and their characteristics, qualities, etc.) nominal or noun style (written)

26. Two key (interrelated) characteristics of written discourse 2. Nominal style (including nominalization) processes and happenings (sentence subjects that act) verbal or verb style (oral)

27. Two key (interrelated) characteristics of written discourse 2. Nominal style (including nominalization) Exercises

28. Two key (interrelated) characteristics of written discourse 2. Nominal style (including nominalization) Exercises Both are written texts. Do they embody a noun/ nominal style? Do they employ nominalizations?

29. The connection between behavior in the socially real world and dramatic performance is a double link. Much of everyday social behavior and socially consequential actionis itself composed, and often in a fashion which is recognizedat the time as 'theatrical' or is revealedas such afterwards. When we construct special buildings or settings for ritual occasions of many kinds, from judicial proceedings to love-making, when we set scenes and dress up or dress down for a social occasion there is a resemblance, which may not be admittedeven to ourselves, to the enactment of composed theatrical performances by professional actors. Tacitly or explicitly we constantly draw on symbolic references and typifications shared by playwright, actors and audience. This is the basis of the adoption of dramaturgic terminology by social scientists and of its elaboration in the 'mere analogy' of the analysis of social behavior as more or less skilled performance, by Erving Goffman, and as “symbolic interaction” by Blumer, Becker and others.

30. Socially ‘real’ behavior and dramatic performanceoverlap. When we act in real life, we often recognize it, either at the time or later. When we construct special buildings or settings for ritual occasions of many kinds, from judicial proceedings to love-making, when we set scenes and dress up or dress down for a social occasion, we resemble— whether we admit it or not—professional actors. And since, knowingly or not, we use dramatic symbols, social scientists can analyze and assess our behavior as drama (Goffman) or as symbolic interaction (Blumer, Becker and others).

31. Drama is a presentation of interpretationsof everyday social behavior and of consequential action which are, or areofferedfor, good currency. . . . The emergence of modern drama from religious ritual by way of Miracle plays and Moralities is not simply a fact of inconsequential chronology.

32. Drama is a presentation of interpretationsof everyday social behavior and of consequential action which are, or areofferedfor, good currency. . . . The emergence of modern drama from religious ritual by way of Miracle plays and Moralities is not simply a fact of inconsequential chronology. Drama presents and interprets everyday social behavior and its consequences. . . . Modern drama did not emerge from such religious rituals as Miracle plays and Moralities accidently.

33. The cognitive component of intentionexhibits a high degree of complexity. Intention is temporally divisible into two: prospective intention and immediate intention. The cognitive function of prospective intentionis the representation of a subject’s similar past actions, his [sic] current situation, and his course of future actions. That is, the cognitive component of prospective intentionis the monitoring and guidance of ongoing bodily movement. Taken together these cognitive mechanisms are highly complex. The folk psychological notion of belief, however, is an attitude that permits limited complexity of content. Thus, the cognitive component of intention is something other than folk psychological belief.

34. The cognitive component of intentionexhibits a high degree of complexity. Intentionis temporally divisible into two: prospective intention and immediate intention. The cognitive function of prospective intentionis the representation of a subject’s similar past actions, his [sic] current situation, and his course of future actions. That is, the cognitive component of prospective intentionis the monitoring and guidance of ongoing bodily movement. Taken together these cognitive mechanisms are highly complex. The folk psychological notion of belief, however, is an attitude that permits limited complexity of content. Thus, the cognitive component of intention is something other than folk psychological belief. When a person intends something, he or she behaves in a complex way. We may dividethese complex behaviors into two cognitive modes. A person either intends prospectively (toward the future) or immediately. When a person intends prospectively, he, she, they represents to him, her, or their self what they have donesimilarly in the past, the nature of their current situation, and how they intend to act in the future. That is, when a person intends prospectively, he, she, they plans for the future. On the other hand, when a person plans what she, he, or they intends to do immediately, they then monitor and guide their behavior as they engage in it. When we take these two cognitive components together, we grasp their complexity. We should not reduce such cognitive complexity to folk psychology and its concept of belief. When we consider the cognitive component of intention, we see the need to think in ways other than folk psychology.

35. Classroom challenges

36. Confusing description with prescription

37. Inadequate revision time

38. Summary visualization (thanks to Writing Center faculty at Hamilton College)