Spoken and Written Language

Written Form: Lexical density (p.164)

• Due to the importance of a win in Saturday’s football game as a pre-requisite for a final appearance, the necessity of my training attendance diminishes my child minding capacity tonight
• However, the lack of an attendance requirement on Wednesday allows my availability consequent upon your approval.

What has changed?

• The way the information is distributed, the number of content words per clause has risen dramatically.
• The lexical density has risen.
• Grammatical changes push the lexical density up.
• The key difference in grammar is the amount of grammatical metaphor.

Nominalisation

• Much information that was spread out in the spoken language has been condensed by way of nominatisation.
• e.g.
• because I must go to football training (clause)
• The necessity of my training requirement (noun phrase)

Example (Halliday 1989)

• Spoken:
• This is yer phone bill and you hafta go to the post office to pay it – uh by next Monday, that’s what this bax tells ya – or they’ll cut the phone off.
• Written:
• All phone bills must be paid by the date shown or service will be discontinued.

• Thank You
• Have a nice day