Elements of Dialog, Dialect, and Conversational Style

The language of talk is considerably different from the language of writing. The objective in both is clarity and precision of communication, but the two forms of language achieve these ideals quite differently. The differences have some far-reaching implications for writers who are trying to develop a conversational style or write dialog.

When we are talking to someone, we watch for eye-contact, a smile, a nod, a murmured "ummm," a signal of some sort that the person is listening to us and receiving our message. Such responses are called feedback and are required -- to verify that the speaker has communicated clearly and precisely. Even when the listener is not physically present (for example, when we are talking to someone on the telephone), we have to have those "ummmm’s," "I see’s," and "He did that?’s" as evidence that we are getting through. When we don’t get such feedback, we repeat what we just said, or ask, "Hey, are you still there?" If the listener doesn’t understand, he or she will give feedback to that effect; he or she knits the brow into a questioning gesture, says "hunh?" or "What?" or otherwise asks the speaker to back up and "say that again."

Writing cannot count on this immediate feedback to a particular, short segment of talk. What feedback we get from writing is usually delayed for quite a while and responds to the writing as a whole, rather than to the immediate segment of communication. When you’ve written home for money, you don’t know whether they "bought" your sad story until a week or more later when a check comes in the mail. When you’ve written and published an essay or story, you may (or may not) hear from a reviewer or a stranger. And it may take years, decades, or even centuries.

In practical writing, especially, immediate and particular feedback is replaced by a set of grammatical and rhetorical conventions. So that our readers will understand clearly and precisely what we write, we usually agree to use the words that are in a dictionary, the grammar that is in our grammar books, the spelling, punctuation, and formatting conventions that our culture has tacitly accepted and expects every writer to use. By resorting to such notions of "correctness," we try to assure ourselves that, objectively, any literate reader will understand what we have written.

Particular and immediate feedback in conversation allows us (maybe even forces us) to adopt a quite different set of conventions. Some linguists estimate that American speakers in everyday situations look for some form of feedback about every six seconds or so and that they are reluctant to go on without it. This forces casual conversation into the grammar of the run-on, which is so common in talk that we notice only its absence, but is one of the all-time boo-boo’s of writing. Feedback allows us to use the vocabulary of street-language or even vague gestures and grunts or invent hyphenated substitutes on the spot; talk may even require this casual attitude, for, when the listener nods that he or she has understood, it would be pedantry to whip out a dictionary to clarify what is already clear.

Writing good dialog or a conversational style requires the use of the conventions of talk. As we develop our ear for dialog, we replace our grammar-book notions of correctness with common-sense notions of experience. What happens in the world becomes our guide. This does not mean, however, that we cannot learn a lot about dialog from technical sources. We can, and should, use every means available to train our ear.

THREE BASIC SYSTEMS

Descriptive linguists offer us a framework for studying the language of talk, when they divide oral language into three systems:

< 1. a system of sounds, consisting of features of pronunciation, including phonetics, phonemics, pitch, pause, juncture, speed, rhythm, etc.;

< 2. a system of words, consisting of features of the vocabulary, including morphology, semantics, lexicography, borrowings, invented words, etc.; and

< 3. a system of syntax, consisting of features of grammar, including word order, number and reference agreement, idioms, tense, voice, order of sentence elements, etc.

When we make statements about style, we mean things in each of these categories. The characteristic quality of a style results from the writer’s word choices, the voice or pronunciation we hear in them, and the grammar he or she uses. Style, then, is the quality of language that results from a speaker’s or writer’s choices from among the pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar systems of the language. We may describe a style with words like "limpid," "hard-boiled," "stilted," "flowing," etc., trying to identify the characteristic tone of a writer.

EFFECTS OF PRONUNCIATION ON STYLE

The ideal is for the writing to sound natural in the reader’s inner ear. All writing is ultimately a substitute for speech; good writing is a substitute for one side of some conceivable, natural conversation. All forms of creative writing still have a voice behind them; the storyteller, the bard, the minstrel, the player, and the lecturer linger in the sounds of the writing. Whether we want our story (or poem, or play, or essay, or whatever) to be traditional or experimental, surrealistic or juvenile, comic or whatever, the convincing sound of spoken language has to be one of our most important concerns. "Develop your ear for style" first means become sensitive to the characteristics of thousands of voices. In developing your style, it can help to know some of the places to look for the oral characteristics of voice.

< Contractions are an obvious and important identifier of conversational style.

In everyday practice, we say "can’t" for "can not," "we’ve been" for "we have been," "it’s" for "it is," "they’re" for "they are," and so on. (A few of these contractions -- "it’s," "you’re," "they’re" -- present problems, because of their frequent confusion with the possessive pronouns, "its," "your," "their." A neat trick to remember is that none of the possessive pronouns contain apostrophes; all of the contractions do.)

Contractions are frequently frowned on in formal style. Especially earlier in our century, teachers and critics thought that spelling out the words was more correct, more accurate, somehow better. For us today, using the contraction or not is a characterizing device. If we choose to depict a character who habitually speaks without contractions (and that device is consistent with other data we furnish about him or her), our readers will likely see that character as unusually formal, stiff, or possibly foreign. If an author depicts his characters as using contractions, but avoids them himself, he will depict himself as formal, possibly stiff.

Be aware, however, that contractions are required in casual style. In some situations, it is actually a mistake to spell the words out, or speak them in their uncontracted forms. Your friends will look at you weirdly and ask, "What’s with you?" if you try to use formal speech and vocabulary where casual is expected.