Oral Language

“Work by Labov 1972 on evaluation in spoken narrative, although not so intended, reflects oral vs. literate strategies in spoken discourse. Labov observes that narrators must make clear what the point of a narrative is and how its parts contribute to that point; this is evaluation. It can be accomplished externally, by stepping outside the narrative events to Iexicalize the point (And this was the best part or, Boy, I was scared!), or internally, making clear from the way material is presented what the speaker thinks about it (and consequently what the hearer is to think). Thus external evaluation uses a literate strategy, lexicalization of meaning; and internal evaluation uses an oral strategy, meaning implied through paralinguistic cues. Labov finds that middle-class speakers tend to use more external evaluation, while working-class (particularly black) speakers use more internal evaluation, and consequently are better storytellers. But the notions of internal vs. external evaluation, and the observation that the former makes for better storytelling, are crucial. They indicate that the nature of storytelling in conversation is based on audience participation in inferring meaning. This supports the hypothesis that the effect of conversation is subjective knowing, created by audience involvement (i.e. by being MOVED), as opposed to objective knowing, created by intellectual argument (i.e. by being CONVINCED). This makes clear the close relationship between literary and ordinary language, a phenomenon supported by other recent research. Bright 1981a,b, following Hymes 1977 and Tedlock 1972, discovers poetic form in an oral Karok myth. Polanyi 1981 shows, in conversational storytelling, complexity of view-point, reference, and meaning. Green 1981 finds subject-verb inversion in colloquial discourse. All this research shows that what has been thought literate or literary is found in spoken discourse.” (Tannen, 1982)

In their book, Power-deFur and