Shifting in Speech Affects
Language Form, Duration of
Interaction, and Speaker’s
Relationship
Shifting in Communication
- shifting refers to the speaker’s ability to change or adjust his
speech context, speech style, and speech act in response to
the differences among listeners, social context, personal goals,
and relationship.
- It happens when the speaker attunes his or her speech
towards the person they were talking to.
Shifting Affects Language Form: Speaker may
suddenly change his language from being too formal to
informal depending on audiences’ level of
comprehension. Insertion of local dialects, slang or lingo,
may or may not be appropriate depending on event or
speech situation.
VARIATIONS IN
LANGUAGE FORM
1. Prestige – certain individuals change their language
form based on their social status.
• Overt Prestige – the speech shifts
in a
form that is frequent when those of a
higher social status.
For example, people talk more politely
when talking to a person of higher
position or when applying for a job.
• Covert Prestige – it happens when an
individual regarded the use of non-standard
languages in favor of the words, he “valued”
and used to utter.
For example, language commonly used in
drag culture, hip-hop, fraternity, street
talk, and lower-working class. To better
understand people in this level, one may
shift the style of speech.
2. Register – is a conventional way of using
language that is appropriate in a specific
context, which may be identified as
situational.
For example, the way language is used
when writing a newspaper is different
when writing a poetry. Similarly, the news
reporter must register a voice appropriate
on a news delivery and not a voice reciting
a poem.
3.Vernacular – is a general expression for a
kind of social dialect, typically spoken by a
lower-status group, which is treated as “nonstandard” because of marked differences
from the “standard” language.
For example, Some Filipinos address their
parents as “mudra” and “pudra” instead of the
standard language “nanay” and “tatay”
Shifting Affects Duration of Interaction: For a timelimited speech, speakers are sometimes forced to adjust
the content of their speech or need to cut or finish their
speech early. For a lively discussion, audiences sometimes
expect or even ask for time extension.
DEPENDENT FACTORS OF
DURATION OF
INTERACTION
1. Purpose of speech – people may
talk longer or shorter depending on
the purpose of speech. A story telling
definitely consume more time than
simply answering a question.
2. Importance of message – meaningful message
requires more time for discussion. However, some
important questions may only need an urgent response.
The speakers adapt their style of talking to the needs of
situation.
3. Channel of communication – writing a
message can be time consuming so sender preferred
to change style and use short cut messages and
abbreviations. Similarly, phone conversation differs
the duration of interaction.
4. Context – the speaker adjusts styles based on the
context of communication. Participants attending workshops
and seminars expect fruitful and longer discussion. A speaker
may also give short announcement in a big crowd then
leave. A client and a guidance counselor may consume hours
of conversation.
5. Language difficulty – there’s no sense to lengthen a
conversation between two individuals using a language
that are not comprehensible to each other. Speech
abandonment is common when people can’t find the
right words to say.
6. Emotion – anger and complaints may need longer time to
express. On the other hand, laughter among participants may
have the same effect. People don’t remember what was said
exactly during an encounter with a new individual. Instead,
they remember the sentiment and emotion they had while
interacting with that person.
Shifting Affects Speaker’s Relationship: People
often talk to others depending on trust and closeness
they developed over time. A speaker may shift or
adjust interaction based on his relationship to the
people whom they are talking to.
TWO
RELATIONSHIP
MODELS
1. Accommodation Model
- In this relationship model, the speaker
shifts his speech context, speech style and
speech act based on receiver’s social
identity.
- Speech accommodation is a way of
modifying our speech towards or away
from the perceived style of the person or
people we’re talking to.
- It is related to “code-switching” or combing words
from two different language. People perform codeswitching to accommodate the listener.
• Convergence – a speech style that is used to reduce
social distance, (towards the person we’re talking to.)
• Divergence – when a speech style is used to emphasize
social distance between speakers (away the person we’re
talking to.) Divergence is triggered when an individual want
to mark their individuality among a majority group of
individuals.
2. Audience Design Model
- Shifting is oriented towards people (audience) instead of the
speech mechanism.
- Speaker design their speech context, style, and act in response
to their audience.
- A speaker can either change their language to bring them closer
to their audience by using formal language,impressive language or
language that might be similar to the language the audience uses.
- A speaker may also use language that is not familiar to their
audience or different from the language the audience would use
in order to distance themselves from the audience.