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[Music]
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when we learn to speak as children it
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happens apparently without any effort
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nobody sits down with a baby to teach
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them the rules of English grammar or
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whatever language they speak and still
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children who grow up in an english-
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speaking environment learn to speak
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perfect fluent English within the first
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few years of their life you can compare
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learning to speak with learning to walk
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it's something that happens at a certain
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point in the development of any normal
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child not only do we not have to teach
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them how to do it we probably couldn't
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stop them if we
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tried learning to read and write is very
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different for most people it's not
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something that happens by itself it has
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to be explicitly taught and consciously
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practiced over a period of time it's
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more like tying your shoelaces which
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most people can't figure out how to do
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on their own someone has to show them
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and they need to make an active effort
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to learn
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it all human communities use spoken
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language or sign language in De
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communities but not all use writing
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spoken language was developed in our
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species much earlier than written
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language we don't know exactly how long
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humans have been able to speak but
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writing was only invented around 3,500
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before the Christian era which is at
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least tens of thousands of years after
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speech first
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developed so there are significant
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differences between spoken and written
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language and there's an important sense
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in which spoken language is
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primary at the same time written
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language is not just a direct graphic
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representation of spoken language both
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spoken and written language have their
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own separate characteristics and there
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are significant differences between them
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the same linguistic system is the basis
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for both spoken and written language and
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in that sense they're both forms of the
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same language but they exploit different
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features of the system and have
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different
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properties written language has greater
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social prestige in most societies where
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it's used it has greater official
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recognition in most cases when you need
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to communicate something important to an
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official institution or a company such
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as filing your tax return or applying
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for a job you're expected to do so in
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writing not just talk to someone written
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language also has greater legal Force
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written contracts are perceived as
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having a greater validity than a spoken
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agreement and written language typically
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forms the standard for prestigious forms
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of the spoken language so that speaking
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correctly is taken to mean speaking in a
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way that's similar to how you would
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write both spoken and written language
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come with their own advantages and
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disadvantages writing has the advantage
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of being permanent and visible where a
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speech can only be perceived through
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hearing and it's gone as soon as it's
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been
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produced writing allows communication
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over long distances which wasn't
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possible at speech until radios and
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telephones were
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invented when we produce writing we can
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plan what we're going to say and revise
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it as we go I'm sure many of us have
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wished that that was possible with
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spoken language when we say something
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that we regret as soon as it's out of
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our
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mouth at the other end of the
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communication event when someone's
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reading a piece of writing they can take
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their time to process it scan through it
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for the main points and reread it as
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many times as they like
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being able to write things down means we
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can keep hold of information without
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having to keep it all in our memory it
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also makes it easy to preserve
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information beyond the life of a single
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individual and to create enduring works
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of
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literature on the other hand spoken
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language is quicker to produce than
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written language it's direct and
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interactive and allows for immediate
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feedback this means that it's easy for
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communication Partners to ask questions
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or ask for claric ification and so it's
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easier to make sure then that what
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you're saying has been properly
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understood speaking also allows us to
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use extra Clues like ination and body
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language to bring our message across we
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know that this can be a problem in
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writing for example when someone's
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joking or being ironic online and people
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think they're being serious because they
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don't have these Clues to help them
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figure out the intended meaning this is
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one reason why emoticons smiley faces
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and so on have become so common in
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social media because it brings written
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language closer to spoken language by
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adding on adding in some new kinds of
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nonlinguistic
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Clues speaking is a social activity
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which takes place between people in a
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social setting and helps integrate
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people into social groups it's an
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everyday activity that everyone
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participates in as opposed to writing
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which depends on access to education and
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so in many societies it's only
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accessible to a small
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Elite
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on the other hand when we speak we lack
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many of the means for clearly
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structuring our message which is
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available when we write we can't use
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paragraph structure or punctuation
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capitalization or other visual visual
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devices which help clarify our message
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when we
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write the visible and permanent
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properties of writing also means that
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it's easier to use more complex sentence
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structures and text structures when we
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write because the reader can go back and
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reread a piece of text if the structure
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wasn't clear the first time
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around to summarize here's a comparison
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of some typical features of speech
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versus
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writing speech is typically less
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explicit we can leave more to be
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understood by the context whereas
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briting is typically more explicit
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because there's less context to allow
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you to infer various understood meanings
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and so we need to make the writing more
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explicit to make to ensure that our
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readers understand what we want to
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say spoken Lang language has less clear
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sentence boundaries when we speak one
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sentence typically runs into the next
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whereas written language has clear
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sentence boundaries are indicated by
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punctuation speech typically has a
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simpler and loser structure whereas
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writing typically has a more complex and
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integrated
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structure spoken language is typically
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more repetitive and has a more
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restricted vocabulary whereas written
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language tends to be less repetitive and
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have a less restricted
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vocabulary in speaking it's normal have
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a certain degree of disfluency meaning
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that we make errors as we speak and have
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to correct ourselves or written language
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on the other hand typically shows
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fluency at least in the final form after
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we've been through a number of drafts in
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speech we have monitoring features such
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as hearing that we've said something we
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didn't intend to say and going back and
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correcting ourselves and these are not
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available in written
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language speech relies on interacting
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interaction features such as immediate
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feedback our questions for ifications
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and so on which we don't have in written
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language and speech is typically
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associated with more informal features
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whereas written language is associated
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with more formal features
