Reflections about the Spoken Language in Modern Romanian (original) (raw)

2017, International Journal of Humanities Social Sciences and Education

The spoken language as a linguistic phenomenon is a key interest for most linguists who, in one way or another, are trying to get into the essence of this dimension of human communication by studying various aspects of language related to the history of language, dialectology, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, stylistics, communication, pragmatics, etc. Depending on the purpose of communication and the situational context, we delimit the standard spoken language, which includes the institutional language, the oral discourse, which is related to rhetoric, and the substandard spoken language, with its stylistically labeled layers, grammatical deviations from the literary norm, which has a special status and is well delimited within the language structure. Thus, the spoken language has many aspects, that characterize, with a few exceptions, either its special particularities as a part of the modern Romanian language, or some distinct features, which are not in accordance with the basic linguistic norm. Both standard and substandard spoken languages have their own contexts of use, types of speakers and a specific extra-verbal context. Therefore, the neutral standard spoken language is usually used in public institutions, being mainly characterized as "official", "sober" or "neutral". At the same time, almost all the acting literary norms are respected at all levels: phonological, lexical and grammatical. The spoken language is used both in dialogues (administrative institutions, in discussions between heads and employees, employees and clients) and in monologues (predominantly in educational institutions (at lectures, conferences), in courts (judges' indictments, lawyers' pleadings), and in legislative and executive branches, etc.) as well. Ch. Bally does not regard this type of language as being part of the spoken language, such texts being called "authentic" and "non-authentic", so that the lecture and academic communication are not part of the oral form of the language, but of the written one [1]. The informal, neutral, standard, oral language is, in fact, the spoken language which has no connotations and is part of colloquial language. We mean that there are various communication situations, ranging from plain conversations to larger dialogues about the most common things: discussions about time, family household, unimportant but necessary situations in the working environment, etc. This type of spoken language, or "the spoken version of the standard language" as it was named by Margareta Manu Magda, "belongs to the non-specialized stylistic level, being differentiated (on the axis of a permissiveness scale +/-acceptability in relation to the prescriptive norm) by formal characteristics, "colloquial" (semiformal), familiar (informal) [2]. Obviously, this classification of the spoken language seems rather artificial, but if we refer to the Abstract: The spoken language has not always been a priority for linguists, as it is too dynamic and permissive, and the issues connected to its inner delimitations are complex, the boundaries being very "fragile" and even uncertain. For example, some researchers consider the spoken language as being colloquial, familiar or regional, whereas we distinguish two main aspects: standard and substandard spoken language, that both have well-defined features. In this article we try to delimit stylistically the spoken language from the written discourse, pointing out that, ultimately, the two stylistic (oral / written) registers are approaching more and more despite of the speakers' massive access to information, of the unprecedented diversification of the means of communication.