Chapter 2 - Planning Utterances

This chapter looks at how speakers begin the process of producing an utterance , it discusses how
a speaker starts the process of speaking, even though we're used to speaking, we don't know that the
words that come out of our mouths are part of the Planning utterance process. Well, there are three
processes in planning utterance there are conceptualization , formulation and articulation. Day to day
speech is full of errors a speaker produces few complete sentences, and often repairs or revises what they
have said. There are frequent pauses and hesitations (filled pauses), and also repetitions. Filler phrases
and verbal fillers are also used.

• “Hesitation phenomena” provide information about how a speaker constructs an utterance and
about the choices that speakers have to make as they talk

2.2 A SKETCH OF THE PRODUCTION PROCESS

• Conceptualisation : Speakers begin with an abstract idea of the message that they want to express
without producing the required words.

• Formulation - finding the grammar and the lexical items needed to express the idea

• Articulation - speaking the utterance.

2.3 CONCEPTUALIZATION AND PLANNING

• Conceptualization is a pre-linguistic or abstract process , Based on their general knowledge and an

understanding of communication's workings This general concept is called a pre-verbal message. The
non-linguistic ideas which make up this message are sometimes called mindsets. The pattern of pausing
that speakers produce in speech output is a key source of information regarding the conceptualization
process , the more planning we need to do more likely we are to hesitate, as continuing speaking during
this point becomes more challenging.

 A key issue is how long a silence has to be before it's considered a pause. Researchers tend to
consider a pause to be minimum 200ms. Sometimes, when there isn't one, listeners hear a pause.
This is often due to the speaker slowing down their speech without actually pause, which changes
the rhythm, which means that you might hear a pause.

 Types/Functions of pauses:

 Delimitative pause : occur where there may be punctuation in written text. Breaks utterances into
constituent parts, possibly for the benefit of the listener Can also be caused by intonation.
 Physiological pause : to help speakers regulate their breathing whilst speaking
 Articulatory pause : is when producing a or another plosive which prevents sound from
corning out.

• Speech events differ in the amount of planning involved (a speech, an apology, interview answers etc.)
these differences are reflected in the distribution of pausing within speech

• Pauses are more frequent and often longer in spontaneous speech than, for example, reading aloud.
There are also lots of short pauses. There are also other forms of hesitation in spontaneous speech self-
interruptions, false starts, etc.
2. 4 CYCLES OF PLANNING

If we look at the patterns of speech and pause that correspond to 'ideas,' we often find that the early
part of each idea is marked by a lot of pause. It would seem that the cycles of speech coincide with ideas.
The greater hesitancy at the beginning of a new idea reflects the fact that the expression of the idea has
not been planned in detail in advance, but has to be sorted out once it has begun.

 Macro planning: organizing the idea that is best suited to communication using the relevant
speech acts, or if the information is part of the main structure or the side structure (additional
comments, asides, etc.).
 Speech act : is The performance of some action through saying something, such as asking for
information, making a promise, and so on. Some goals require multiple speech actions, e.g.
giving directions. When communication requires multiple speech actions. Speech acts, which
involve linearization, must be selected and sequenced by the speaker.
 Linearization : Choose the order in which the information should be expressed. Most ordering is
largely natural, such as sequence of events, or getting from A to other orders follows conventions
to maintain simplicity and transparency, possibly considering the processing and memory load of
the listener.
 Instrumentality : Speakers select information that helps them achieve their communicative goal
Speakers also tend to leave out information that they assume can be inferred from by the listeners.
 Micro planning : This involves defining the perspective and information structure that is most
appropriate for a speech act and deciding what should be highlighted as new or up-to-date
information.

Micro-and macro-planning should be considered as two levels of planning. Although it is important to

note that the outcome of these two levels is still not a 'language' but a pre-verbal message that represents
the ideas of the speaker. It still needs to be translated into linguistic form.

2. 5 FORMULATION

• The 'linguistic powerhouse of language production

• Grammatical encoding : Speaker's use of implicit grammar knowledge to create sentence structures
that convey a message that is made up of functional processing and positional processing. Grammatical
encoding is important in the process of translating the pre-verbal message into a language;