Variation across Speech and Writing
Abstract
Similarities and differences between speech and writing have been the subject of innumerable studies, but until now there has been no attempt to provide a unified linguistic analysis of the whole range of spoken and written registers in English. In this widely acclaimed empirical study, Douglas Biber uses computational techniques to analyse the linguistic characteristics of twenty three spoken and written genres, enabling identification of the basic, underlying dimensions of variation in English. In Variation Across Speech and Writing, six dimensions of variation are identified through a factor analysis, on the basis of linguistic co-occurence patterns. The resulting model of variation provides for the description of the distinctive linguistic characteristics of any spoken or written text andd emonstrates the ways in which the polarization of speech and writing has been misleading, and thus enables reconciliation of the contradictory conclusions reached in previous research.
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Language use varies in relation to situational factors such as audience and purpose.
“Language use varies in relation to situational factors such as audience and purpose (19, 20); by including multiple genres, we aimed to capture a diverse range of language production.”
From Do LLMs write like humans? Variation in grammatical and rhetorical styles (2025) · cites this paper as [19]
Previous studies have found differences in syntactic performance across modalities and genres in both first language systems and interlanguage systems.
“Previous studies have found differences in the syntactic performance across modalities and genres in both first language systems and interlanguage systems (Biber, 1988; Kormos, 2014; Biber et al., 2016; Qin and Uccelli, 2016; Zalbidea, 2017; Bulté and Roothooft, 2020).”
From Syntactic Networks of Interlanguage Across L2 Modalities and Proficiency Levels (2021) · cites this paper as Biber, 1988
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- Authors
- Biber, D.
- Corresponding author
- Biber, Douglas
- ORCID
- Biber, Douglas
- Venue
- Cambridge University Press eBooks
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press
- Published
- 1988-10-27
- OpenAlex
- W2093585241
- Cited by
- 5,227
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 164 · 2025: 244 · 2024: 320 · 2023: 227 · 2022: 276 · 2021: 304 · 2020: 282 · 2019: 310 · 2018: 304 · 2017: 196 · 2016: 281 · 2015: 298 · 2014: 316 · 2013: 196 · 2012: 133
- FWCI
- 189.56
- Type
- book
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Cambridge University Press eBooks (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Literature and Literary Theory › Discourse Analysis in Language Studies
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › Linguistic research and analysis
- Social Sciences › Linguistics and Language › Linguistic Variation and Morphology
- Keywords
- English language, register, written language
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