| It is widely accepted that the mode in which language is used(spoken,written)affects grammatical structure.There is thus a clear difference in the grammar of languages with and without a written code,and with respect to the former,in the most common grammatical structure of the spoken and written modes of language use.What remains largely unexplored is the way in which literacy affects language use,that is,how daily experience with writing affects individual grammars.This study investigates the issue by focusing on the direct speech construction,which is more frequently used in oral than in written communication and is more prominent in the grammar of non-written languages.The question is whether the individual grammar of illiterate speakers resembles the grammar of languages without a written code,which generally show a vast use of direct speech,and in some cases even lack the option of an indirect speech construction,or alternatively,whether the use of direct speech is similar in literate and illiterate speakers,reflecting not so much their experience with literacy but the mode in which the specific language occurrences are produced(i.e.,spoken in a two-way conversation as opposed to written in a monologic interactional setting).Through a quantitative analysis of open-ended interviews on personal experience,this study compares the frequency of occurrence,as well as the forms and functions of direct vs.indirect speech and descriptive alternatives in the narratives of literate and illiterate speakers of Mandarin Chinese.Based on the analysis of the data collected,the main findings can be summarized in the following three points:l)Regardless of their literacy level,speakers use direct speech most frequently in dialogic communication as the most vivid and efficient mode to report someone’s words,thoughts,or emotions;2)Literacy does not seem to have a significant effect on individual’s use of direct speech and indirect speech in dyadic spoken interaction;and 3)Literate speakers used more grammatical constructions than illiterate speakers for reporting speech,especially more ambiguous and embedded structures.In sum,we can conclude that the use of direct(rather than indirect)speech is more closely related to mode of communication(dialogue instead of monologue),but that experience with literacy does have an effect on the number of different constructions and syntactic embeddings used in ordinary,dyadic conversation. |
