Introducing English Linguistics

Spoken registers
Because speech is the primary mode of communication, it is worth inves-
tigating in detail some of the major spoken registers existing in English.
Figure 4.1 lists different types of spoken registers as they are classified in
the International Corpus of English (ICE).
The structure of English texts
85
direct conversations
(spontaneous dialogues)
Private
distanced conversations
(telephone calls) 
Dialogue 
class lessons 
broadcast discussions
 
Public
broadcast interviews
parliamentary debates 
legal cross-examinations
Speech business 
transactions
spontaneous commentaries
unscripted speeches
demonstrations
legal presentations
Unscripted 
Monologue
broadcast news 
Scripted broadcast 
talks 
speeches (not broadcast)
FIGURE
4.1
Spoken registers in the
International Corpus of
English (adapted from
Nelson 1996: 29).
As Figure 1 illustrates, speech can be either dialogic or monologic. 
If speech is dialogic, it will involve two or more speakers conversing 
privately – over dinner in someone’s home, for instance – or publicly, e.g.

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as participants in an interview on a radio or television broadcast.
Interestingly, while telephone calls are classified as private, the use of cell
(mobile) phones outside the home or work place has made such calls semi-
public, a change in the status of telephone calls since the ICE categories
were created in the early 1990s. If speech is monologic, in contrast, it will
involve a single individual speaking extemporaneously or from a prepared
script. A lawyer giving a final statement at the end of a court trial, for
instance, may work from notes but on the whole speaks spontaneously.
On the other hand, when an individual gives a formal speech, he or she
will simply read from a prepared text and may, in fact, produce a text dif-
fering little from a formal written paper.
The differing types of speech in Figure 4.1 do not exhaust the types of
spoken texts that exist in English, nor does the figure provide the only
way that spoken English can be categorized. Messages left on telephone
answering machines are not included, and other typologies of text classi-
fication (such as Lee’s (2001: 57) system for the British National Corpus) do
not include, for instance, the private/public distinction. In addition, while
the ICE system draws a clear line between dialogic and monologic speech,
some of the registers are mixed. For instance, broadcast news includes
scripted monologic speech, as when the news is read from a prepared text,
and spontaneous dialogic speech, as when a newsperson conducts an
interview with another individual. Nevertheless, the categories do reveal
factors that directly influence how spoken texts are structured, a point
that will be illustrated through the analysis of a very common type of
spoken text: spontaneous dialogues, which includes face-to-face conversa-
tions and telephone calls.