Spoken Differs from Written — The Case of YES and YEAH

Abstract

Spoken language differs from written language in a number of ways. While it can be said that there is a continuum from the spoken to the written, the reverse is not true when we look at natural language use. However, if we look at language study and its historical roots, we see precisely the opposite: prescriptive linguists seem to use the written form as a starting point, and then seek to find a spoken form that conforms to the rules found in written (albeit secondary) use (cf. Stubbs 1996: 63–64).