ABSTRACT
This chapter is about the grammar of speech, and it continues naturally from the topic of Chapter 3, in which the formal and functional differences between speech and writing were discussed. Having noted that one of the less fortunate consequences of standardisation is the application of the norms of writing to the grammar of speech, we begin by discussing the nature of ‘grammar’ and pass on to consider some misapplications of prescriptive norms to spoken English. In Section 4.3 the dimension of contextual variability in speech is considered, again bearing in mind the effect on speech of the relatively inflexible norms of prescriptive written grammar. As non-standard English is (almost by definition) spoken rather than written, the discussion is then extended to the grammaticality of non-standard English. Until recently there has been little research on the grammar of speech, and the examples used here are selective. A fuller account is now available in Miller and Weinert (1998).
