Learning Colloquial Expression: Situation Comedy as a New Resource

Abstract: Colloquial expression is an important property of spoken English. Many reasons have led to the fact that colloquial expression has been spared little attention in academic field and traditional EFL classrooms. On the other hand, learners who have realized this lack and turn to dictionaries and reference books after class are only deterred by having to memorize so many entries without ever meeting them in daily life. Naturally finding a new resource and an effective method to help EFL learner to master colloquial expression becomes the focus of this thesis. Based on the analysis of colloquial expression's characteristics, this study suggests original situation comedy as feasible material after an examination and comparison of situation comedy's features and its availability in China.

Key words: colloquial expression; sitcom

1. Introduction

1.1 General Introduction of Colloquial Expression

1.1.1 Differences between Written and Spoken English

Traditionally language is divided into the spoken and written modes based on the difference in media and perception, and in the means of production and Reception. The contrast between these two modes is mostly concentrated on the physical forms, structure and function. These differences between spoken and written languages are obvious and inevitable because they are product of radically different kinds of communicative situation. Speech is time-bound, dynamic, transit and normally aimed at an audience that is present. Writing is space-bound, static, and permanent, typically without a recipient present and often, the writer may not even know who the recipient is. There are many other differences too (Gregory, 177-274; Halliday, 26).

To EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners the most common and available materials are in written form. This situation has been improved with the development of audio-visual facilities, but the educational field is still in great need of spoken language materials. Limited exposure to authentic spoken English easily leads EFL learners to ignore the differences between spoken and written English and therefore makes their production of spoken English unnatural to the ears of native speakers. This lack also arouses another problem: insufficient language feeling of speech styles. According to Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching & Applied Linguistics (thereafter referred as LDLTAL), speech styles are alternative ways of speaking within a community; they often range from more colloquial to more formal (23). Speakers draw upon their background and experiences, the type of speech community, as well as the public language of the larger culture, to communicate effectively with a variety of audience.

1.1.2 Importance of the Learning of Colloquial Expression

With the further development of China's economy, people's way of thinking and living are changing rapidly. As more and more Chinese have direct contact with native English speakers at work and in daily life as well, how to make learners or users of English to understand the living English coming from the speaker's mouth instead of paper or tapes becomes the motivation for the reform of EFL teaching in China. Most obviously, the teaching and learning of colloquial expression can help EFL learners to better understand native speakers' daily conversation. In the production of language, when correctly used, colloquial expression provides the learners with a native-like flavor to communicate at a more advanced level and in situations that are more complex. The mastery of colloquial expression can deepen EFL learners' understanding of western culture, too.

1.2 Purpose of the Paper

Many reasons have led to the fact that colloquial expression has been spared little attention in academic field and traditional EFL classrooms. On the other hand, learners who have realized this lack and turn to dictionaries and reference books after class are only deterred by having to memorize so many entries without ever meeting them in daily life. Naturally finding a new resource and an effective, efficient method to help EFL learner to master colloquial expression becomes the focus of this thesis. Based on the analysis of colloquial expression on its grammatical, semantic, pragmatic and cross-cultural characteristics, this thesis suggests original situation comedy as feasible material after an examination and comparison of situation comedy's features and its availability in China.

2. Characteristics of Colloquial Expression

2.1 Related Concepts

It is necessary to clarify the differences between several concepts or terms, that is, colloquialism, slang, cant, jargon, argot, idiom and proverb before the analysis of colloquial expression, because words and phrases labeled under these terms are, in different degrees, also property of informal conversation.

The most bewildering pair might be colloquialism and slang. In the preface to Dictionary of American Slang, Wentworth and Flexner point out colloquialism is familiar words and idioms used in informal speech and writing, but not considered explicit or formal enough for polite conversation or business correspondence (12). For example, “a blank slate” (a new page, a new beginning), “a bone to pick” (dissatisfaction, an apple of discord), “a cat nap” (a dogsleep), etc. are all slang. Unlike slang, colloquialism is used and understood by nearly everyone in the United States. The use of slang conveys the suggestion that the speaker and the listener enjoy a special fraternity, but the use of colloquialism emphasizes only the informality and familiarity of a general social situation. For example, “posh” (very fashionable), “bonkers” (crazy), “easy meat” (something easy to be recognized), etc. are typical colloquial expressions.

Cant, jargon and argot are the words and expressions peculiar to special segments of the population. Cant is the conversational, familiar idiom used and generally understood only by members of a specific occupation, trade, profession, sect, class, age group, interest group or other subgroup of our culture. It is often called thieves’ slang, very low and vulgar speech. Jargon is the technical or even secret vocabulary of such a subgroup; it is shoptalk. Argot refers to both the cant and the jargon of any professional criminal group.

Idioms and proverbs are expressive, colorful and metaphorical lexical items that help to make speaker's language more powerful and vivid in expressing personality or personal feelings. The provided cultural information enables the user to identify with and perhaps shows they are part of the social group that uses them. Almost all idiomatic expressions could be labeled colloquial. It is no wonder they are widely used across various age group. For instance, “a bad apple” (a bad person), “a hard nut” (a stubborn person), “bosom friends” (very close friends), etc. are very common English idioms. However, the difference among colloquial expression, idiom and proverb is more concerned with number of words. Idioms and proverbs belong to multiword expressions while colloquialism also includes individual words. Idioms also overlap with slang in the way that some popular slang (words and phrases) gradually fix and gain the place as idioms. For example, there are some English proverbs easy to understand: “Time is a revealer of a man's sincerity.”(A long journey proves the horse's strength.); “An hour in the morning is worth two in the evening.”(The whole day's work depends on a good start in the morning.).

2.2 Grammatical and Semantic Analysis

2.2.1 Colloquial Words

Compared with phrases, colloquial words do not have the problem of syntax or transformation. The key point is their meaning and activeness in informal conversation.

Some words only occur in colloquial speech. A case in point is addressing words. In formal or written English, when we refer to a man, the usual words come to our mind are man, person, or more general one. In colloquial conversation, the way to point to a fellowman is quite various. The most neutral word perhaps is guy, or the friendlier pal. What we call close friend on formal occasions is our buddy. This word, strictly speaking, is a slang word used more often among males. Apart from those words, a large portion of words specific to colloquial expression are taboo words like bullshit.

Most colloquial words are also used in formal or written English. For example, verbs refer to daily life activities are usually neglected by EFL learners either because their learning materials are too formal to contain the most common actions or because they lack reinforcement to memorize these verbs. An example is the verb dump. In order to survive, human beings consume a lot and consequently produce large quantity of rubbish as well. The cleaning of house and disposal of rubbish is obviously basic and common. When describing this housework EFL learners in China tend to use the more general word throw instead of dump, which is a more common word used by native speakers. Several factors could interpret this phenomenon.

2.2.2 Colloquial Phrases

Colloquial expression accounts for a very large number of compound verbs --- verb + particle combinations of the kind give in, look after, carry on, put up with, as illustrated by:

[1] The enemy finally gave in.

[2] He looked after his aged father.

[3] She carried on the family tradition.

[4] I cannot put up with that noise.

Often the phrases with particles indicating the direction of the motion or the occupation of a final resultant position are easy to be mastered. The difficult part are those not having the literal locational meaning, but nevertheless sharing with the literal ones the notion of final result --- a meaning not at all unlike the meaning of the perfect in English and therefore appropriately referred to as "aspect".

There are also other phrases which stand out due to their semantic meaning rather than syntactic features. In general, their meanings are no longer transparent, more or less in degree. The transparency of meanings has also been involved in previous analysis of verb phrases apart from their physical and syntactic characteristics. It is time for us to take on and highlight this issue.

2.3 Pragmatic Meaning

Generally speaking, pragmatic meaning shares the following characteristics: (1) it borrows the form of word;(2) it is different from semantic meaning;(3) it co-exists with the context where the word occurs, i.e. relies on the context to make out the exact meaning. Context includes the co-text and non-linguistic factors. The term co-text signifies those words and phrases that are semantically and collocationally connected to the expression under consideration and help define its meaning and function. Typically, the co-text of an expression occurs within the same utterance or sentence, but co-text may also occur outside them as in preceding and following utterance or sentence. Non-linguistic context, in a narrow sense, is the communicative situation where the conversation takes place, while in an extensive sense includes cultural, moral factors etc;(4) the reference to pragmatic meaning is deeply influenced by the speaker's language habit; (5) the reference to pragmatic meaning is to achieve certain pragmatic purpose under given circumstance. This is the basic function of pragmatic meaning. (Stephen Levinson, 45)

For example, in the following sentence

"Jane is so lovely that since my school time I have had a thing for her.”

The meaning of the word thing is not clear. Its semantic meaning we can get from any dictionary is too general to make this sentence comprehensible.

The situation changes after we give more background of this sentence. "I" here is a boy who is talking about a girl he has liked for a long time. In this sense we could "narrow" the semantic meaning of thing "that which is non-material" down to "intimate passionate emotion", or only, love.

3. Situation Comedy as the New Resource

3.1 General Introduction of Situation Comedy

Situation comedy, or in short form sitcom, is not new to most EFL learners in China. In fact this form of performance has been introduced from abroad and welcomed by Chinese audience.

3.1.1 General Features

The general features of sitcom can be abstracted as follows:

1. The basic unit of sitcom is episode that usually lasts for about 20 minutes. Each episode consists of several acts that happen in certain places like dining room or living room where characters gather reporting their life and discussing certain topics. In this way the main story of each episode progresses in the form of conversation. The topic of each episode is relatively independent from each other, unlike other TV series which have a through storyline.

2. The general emotional inclination of sitcom, just as the word comedy indicates, is very merry. Because sitcoms are often only 20 minutes long, the dialogue to be always to the point, smart and funny. In fact, sitcom is not only to make the audience before TV laugh; the broadcasting of each story is also accompanied by real or recorded sound of laughter as background effect.

3. Unlike films that usually choose influential historic or social topics as their theme or background, sitcom mainly concerns ordinary people's daily life. Take the famous Growing Pains as an example. This sitcom reveals teenage lives, the love and conflicts in family relationship through minor aspects of everyday life, including having dinner, going to school and doing shopping. Therefore the language in sitcom is closer to real daily conversation in comparison with that in films.

3.1.2 Situation Comedies Used as Audio-Visual Teaching Materials

Obviously, situation comedy's most outstanding difference from other teaching materials or aids is that it is the synchronized combination of audio plus video input. Or in other words, sitcom is a good audio-visual aid.

Generally speaking, audio-visual programs used as language teaching and learning materials can be divided into two kinds: specially designed and original ones. The first kind refers to programs specially designed for language teaching and learning. In a way they are live, televised version of textbook, presenting slices of real life situations to promote language studying. A large number of language teaching video programs like Follow Me and On We Go came into being in Britain. In the early 1990s, the Family Album U.S.A was brought forth in America. It is also widely used in China and accepted as stereotype of audio-visual English teaching program. The Family Album U.S.A consists of 26 episodes, each divided into three acts, recorded by native Americans in real language situations. It reveals various aspects of the American society.

The other kind of audio-visual material is programs like TV series and films taken directly from English speaking countries. Compared with the first kind, they are not designed for language teaching but for public entertainment. Consequently the language in these programs is understandable to average native English speakers but is not adapted to EFL learners' level of English. When taken into EFL classroom, they can provide EFL learners' with the best native-like language environment. At present the most popular and commonly seen original materials in china are original films. However original films are not suitable for college EFL classroom teaching. The most important reason is that the general length of film is about 90 minutes that equals the length of a whole class meeting.

As audio-visual material, situation comedy shares audio-visual aids' advantages in the EFL teaching and learning field. Firstly, audio-visual aids, particularly original materials, present rich and diverse authentic language materials, or in Cook's words the "optimal samples of language" (68), to get the learners fully involved in the learning process and to increase learners' familiarity with the target language. Secondly, as audio-visual aids like TV series or films immerse language study within a story, they can provide variety, interest and stimulation and thereby help to maintain motivation through entertainment. They can also be used as stimulus for discussion and debates. At last, audio-visual aids can strengthen and deepen learners' mastery and understanding of the target language; thus it makes the teaching/learning process more efficient. They can provide examples of authentic language use in limited context, and in this way, validate the language they are learning and demonstrate its use in the world beyond the classroom.

3.2 Case Analysis: Friends

3.2.1 Background Information of Friends

From 1994, the year when it first aired, Friends has been seen and loved by millions of people around the world. It is a comedy about the lives, loves and careers of six young men and women in New York. The six main characters have different voices and tones, but they all speak standard American English. They gather to discuss the highs and lows of their lives at each other's apartments and on the sofa in Central Perk, a coffee shop in their neighborhood.

Monica is a chef with an obsession for neatness and order in her life. She recently married Chandler, who is always making sarcastic jokes and is never at a loss for words. Joey, Chandler's former roommate, is an actor currently in a terrible, but popular daytime soap opera "Days of Our Lives" playing a man with a woman's brain. Sharing Joey's apartment is Rachel, Monica's best friend from high school and former roommate. Rachel once served as a waitress and now works for a fashion designer. Ross, Monica's hapless brother, is a teacher who has been divorced three times, including once from Rachel following a drunken weekend in Las Vegas. Completing the circle of friends is Monica's ex-roommate, Phoebe. She is an offbeat, eternally optimistic folk singer and massage therapist.

Nine seasons --- each season composed of twenty-four 20-minutes episodes --- have been broadcast on the NBC television network in the US; season 10 is in the process of shooting. Those years this sitcom has lasted is undoubtedly the proof of the popularity of Friends. Large amount of money has been put to maintain the high quality --- slick filming and editing, feel-good soundtracks, and the most crucial, great scripts.

3.2.2 Colloquial Expression in “Friends”

An analysis of the Season One of Friends, which contains ten episodes, could show the characteristics of American colloquial expressions and the cultural factors implied by them.

3.2.2.1 Colloquial Words

1. Noun:

Issue: like "She has issues", meaning "She has problems". A funny new usage; a much more common usage is "I was kind of hoping that wouldn't be an issue." meaning "I was hoping that wouldn't be (or cause) a problem or need to be discussed"; this is closer to the original meaning of issue, a point to be decided.

Textbook: like "it’s textbook", meaning it is such a typical, standard example of this type (of behavior, method) that it could be used for or taken from a textbook.

Break: The word break has an immense number of meanings and usages. It may refer to a lucky chance or opportunity; this comes from the original meaning of the word, to snap into two or more pieces, and, from that, a separation from the past or from the everyday routine.

Game: like "Get back in the game", meaning to start dating again. The word "game" is used because the job of trying to find the perfect partner is a bit like the children's game hide-and-seek. People have not dated for a long time, might say, "I've been out of the game for so long; I've forgotten how to play," meaning, they have lost the confidence or forgot how to talk smoothly, i.e. the "rules" of the dating game.

2. Verb:

Catch: like in "You caught me", meaning being found doing something one shouldn't be doing (e.g., looking at someone else's private papers); or, discovered one's secret.

Spot: spot has a variety of meanings, but here it means to pick sb out, detect, or see, often under difficult conditions (in a crowd).

Figure: like in "I figured", colloquially meaning "I thought so; I guessed that happened".

3.2.2.2 Verb phrases

Are you welling up?: meaning "Are you about to cry?". Well means to pour forth or gush, like tears from eyes or water from a well.

Ever since she walked out on me: meaning "Ever since she left me". To walk out on someone is widely used to mean leave someone, often in haste or angry surprise, similar to dump someone.

He burns me up: meaning "he really makes me angry". More often "that really burns me up". Similar expressions include "that really ticks me off".

People just get along: Somehow, people manage to stay on friendly terms or to be compatible with each other; also to survive; both of these meanings are common.

3.2.2.3 Other phrases

Are you through with that?: meaning "Are you finished with that?". A very American phrase from the sense "to go through".

Cushion the blow: make it so that some bad news is easier to take (handle); e.g., finishing a relationship, with the boy or girlfriend saying that they can still be friends; a cushion is a pad like a pillow used for softness or protection.

Throw caution to the wind: act in a carefree without worrying about the consequences of your action.

That rings a bell: that sounds familiar; that reminds people of something; from the fact that a bell is rung to get people's attention.

3.2.2.4 Other ways of expressions

Shrink: a popular, generally humorous, slang term for a psychoanalyst; it comes from the curiously interesting practice in early cultures of taking a (freshly killed)  human head and shrinking it for religious purposes; as the new field of psychiatry developed, people began referring to the doctors as "head shrinkers."

Enough with the third degree: stop questioning me; stop harassing me: third degree comes from "third-degree burns"，--- the worst type you can have; the expression "give somebody the third degree" means to question somebody almost to the point of torture; "enough with X"(X is often followed by "already") is American slang for "Stop that."

Seven-ish: approximately 7:00 o'clock; used as an estimated or suggested time, usually for something informal like a meeting or party; e.g. "we'll meet at 12-ish," meaning "let's meet around 12 o'clock", say, 15-20 minutes before or after.

3.2.3 Summary

    To sum up, the colloquial expressions in Friends are very American: modem, fresh, humorous and a little bit exaggerating. These colloquial expressions reflect the creativity of American people and the traditions of American society. Without deep understanding of American culture, it is not an easy task to grasp them by self-study.

4. Conclusion

In essence this thesis is a project on English teaching and learning. In fact questions and solutions forwarded by any teaching project should be based on careful observation and systematic research on EFL learner's actual learning process and truly reflect their urgent needs. In the meantime every teaching and learning project has its own focus and range of application. This thesis, in sound consideration of the current going-abroad boom and EFL learners' shift from just speaking English to speaking native-like English, chooses colloquial expression as the focus of study with the intention to enhance advanced English learners' comprehension and production of colloquial speech and to assist their social communication with native English speakers beyond academic activity.

Of course this thesis has many limitations. For instance, the analysis of colloquial expression's characteristics is still rough and immature as colloquialism is a very concept and up to date researches on informal speech style still focus on its stylistic or pragmatic features. The author has to start from scratch and shoulder consequent risks. A large amount of work still need to be done to find out the best way of using Friends to promote an effective and efficient mastery of American colloquial expressions and to check the result.

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Wentworth Harold and Stuart Berg Flexner. Dictionary of American Slang. Thomas Y. Crowell, Publishers, 1975.