Cleft Constructions in Spoken English

Have you ever wondered why writing is taught in§schools? Why can''t we simply "do" writing, as we§manage speaking? Many people think they speak "badly"§or have "bad" grammar. Typically, grammar refers to§written language but do you know that there is such a§thing as spoken grammar? The syntax of spoken§language differs greatly from that of written§language. While some constructions are only found in§writing, others are mostly found in speech, e.g.,§clefts like "That''s what I had in mind". Clefts§constitute a grammatical means for drawing attention§to the most salient part of a message. English is§rich in cleft types and they are a vital tool in the§repertoire of its speakers and writers. However,§spoken clefts have distinct structural properties and§discourse functions from written clefts. They are§thus of interest to language teachers, particularly§since not every language has clefts. Further, some§cleft clauses are syntactically non-subordinate but§nonetheless discourse subordinate. This mismatch is§problematic for existing syntactic theories relying§on tightly integrated structures. Hence, clefts are§also of interest to theoretical syntax and to§computational linguistics.