We have been using the term "Colloquial Expression" as if its meaning was taken for granted. However, it has concrete definition(s), as the following sites say. One thing should be noted at this point. A Colloquial Expression is the same as a Colloquialism.
1> According to http://www.answers.com/topic/colloquialism, "colloquialism, the use of informal expressions appropriate to everyday speech rather than to the formality of writing, and differing in pronunciation, vocabulary, or grammar."
This, as we can see, is a more-or-less generalized and holistic definition. It takes into account almost every aspect of what a colloquial expression is about.
2> According to http://disted.tamu.edu/classes/telecom98s/eva/terms.htm, "1. A colloquial expression; that is, an expression that is characteristic or appropriate to ordinary or familiar conversation rather than formal speech or writing. In standard American English, He hasn't got anyis colloquial, whereas He has noneis formal. 2. Colloquial style or usage. Note: Colloquialisms are often viewed upon with disapproval, as if they indicate "vulgar, bad, or incorrect" usage. However, they are merely part of a familiar style used in speaking rather than in writing."
An important point: Colloquial Expression should not be equated with "vulgar, bad or incorrect". Well, there might be vulgar, bad or incorrect terms interspersed within it, but that's definitely not the sole thing or the sole purpose.
3> According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colloquial_expression, "A colloquialism is an expression not used in formal speech, writing or paralinguistics.
...
Colloquialisms denote a manner of speaking or writing that is characteristic of familiar "common" conversation; informal colloquialisms can include words (such as "y'all" or "gonna" or "wanna"), phrases (such as "ain't nothin'", "dressed for bear" and "dead as a doornail"), or sometimes even an entire aphorism ("There's more than one way to skin a cat")."
It gives examples of several colloquial expressions and goes on giving details about types of colloquialisms and their instances.
4> According to http://encyclopedia.farlex.com/Colloquial+expression, "Informal word or phrase appropriate to familiar, everyday conversation. Colloquialisms are more acceptable than slang in a wider social context."
A pithy and somewhat controversial definition. Pithy, because it summarizes colloquialism in the first sentence and somewhat controversial, because it tries to give slangs a separate status in the second sentence. But slangs are definitely within the realm of colloquialism, although they are more restricted and in some contexts, less appropriate.
5> According to http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/colloquial_expression, "A phrase that appears more often in spoken than in written language. Colloqiual expressions are similar to slang, but tend to be more universal, whereas slang can often be limited to a particular social group;"
Second sentence tells us "Colloqiual expressions are similar to slang". But as we know, not only similar, slangs are actually a special form of colloquialism. So instead of saying the above, we should rather say, "Colloqiual expressions are a superset to slangs".
Some really cool examples of colloquial expressions are here:
http://www.englishforums.com/search/Colloquial+expressions.htm
Another important thing. We had discussed about "expansion" and "contraction" already. We must, however, remember that contraction may not always necessarily imply shortening of the number of words in a phrase or clause, as envisaged here:
http://mbm.dotnet11.hostbasket.com/iis/testy/test13.asp
Here, all contractions have actually increased the number of words.
But these are formal definitions. To me, a colloquial expression is something that is not appropriate while writing or speaking officially, formally or courteously, and something that is fully appropriate while writing or speaking informally (as if with friends or close partners or colleagues). These include slangs as well.
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2 comments:
A naive method may be as follows: Run a strict grammar checker on the text and anything that does not conform to strict grammar rules is a colloquial expressin. What is your opinion on whether this naive method will work? Provide your comments and later identify counter-examples.
So, does the problem of identifying colloquialisms reduce to the problem of grammar checking? If so, should we just try to design a good grammar checker.
What is the complexity of checking for grammar? Is it exhorbitant? Or can we do it scalably?
Can grammar checking be a component of colloquialism detection, perhaps, coupled with other heuristics?
I think a strict grammar checker wouldn't do. There are expressions that conform to grammar rules, and yet they are colloquialisms. For example, "making off" is a colloquial expression conforming to grammar rules. A vocabulary of expressions might help. We can check each expression against this vocabulary to achieve satisfactory results. However, there are 2 problems.
1> The vocab itself is constrained by the fact that it amasses all the colloquialisms of a particular time only. But as we know, these expressions come and go, some fall out of use, some are formalized, and yet some others are reintroduced at each and every moment. So the vocab becomes invalid after a period of time.
2> There are considerable differences in opinion regarding what are colloquialisms and what aren't. So the vocab would only contain those expressions which everyone agrees to be colloquialisms - not the other ones. In this way, we may lose valuable information, thereby making our vocab still more constrained.
However, vocab-matching may be coupled with grammar-checking (and other heuristics) to achieve better and faster results. For example, we might first grammar-check to construct a suitably augmented parse tree or a dependency tree. Later, this tree will serve as our basis for comparison against the vocab.
I'll have to explore the complexity and scalability of such grammar checkers.
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