Brown (1977, 1978) has discussed the inadequacy of many EFL tests of
listening comprehension, which make demands on learners which are never
made on native speakers. Her main general point is that it is inappropriate to
judge spoken language by criteria only applicable to written language. For
example, a test which requires hearers to extract discrete details of information
from casual conversational language rather than the overall significance
of the utterance, may be confusing the forms and functions of written and
spoken language. Spontaneous speech is not usually used for transmitting
detailed information. Where it is, it is usually backed up with written or
visual aids, as in much teaching. Or the propositional information occurs in
short bursts, as in giving directions in the street, or giving orders in a shop.
Alternatively, hearers will probably record at least the gist of what is said in
writing, as in giving complex orders to workmen. It is therefore inappropriate
to ask questions about the detailed cognitive content of casual conversational
language. Brown's work is based on an examination of both the
phonological obscurity (including elisions and assimilations) which characterizes
most spoken English (Brown, 1977); and also of the differences in
discourse organization between written transactional and spoken interactional
language. Adult interactional language is characterized by: slow
tempo; division into short chunks with a lot of pauses; one-place predicates
in which one thing is said about one referent at a time; topic-comment
structures; paratactic structures which rarely make explicit logical relations
between clauses (cf. Ochs, 1979). In general, these features mean that
information is not densely structured. Brown points out that when spoken
language is intended to transmit detailed factual information, then special discourse structures have evolved. For example, in a radio news broadcast, a
typical structure allows information to be repeated three times. Brief
headlines are followed by an expansion of the news items which is followed
in turn by a repetition of the main points.