What is the main reason that attitudes are more often revealed in spoken language rather than written language?

Answer 1

Attitudes are most revealed in speech rather than written language because speech has a tone.

Answer 2

Attitudes are most revealed in speech rather than written language because speech has a tone.

Answer 3

It is because that people of our generation today wants things to be more easier and they need to reveal their intentions intentionally.

Now, Stymie Quantos has a go:

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Then again, maybe attitudes are all in your head. No, I mean really. Please let me wander a bit before explaining why this 'off-the-cuff' answer may keep us from knowing the exact answer to your question. The only way to almost answer comes in long form (with a payoff at the very last line).

In the first place, "off-the-cuff" refers to someone blurting out an answer to an interviewer's question without thinking clearly. If you stuck a microphone in my face, I'd be answering it off the cuff of the sleeve covering the arm holding the mic. Think about that. When I read your question I said, aloud to myself, 'because attitudes are all in your head.' That was certainly off-the-cuff. Any thinking before blurting it out was entirely unconscious. I knew what my off-the-cuff answer meant to me. But it probably means nothing to you. Now I'm writing down the rest of it. There's conscious thinking going on, not to mention rereading & revising, so that I can better answer you. The more clarity you want, the harder I have to work thinking it out and writing it down.

Hold these two thoughts: The spoken answer is valid, but leaves you wanting. The written answer explains it better, but will still fall a bit short (if you read on).

For you see, it may actually be that you've accidentally asked a question from a false premise. Who says my words say more about my attitude than my writing? Both my blurt-out & written responses mean the same to me. But that's because I've been working this problem enough to have an 'attitude' about it.

Now you have three thoughts to hold: [1] Spoken word is largely unconscious, [2] Written word is largely conscious, and [3] Attitude is largely self-opinion.

Aha! Now we're getting down to it. I'm a non-academic here, but all I did when people were still dumb enough to pay me was struggle with this question so I could do better next time getting info out of somebody. Speaking of academics, it's only recently we have the non-invasive technology to go inside the brain and watch it process stuff. So right now, as of 2011, we're just scratching the surface on things like how the brain works differently in speaking & writing. Pretty soon we'll attract a brain researcher to better fill in the blanks.

For this last part, I won't be shooting blanks. But I'll definitely risk a false premise or two, if the questioner will permit me. The word 'attitude' (see [3] above) the questioner is asking from the standpoint of journalism, or whatever passes for it nowadays. This deduction, Dr. Watson, is most elementary. Brain scientists likely find 'attitude' a little hard to pin down. They'd be looking for something a little more basic, like neural connectivity which can be measured for activity, throughput and effects. They'd tell you how far down close to the brain stem come your words, and how high up close to brain wrinkles come your writings. Only a journalist studies attitudes. Honey, only opinion makes money. They just call it attitude so we won't write you off.

Now comes the part where [1], [2] & [3] come together for me (and might explain why the journalism teacher accidentally fed you a bum steer). Aside from writing this like an arrogant butt-head, my early assertion that both spoken and written words reveal the same attitude still stands. It's just that one makes you, as a journalist, a hero to your boss and the other just bores people. For example, "It's all in your head" is a marketable sound-bite, yet all this other turgid stuff I'm putting out won't count to most everybody. So, it isn't that words that spill out underneath the radar of thought are any better, it's just that you can categorize huge quantities of them under A, B or C and make your readers feel as if they understand more about this crazy tribe we're in.

My conclusion is this (WOW, you got way down here??): It isn't necessarily that attitude comes out more honestly when you catch someone off-guard. It's just that the unvarnished truth works better for masses (one might hope) of readers, and the meandering, opinionated drivel that a self-styled expert writes down and signs wanders off into the flaky for most of the rest of us. You cannot sell 'well, maybe.' ... you can only sell 'you bet your damn life.' Attitudes ARE all in your head. How your brain spits them out in speech, it does without first warning you to edit yourself. How it does in paragraph form, it makes you do all the work.

Answer 4

Attitudes are most revealed in speech rather than written language because speech has a tone.