Languages & Linguistics
Intimate Register
The intimate register refers to a style of language use that is characterized by familiarity, closeness, and emotional connection between speakers. It often involves the use of informal vocabulary, personal pronouns, and expressions of affection or endearment. This register is typically used in private or personal interactions, such as between close friends, family members, or romantic partners.
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8 Key excerpts on "Intimate Register"
eBook - ePubInvestigating Intimate Discourse
Exploring the spoken interaction of families, couples and friends
- Brian Clancy(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
1992 : 13) who points out that our immediate concerns in the intimate sphere such as cooking dinner, putting children to bed or assembling the ubiquitous ‘flat pack’ have been dismissed as ‘irrelevant to the business of life’. In addition, the fact that intimate discourse is so familiar to us all means opinions about it may be readily proffered and yet rarely informed or supported and certainly not with any consideration of systematic corpus evidence from the context-type itself. Therefore, the aim of this book is to take an empirical approach to the linguistic patterns that characterise the plethora of speaker relationships and groupings that populate the intimate corner of the arguably ‘casual’, but certainly not ‘mundane’ or ‘banal’, spoken interaction.We begin with a consideration of what it means to be linguistically intimate. There are a number of issues to be considered here in relation to a definition of intimacy; for example, how we linguistically represent that our relationships are intimate with one person but not with another or whether or not we decide for ourselves who our intimates are or whether these decisions are made for us. Our attention first turns to issues such as these and how they have been represented in the previous literature. We then take our first look at how a corpus methodology might help to shed light on our interactions with our closest conversational companions.1.1 Characterising intimate discourse: Definitions and descriptions
Intimate interaction takes place ‘backstage’, a dramaturgical metaphor Goffman (1959) employed to invoke an area where conversational participants are relaxed, informal and off-guard. This area is, according to Goffman (1959
eBook - PDF- Oscar Uribe-Villegas(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
JEAN URE and JEFFREY ELLIS 7 Register in Descriptive Linguistics and Linguistic Sociology 1. INTRODUCTION: THE NATURE OF REGISTER Register is a certain kind of language patterning regularly used in a certain kind of situation. It is a social convention. By making use of different kinds of register patterns, people show that they are aware of the social situations in which they find themselves. Register sometimes offers a means of social control. By choosing a register - that is, a type of language pattern - language users seek to impose a pattern of social behaviour, to control or transform the social situations in which they are taking part. The range of registers mastered by the individual member of the community reflects his language experience. Together they form his idiolect. The range of registers available in any one language community likewise reflects the experience of the community; the range of registers corresponds to the range of situations of language use. Distinctions of register also correspond to some extent to the adjustments of linguistic behaviour that the speakers are aware of making. Reflecting as it does the social setting, register responds to social and cultural change more directly than some other aspects of language. Register, which includes the association and combination of lexical and grammatical features in texts, changes along with other social changes; new media, new forms of political organizations, new technol-ogies as soon as they come into being are able to develop an 'appro-priate style' of language - a register. Indeed it is by their register range, and not by their linguistic features, that 'developed' languages are recognised and distinguished from 'undeveloped' ones (e.g., Ferguson, 1968).
eBook - PDF- Helen Leckie-Tarry(Author)
- 1995(Publication Date)
- Pinter(Publisher)
In other words, a theory of register, along these lines, aims to propose relation-ships between language function, determined by situational or social factors, and language form. The term 'register' first came into general currency in the 19605. According to Halliday, it was first used by Reid in 1956 and later developed by Ure (Ure and Ellis, 1977). He himself, in 1964, described register (Halliday et al., 1964: 77) as 'a variety according to use in the sense that each speaker has a range of varieties and chooses between them at different times', to distinguish the term from dialect, which is 'a variety according to user, in the sense that each speaker uses one variety and uses it all the time'. Hence this concept of register has been seen by Halliday and others as bound to a particular discursive situation. 'When we observe language activity in the various contexts in which it takes place, we find differences in the type of language selected as appropriate to different types of situation' (Halliday et al., 1964: 87). A register is constituted by 'the linguistic features which are typically associated with a configuration of situational features -with particu-lar values of the field, mode and tenor' (Halliday, 1976: 22). In general, these definitions take as their point of departure the linguistic structure of a text and relate it to elements of context: more specifically to the context of situ-ation of the text. Halliday's later definition tends to place a primary emphasis on semantic patterns and context. '[Register] is the set of meanings, the configuration of semantic patterns, that are typically drawn upon under the specified con-ditions, along with the words and structures that are used in the realization of these meanings' (Halliday, 1978: 23). Register is determined, by what is taking place, who is taking part and what part the language is playing (Halliday, 1978: 31).
eBook - PDFText, Context and the Johannine Community
A Sociolinguistic Analysis of the Johannine Writings
- David A. Lamb(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- T&T Clark(Publisher)
29 Halliday de ¿ nes dialect as ‘variety according to the user’ and register as ‘variety according to the use’. 30 Halliday’s understanding of register will be con-sidered in more detail below, alongside that of the American socio-linguist Douglas Biber. For both these scholars, the fundamental aspect of the register of a given text is that it carries with it signi ¿ cant informa-tion about its social context. 31 Indeed, ‘[t]he sensitivity of language to its 26 Crystal, Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics , p.409. 27 ‘Registers…when they are distinguished from styles, tend to be associated with particular groups of people or sometimes speci ¿ c situations of use. Journalese, babytalk, legalese, the language of auctioneers, race-callers, and sports commen-tators, the language of airline pilots, criminals, ¿ nanciers, politicians and disc jockeys, the language of the courtroom and the classroom, could all be considered examples of different registers. The term “register” here describes the language of groups of people with common interests or jobs, or the language used in situations associated with such groups.’ Janet Holmes, An Introduction to Sociolinguistics , (Harlow: Pearson Education, 2nd ed., 2001), p.246. Similarly, Wardhaugh states, ‘Registers are sets of language items associated with discrete occupational or social groups. Surgeons, airline pilots, bank managers, sales clerks, jazz fans, and pimps employ different registers’. Wardhaugh, Introduction to Sociolinguistics , p.51. 28 Ferguson draws a parallel between the systematic analysis of register varia-tions and ‘the extensive publications in German on Fachsprachen “occupational languages” and in English on “Language for Special Purposes” (mostly on commer-cial and scienti ¿ c registers of English)’. Ferguson, ‘Dialect, Register and Genre’, p.16. 29 Crystal, Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics , p.409.
eBook - PDF- Manuel Köster, Holger Thünemann, Meik Zülsdorf-Kersting(Authors)
- 2022(Publication Date)
- Wochenschau Verlag(Publisher)
In the following, we examine the registers most relevant to history in the classroom . We draw these from different, largely unconnected research contexts and branches of historiography, education and linguistics . These different disci-plinary approaches (with their own traditions and identities) have not yet been cross-referenced systematically and analytically . While the discourses involved are not always easy to combine, attempting to do so sheds new light on the lin-guistic dimensions of history in the classroom, which to date have at best been examined in isolation . 7.2.1 Casual register Casual register is the range of standard language used in everyday communica-tion (as opposed to “educated” English, technical register or specific language used e . g . by young people; cf . Glück 2004, 31) . Colloquial language is often described as the main variety of casual register because it is assumed to be typi-cal of specific speech situations, rather than determined by social class (ibid .) . Colloquial language is primarily spoken – although it is used to communicate online and through messaging services – and hence mainly a “speech form of immediate contact” (ibid ., 757) . In his research into the processes involved in acquiring a second language, Jim Cummins (2004) distinguishes basic interpersonal communication skills (BICS), used to communicate in situations that are cognitively less demanding and strongly embedded in specific contexts, from cognitive academic language pro-ficiency (CALP) . The latter is required in cognitively sophisticated communica-tion where little reference is made to specific contexts (cf . Berendes et al . 2013, 20; Schmölzer-Eibinger 2013, 27) . Simply put, BICS enables communication in casual register, while CALP enables discourse in academic register . 7 Cf . “double contingency” ( → History in the classroom, 28; → Emotions, 122) and the three “improbabilities of successful communication” ( → Media, 157) .
eBook - ePubAn Introduction to Social Psychology
Global Perspectives
- James Alcock, Stan Sadava(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications Ltd(Publisher)
Even within a particular combination of regional and social dialects, a given individual’s speech varies from situation to situation in terms of speech register (Romaine, 2000). Speech registers are varieties of a language that are used in particular situations. They reflect one’s emotional state, and we can quickly judge whether a person is angry or happy or unfriendly just by listening to a tape recording of the voice. Choice of speech register also reflects the relationship between the individuals who are conversing, as well as factors such as the speaker’s perceived relative status, and the speaker’s judgement about the listener’s own typical speech register. Do you speak any differently to your mechanic than you would to your physician or professor? Our choice of register can tell people a great deal about how we view them. Speech registers also vary with the context: Think of a professor intoning a lecture with authority and eloquence. If you were to overhear that same person speaking in the same manner to a companion over dinner in a restaurant, he or she would likely strike you as pretentious and overbearing – all because the speech register is inappropriate in that setting. We adjust our speech to the situation, and as we go through our daily lives, we change registers frequently as we encounter a variety of situations. Because the use of certain speech registers reflects a speaker’s power relative to the listener, the choice of speech register can have debilitating effects. In some situations, this is because it reminds listeners of their relative lack of power and independence. For example, one speech register that we all are familiar with is what linguists refer to as baby talk or BT. This refers not to the way that babies speak but to the way that adults talk to two- to five-year-olds. It is recognizable by its high pitch and exaggerated intonations (Caporael, Lukaszewski & Culbertson, 1983), and it is a feature of all languages (Ferguson, 1977, 2011)
eBook - PDF- Joshua A. Fishman(Author)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
The Users and Uses of Language 155 others in a shop than one involving lecturer and students in a university classroom. Which participant relations are linguistically relevant, and how far these are distinctively reflected in the grammar and lexis, depends on the language concerned. Japanese, for example, tends to vary along this dimension very much more than English or Chinese. There is even some formal difference in Japanese between the speech of men and the speech of women, nor is this merely a difference in the probabilities of occurrence. In most languages, some lexical items tend to be used more by one sex than the other; but in Japanese there are grammatical fea-tures which are restricted to the speech of one sex only. It is as the product of these three dimensions of classification that we can best define and identify register. The criteria are not absolute or independent; they are all variable in delicacy, and the more delicate the classification the more the three overlap. The formal properties of any given language event will be those associated with the intersection of the appropriate field, mode and style. A lecture on biology in a technical college, for example, will be in the scientific field, lecturing mode and polite style; more delicately, in the biological field, academic lecturing mode and teacher to student style. The same lecturer, five minutes later in the staff common room, may switch to the field of cinema, conversational mode, in the style of a man among colleagues. As each situation is replaced by another, so the speaker readily shifts from one register to the next. The linguistic differ-ences may be slight; but they may be considerable, if the use of language in the new situation differs sharply from that in the old. We cannot list the total range of uses. Institutional categories, unlike descriptive ones, do not resolve into closed systems of discrete terms.
eBook - ePubThinking Spanish Translation
A Course in Translation Method: Spanish to English
- Michael Thompson, Louise Haywood, Sándor Hervey(Authors)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
Chapter 4 and the degree to which a particular piece of discourse is planned or unplanned. Oral conversation tends to be associated with informality, familiarity and spontaneity, oral address with a greater degree of formality, decorum and preparation; most forms of written language are in general likely to be more formal and controlled than most forms of oral language. However, genre does not determine register. Some kinds of conversation (such as giving evidence in court) are tightly constrained and formalized, while some kinds of oral address (a stand-up comedy act, for example) deliberately aim for the ‘lowest’ register they can get away with, as well as giving prepared material an air of spontaneity. When written texts aim for a relatively informal or familiar social register, they often do so by incorporating the linguistic markers of oral genres. An obvious and easy way of doing this in English is simply to use contractions in imitation of spoken language: the phrase ‘because you're with your mates’ in the previous paragraph stands out as signalling a different social register from the text around it thanks to the choice of ‘you're’ instead of ‘you are’ (as well as the lexical choice of ‘mates’).For the translator, social register is therefore a crucial part of assessing what kind of language one is dealing with and how a ST is designed to be perceived by SL readers, and as a result planning effectively for how the TT is to be designed for its target audience. Where there are linguistic and cultural differences in the ways in which two languages mark register, the translator needs to be able to draw on extensive SL and TL resources in order to find effective forms of compensation. Since social register is generated by so many different linguistic resources and sometimes consists of very subtle nuances, it is difficult to pin it down specifically in one language, let alone make systematic comparisons between a SL and TL for translation purposes. Nevertheless, it is possible to identify some useful patterns of comparison between Spanish and English in this respect, for which we can refer back briefly to the analysis of grammatical differences set out in Chapter 7
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