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STYLISTIC REGISTERS

English, like Romanian, French, German, Italian or any other language you can think of, can be
used in diverse communicative contexts and in different stylistic registers, from colloquial (as in your
everyday conversation with your peers in a non-academic context, e.g. over a cup of coffee in a caf) to
informal (as in a relaxed seminar interaction with your peers) to formal (as in oral examinations, or in
academic writing for seminar or final evaluation). While you may find yourself in a position to use all
these registers on a daily basis, remember not to mix them on one and the same occasion or in
communicating with the same addressee!
How can you distinguish among stylistic registers? There are a few general rules that you should
bear in mind when you read or write so as to match style with the communicative circumstances
(addressee, time and place, written or oral mode), message and purpose:
STYLE
FEATURE
vocabulary

phrasal verbs

contractions
(isnt, theyve)
grammatical
features

sentence
structure

spelling in the
written mode

FORMAL

COLLOQUIAL

formal/literary; can be
punctuated by some loan
words/phrases; may
contain jargon
very few [identified in
dictionaries as formal]
to investigate
generally avoided

informal

colloquial and chatty,


even slangy

++

to look into
+

++

fairly high recurrence of


the passive voice and of
modal adverbs/ verbs/
expressions (might, seem,
quite possible, unlikely,
perhaps); use of impersonal
reference (it, there; one)
orderly, with a lot of
subordination, possibly
lengthy at times yet usually
varied both qualitatively
and quantitatively
highly accurate; uses only
standard abbreviations
(e.g. = for example; i.e. =
that is to say)

preference for the


active voice; few modal
adverbs/ verbs/
expressions
use of personal
reference (you)

preference for the


active voice; few
modal adverbs/
verbs/ expressions
use of personal
reference (you/ya)

relaxed, with a mix of


subordination and coordination, but a
tendency to the latter

loose, mostly with


co-ordination
(especially and) even
where subordination
is logically possible
sometimes
questionable yet
this is not a rule, but
merely an empirical
observation
++

hesitation (or
none
time) fillers (um,
er, you know) in
the oral mode
references to
cross-references to other
external sources authors (as Wilson and Daly
(1985) suggest)
general effect on
the audience

INFORMAL

distance, dispassionate/
scientific objectivity

fairly accurate; can use


digits for numbers and
abbreviations

casual mention of
someone elses remark
(they say; todays
newspapers say)
a clear sense of
proximity, empathy,
etc

very casual mention


of someone elses
remark (that dude
says hes gonna)
seeming intimacy

2 | Stylistic Registers Assoc. prof. Estella Ciobanu

Guided Practice

Here are a few excerpts to illustrate the three stylistic registers; key features are italicised and
briefly explained [in brackets]:
Formal:
I need say nothing here, on the first head, because nothing can show better than my history
whether that prediction was verified or falsified by the result [subordination]. On the second
branch of the question [formal phrase], I will only remark [formal word], that unless I ran
through that part of my inheritance while I was still a baby, I have not come into it yet. But I do
not at all complain of having been kept out of this property; and if anybody else should be in the
present enjoyment of it [formal sentence structure and vocabulary], he is heartily welcome to
keep it. (Ch. Dickens, David Copperfield)
Informal:
Baby Ps father told yesterday how the terrified tot screamed Daddy! Daddy! when he was
handed back [informal phrasal verb] to his monstrous mum for the final time. The dad
separated from Peters slob [slang] mother said he would be haunted for the rest of his life by
the 17-month-olds desperate wailing. (Anthony France, The Sun, 22 May 2009)
Colloquial:
If you really want to hear about it, the first thing youll [contraction] probably want to know is
where I was born, and what my lousy [coll. word] childhood was like, and how my parents were
occupied and all before they had me, and [coordination] all that David Copperfield kind of crap
[offensive word]; but I dont feel like going into it. In the first place, that stuff [coll. word] bores
me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two haemorrhages apiece if I told
anything pretty personal about them. Theyre quite touchy [coll. word] about anything like that,
especially my father. Theyre nice and all [quirk] Im not saying that but theyre also touchy as
hell [coll. comparison]. Besides, Im not going to tell you my whole goddam [contraction: God
damn] autobiography or anything. Ill just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me
around last Christmas before I got pretty run-down [coll. word] and had to come out here and
take it easy. (J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye)
Here are two excerpts on the same topic: social anxiety disorder. They are, however, stylistically
different (the first text is informal, the second formal), which may be due to their intended audience.
Apart from respectively the presence and absence of contractions as well as informal and formal
vocabulary, what other features contribute to their stylistic difference? Consider sentence structure,
ways of presenting the topic and organising the argument, as well as the sense of proximity or distance
you may derive from them, hence the likely effects on the audience. Write your findings down in the
margin of the text or on a separate sheet of paper and then compare them to my suggestions in the
table following the texts (which you should cover before answering on your own).
A woman hates to stand in line in the grocery store because shes afraid that everyone is
watching her. She knows that its not really true, but she cant shake the feeling. While she is
shopping, she is conscious of the fact that people might be staring at her from the big mirrors on
the inside front of the ceiling. Now, she has to talk to the person whos checking out her

3 | Stylistic Registers Assoc. prof. Estella Ciobanu

groceries. She tries to smile, but her voice comes out weakly. Shes sure shes making a fool of
herself. Her self-consciousness and anxiety rise to the roof.
In public places, such as work, meetings, or shopping, people with social anxiety feel that
everyone is watching, staring, and judging them (even though rationally they know this isnt
true). The socially anxious person cant relax, take it easy, and enjoy themselves in public. In
fact, they can never fully relax when other people are around. It always feels like others are
evaluating them, being critical of them, or judging them in some way. The person with social
anxiety knows that people dont do this openly, of course, but they still feel the selfconsciousness and judgment while they are in the other persons presence. Its sometimes
impossible to let go, relax, and focus on anything else except the anxiety and fear. Because the
anxiety is so very painful, its much easier just to stay away from social situations and avoid
other people altogether.
(What Is Social Anxiety?, SP/SAA, <http://www.socialphobia.org/whatis.html>)
Social anxiety is the fear of social situations and the interaction with other people that can
automatically bring on feelings of self-consciousness, judgment, evaluation, and scrutiny. Put
another way, social anxiety is the fear and anxiety of being judged and evaluated negatively by
other people, leading to feelings of inadequacy, embarrassment, humiliation, and depression. If a
person usually becomes anxious in social situations, but seems fine when they are alone, then
social phobia may be the problem.
Social anxiety disorder (social phobia) is a much more common problem than past estimates
have led us to think. Millions of people all over the world suffer from this devastating and
traumatic problem every day, either from a specific social anxiety or from a more generalized
social anxiety.
(The Least Understood Anxiety Disorder, <http://www.anxietynetwork.com/spleast.html>)
FEATURES
TEXT 1 [INFORMAL]
contractions + (its, isnt, cant)
vocabulary
informal (shake the feeling, take it easy,
easier just to, let go)
sentence
sometimes short sentences, not
structure
connected to each other by means of
connectives, with similar structure

discourse:
argument
structure

A lengthy, seemingly personalised,


example (that elicits sympathetic
response to the person), followed by an
impersonal listing of similar cases,
precedes the identification and
definition of the situation; the original
text has many more personalised case
studies before it offers the definition. All
in all, the text intimates it is dealing
with people if unnamed rather than
simply with social and psychological
cases.

TEXT 2 [FORMAL]
-

although the pattern tends to be similar,


the sentences are different in the way the
focus on the agent/cause, use
subordination and connectives (Put
another way, then)
The definition of the situation, followed
by an appositive explanation intended to
ensure all readers can comprehend it, is
then appended a brief example in a much
less personalised case study form than
the first text; statistical data follows in
the second paragraph. All in all, the text
sounds more objective and scientific by
scrutinising the symptoms, not the
people.

4 | Stylistic Registers Assoc. prof. Estella Ciobanu

Altering the stylistic register to signal different communicative contexts and audiences

Awareness of who your intended audience is should definitely influence your stylistic choices, as
we have already seen above. However, there may be practical instances when you need to alter the
style of a given text so as to adapt it for a different audience and communication purpose. Below is one
such example of stylistic transfer from informal and spoken to formal and written (Jordan 1980:19):
Economics? ... Yes, well, um ... economics is, I suppose, about people trying to ... let me see...
match things that are scarce you know with things that they want, ... oh yes, and how these
efforts have an effect on each other ... through exchange, I suppose.
Economics is the social science that studies how people attempt to accommodate scarcity to
their wants and how these attempts interact through exchange.
As can be seen, the time fillers (well, um, let me see, you know, oh yes), quasi-rhetorical questions
(economics?) and verbs that state opinion rather hesitantly (I suppose) in the informal text have been
eliminated in the formal definition. In fact, you should avoid the general tenor of the informal answer
above gross hesitancy in an exam, or you risk failing it! Likewise, the very loose sentence structure
of the informal definition has been replaced by a more concise yet definitely coherent sentence in its
formal version, while unnecessarily lengthy and informal subject-verb structures (things that are
scarce) or turns of phrase (match things) have been trimmed to abstract nouns (scarcity) and verbs
(accommodate), stylistically suitable in the new context.

Practice

Identify the stylistic register of each of the texts below and explain which features you have taken into
account. Is the style (stylistic register as well as layout) appropriate to the communicative context?

Dear Fred,
Thanks a lot for the invitation. Im afraid Sue is ill so
we wont be able to come. See you soon.
All the best,
Tom
Dear Professor Smith,
Thank you very much for the kind invitation to dinner. I regret that my wife is ill so that it will not be
possible for us to come. I do hope, however, that I shall have an opportunity of seeing you again in the
near future.
Yours sincerely,
Tom Jackson

5 | Stylistic Registers Assoc. prof. Estella Ciobanu

The following sentences are mixed formal and informal. Write F or I in the brackets after each
sentence.
a. The project will be completed next year.
b. I showed that his argument did not hold water.
c. I wonder why he put up with those terrible conditions for so long.
d. Five more tests will be necessary before the experiment can be concluded.
e. It is possible to consider the results from a different viewpoint.
f. It has been proved that the arguments so far are without foundation.
g. Hell have to do another five tests before he can stop the experiment.
h. It is not clear why such terrible conditions were tolerated for so long.
i. There are a number of reasons why the questionnaire should be revised.
j. Well finish the job next year.

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