Varieties and Registers of Spoken and Written Language

Languages

The principal method of human communication, either written or spoken words.

Spoken Languages - is a language produced by articulate sounds, as opposed to written
language.
Written Language - is an invention in that it must be taught to children, who will pick up spoken
language or sign language by exposure even if they are not formally instructed.
CHARACTERISTICS OF SPOKEN AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE
Chafe (1994) introduces six differences between spoken and written language.
SPOKEN LANGUAGE
Evanescence- refers to its nature of rapid fading. This quality of sound makes spoken language
available only at the time and place it is uttered unless it is recorded.
Faster Tempo- - speaking is usually delivered faster than the written language is produced.
Spontaneity- refers to the nature of spoken language wherein it tends to be delivered without
careful thought about the content. Since speakers produce utterances off the top of their head,
their utterances tend to be fragmented and disorganized. It tends to be full of repetitions,
incomplete sentences, corrections and interruptions.
Richness in prosody- means that we can utilize pitches, prominences, pause, and voice quality
when we speak.
Naturalness – we can speak without the need for any tool.
Situatedness- refers to the setting in which communication takes place. Speakers who are
engaged in the conversation have to be present at relatively nearby locations in order to hear
each other’s voice.
WRITTEN LANGUAGE
Permanent and transportable- we can read books from all over the world and even books from
hundreds of years ago.
Slower tempo- there is no technological device which allows us to write as fast as we speak.
Deliberate and complicated- writers usually have the opportunity to look over their work and to
alter its content. As a result, writers can easily produce longer and more complicated sentences
as compared to their everyday speech.
Low of prosody- writing systems do not have a well-developed ways to express prosodic
phenomena.
Less natural- we need writing tools to write with and on.
Desituatedness- writer and reader do not have to be close when the writer constructs and
produces a text.
Languages Varieties
language variety—also called lect—is a general term for any distinctive form of a language or
linguistic expression. Linguists commonly use language variety as a cover term for any of the
overlapping subcategories of a language, including dialect, register, pidgin and creole.
Language variety refers to the various forms of language triggered by social factors.
Variety is a specific set of ‘linguistic items’ and ‘human speech pattern’
linguistic items – any basic unit of languages such as vocabulary/lexemes, soun-
pattern or larger syntactic patterns/constructions
human speech pattern – human voice and accent
Varieties of language develop for a number of reasons:
Distinct geography
Membership of a specific group
Individual development of idiolect
Categories of Language Variety
A. Dialect - refers to the way people speak their native language.
Types:
Regional Dialect- spoken in a particular geographical area.
Sociolect- Differences in speech associated with various social group such as
income level, education, occupation.
Ethnolect- spoken by a specific ethnic group
Idiolect- A person’s specific way of speaking that differs from the way other
people talk
B. Pidgin - a simplified language derived from two or more languages used by people who
do not share a common language in a given geographical location.
C. Creole – The same as pidgin that become the first language of the children and mother
tongue of the community but language is a stable natural language developed from a
mixture of different languages.
D. Register - refer to particular ways of using language in particular contexts and in social
situations.
Frozen - specific written or oral acts that remain unchanged.
Formal - used when communication is expected to be respectful, uninterrupted,
and restrained.
Consultative - used when speaking with someone who has specialized
knowledge or who is offering advice.
Casual - used with friends, close acquaintances and co-workers, and family
Intimate - usually between two people and often in private.