Group 3:

1. Tika Aprilia Puspita

2. Yelli Wijayanti

Style, context and register

1. Addressee as an influence on style

The first utterance in example 2 was addressed by a teenage boy to his friend’s mother when she
was showing the photos of their skiing holiday to an adult friend. The second utterance was
addressed to his friend when he brought round his own photos of the holiday.

Age of addressee

People generally talk differently to children and to adults – though some adjust their speech style
or ‘accommodate’ more than others. Talking to younger brothers and sisters, even 3-year-olds
have been heard using sing-song intonation and ‘baby-talk’ words like doggie , which they no
longer use themselves. When talking or writing to a 6-year-old as opposed to a 30-year-old, most
people choose simpler vocabulary and grammatical constructions.

Example:

Mrs N : Oooh, he’s walking already.

Mother : Oh, yes, he’s such a clever little fellow aren’t you?

Mrs N : Hullo coogieboo. Eeeee . . . loo, diddle diddle dur. Ohh eechy, weechy poo poo. Ohh
eechy, peachy poo poo. There look at him laughing. Oh he’s a chirpy little fellow. Yeees.
Whoooo’s a chirpy little fellow eh? Yes. Ooooh, can he talk? Can he talk eh eh?

(Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Episode 28)

Social background of addressee

All these features have been identified as typical of the contrasting styles of newsreaders on
different New Zealand radio stations.

When June is speaking to people from the same social background as her own she pronounces
the consonant in the middle of better as [d] about a quarter of the time. We could say that this is
her ‘normal’ level of [d] pronunciation between vowels. But when she is talking to customers
from a lower social class, she adapts her pronunciation to their speech. For the lowest social class
in Cardiff, the average amount of [d] pronunciation in the middle of words like better is about 78
per cent. In other words, she went over halfway towards the cleaner’s speech style. It is June’s
job to get on well with her clients and encourage them to book with her firm. Accommodating to
their speech style is one way she signals her desire to get on well with them and make them feel
comfortable.

Accommodation Theory

Speech Convergence

Converging towards the speech of another person is usually considered a polite speech strategy.
It implies that the addressee’s speech is acceptable and worth imitating. Using the same
pronunciation and the same sort of vocabulary, for instance, is a way of signaling that you are on
the same wavelength.

How do Speakers accommodate

When people simplify their vocabulary and grammar in talking to foreigners or children, they are
converging downwards towards the lesser linguistic proficiency of their addressees. When a
complicated technical message is ‘translated’ for the benefit of someone who does not know the
jargon, speech accommodation is involved. When, in an interview with the hospital matron, a
nurse adopts some of the matron’s pronunciation features, she is converging upwards in her
speech.

Speech Divergent

Though the situation in which this example occurred – a language laboratory – is somewhat
artificial, it provides a very clear example of speech divergence. For obvious reasons, the
respondents deliberately diverged from the speech style, and even the language, of the person
addressing them. They disagreed with his sentiments and had no desire to accommodate to his
speech.

Stylization

When someone goes beyond their usual or normal ways of speaking and behaving and engages
in a ‘high’ or ‘strong’ performance of some sort, the term ‘stylization’ is useful. The most
obvious examples of stylization are found in the speech of comedians and singers who perform
to entertain or amuse us.

Accommodation problem

In general, then, reactions to speech convergence and divergence depend on the reasons people
attribute for the convergence or divergence. If divergence is perceived as unavoidable, for
instance, then the reaction will be more tolerant than when it is considered deliberate. Deliberate
divergence will be heard as uncooperative or antagonistic.

2. Context, Style, and Class

 Example:
Judge : I see the cops say you were pickled last night and were driving an old jalopy
down the middle of the road. True?
Defendant : Your honor, if I might be permitted to address this allegation, I should like to
report that I was neither inebriated nor indeed was I under the influence of an alcoholic
beverage of any kind.

3. Register
Styles are often analyzed along a scale of formality, as in the examples from social
dialect research discussed above. Registers, on the other hand, when they are
distinguished from styles, tend to be associated with particular groups of people or
sometimes specific situations of use. Journalese, baby-talk, legalese, the language of
auctioneers, race-callers and sports commentators, the language of airline pilots,
criminals, financiers, politicians and disc jockeys, the language of the courtroom and the
classroom, could all be considered examples of different registers.