Ways of classifying

varieties of a Language
Style & Register
What is Style?
These three sentences show differences in style of
speech
From a friend:
 “Where were you last night? I rang to see if you wanted
to come to the pictures?”
In a court:
“Could you tell the court where were you on the night of
Friday the seventeenth of March?”
From a teacher to students:
“I know some of you went ‘trick-or-treating’ last night.
Did you go out last night Jimmy?”
Definition of Style
According to Holmes:
Style is language variation which reflects changes in situational
factors such as addressee, settings, task or topic.

Factors that influence style:

Addressee
Age
Social background
Addressee
Who you talk to influences your choice of language:
A friend  casual style, informal;
An older person  more formal, polite
Younger  informal, casual
A stranger  polite, more standard form

Age of Addressee:
People usually talk differently to children than to adults
Adults ‘baby-talk’ to children
Native-speakers simplify their language to non-native
speakers
Social Background
• People adjust their style of speech according to the
background of the interlocutor.
• How two doctors talk to each other about a patient’s
condition?
• How would they explain the same thing to the patient or
the patient’s family?
• How would you talk to the President?
• How would you talk to your maid?
 Register
• Register is the typical style associated to a certain
group of speakers.
• For example,
• doctors talk about ‘symptoms’, ‘post-natal syndrome’, etc.
• Legal documents have certain ways of paragraphing,
sectioning, phrasing, etc.
• Sport announcers

Bina Nusantara