Levels of language usage

By Yalova Maryam
31a18f
 Definition
Each of us employs a different level of usage (word choice)
depending upon whether we are speaking or writing, upon who
are our audience, upon the kind of occasion, etc. Different levels
of usage are combinations of cultural levels and functional
varieties. Dialect, ungrammatical speech, slang, illiteracies, and
even colloquial language, as well as technical terms and
scientific expressions are generally included in such levels.
Two levels of language
usage
• formal speech

• informal speech
When the formal style is used
The formal style is used between persons who are unknown to each
other; the formal style is for dressed-up, important occasions which
demand dignity, respect, precision, care in choice of words and sentence
types. In this case the setting is formal for example, a university
lecture hall, parliamentary chambers, or a public auditorium.
Formal style is usually single-topic oriented. One person does the
speaking, and there is little or no response from the audience.
Accordingly, an English speaker is likely to employ may rather than
might or can; to use a clause such as for whom did you get it? rather than
who did you get it for?; and an adverb outside rather than inside of the
infinitive phrase for example, purposely to show rather than to
purposely show.
 Formal vocabulary
a) bookish or learned words
These words are used in written speech, in the books, that we read.
They may be met in the authors narrations, descriptions.
Learned word are used in oral speech as well, mostly in the speech of well educated people. We
must remember that the overuse of bookish words makes our speech absurd, ridiculous and just
funny.
b) scientific-prose words
These words are used to express scientific concepts and ideas. There are many terms and set
phrases among them.
c) archaic words
Archaisms are words or word combinations which are partly or completely out of use today.
EG: the word nay=no; eve=evening; morn=morning
Archaisms are different from historisms. The archaisms are words denoting objects and
phenomena that have come out of use.
d) professional terminology are words that belong to special scientific professional or trade
terminological systems.
When the informal style is used
The informal level of language usage normally occurs between people
who know each other and in settings where the participants are
relaxed.
The informal style is for fun, relaxation, use with close friends and
relatives – it is our leisure speech. Furthermore, the topic of the
communication is normally not too urgent, and therefore one can
employ a degree of verbal play. This informal level of language may
also occur between persons who do not know each other, but who are
operating in a very familiar setting – bargaining in a market or store, in
which case the conversation may include such clipped expressions as
How much? One dollar each. Too much! How about these? Only two bits
each. Okay, gimme four.
 Informal vocabulary
1) Colloquial words. They in their turn are divided into literary-colloquial,
familiar-colloquial, and low- colloquial.
Literary-colloquial words do not break the norms of the language. We use
these words in our everyday speech. EG: He has caught a cold.
Many of the clichés belong to this group: Thank you! Thanks.
These word are also use in fiction. They are used in the speech of the characters
and in modern books, literature, in the author’s narration.
Familiar-colloquial words sound rude. They are colorful and expressive. They’re
used by the young people, who want to be grown up and want to be
independent and by those people whose cultural and educational background is
poor. EG: I’m fed up with it.
Low-colloquial words are met in the speech of the illiterate people, EG: by the
characters of “Pygmalion”.
It should be noted that there is no strict boarder line between literary and
familiar col., and fam. and low colloquial.
 2) Slang
Slangisms are a very interesting groups of words. One of the
characteristics of slangism is that they are not included into
Standard English (EG: mug = face; trap = mouth)
Such words are based on metaphor, they make speech
unexpected, vivid and sometimes difficult to understand.
Slang appears as a language of a subgroup in a language
community. We can speak of black-americans’ slang,
teenagers’ slang, navy and army slang. (Slang is used by
different people of social or professional groups, special slang
is futher subdivided into – University slang-teenager slang –
sport slang).
The difference between formal and
informal language
Formal language is different from informal language in several ways.
First of all, formal language tends to be more polite. It usually takes more words to be
polite.
For example, one might say to a friend or family member, “Close the door, please,”
but to a stranger or someone in authority one probably would say something
like, “Would you mind closing the door?” or “Excuse me, could you please close the
door?” Using words like “could” and “would” makes one’s request sound more polite,
as well as more formal. With friends and family, we want to be polite so we use the
word please. But we don’t want to sound too formal, so we don’t use phrases like
“Would you” or “Excuse me.”
 Another difference between formal and informal
language is some of the vocabulary. There are some
words and phrases that belong to formal language and
others that are informal.
If one who really likes soccer is talking to one’s friend or
colleague, one might say, “I’m just crazy about soccer.”
But if one was talking to one’s boss or a friend of one’s
parents, one would probably say, “I really enjoy soccer”
or “I like soccer very much.” We call the police “the cops”
when we talk to our friends, but we say “the police”
when we talk to our teachers.
The line between formal and
informal language
The line between formal and informal language is not always clear,
and people are probably less formal today than in the past. But it is
useful to be aware that these two levels or categories do exist. The
best way for a non-native speaker of English to learn the difference is
to observe the different ways English speakers speak or write in
different situations. The speech of television news reporters, your
college professors in class, your doctors in their offices etc. will
usually be more formal. However, the speech of your classmates,
teammates, family members and friends will generally be more
informal. The difference can be learned over time by observing and
interacting with native speakers or near-native speakers of English.
Thank you for your attention!