Languages & Linguistics
Consultative Register
The consultative register refers to a style of language use that is polite, formal, and respectful. It is often employed in professional or formal settings, such as business meetings, academic presentations, or official correspondence. Speakers using the consultative register typically use more complex and sophisticated language structures and show deference to their interlocutors.
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3 Key excerpts on "Consultative Register"
eBook - ePubThe Vocabulary of Modern French
Origins, Structure and Function
- Hilary Wise(Author)
- 2003(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
But two close colleagues discussing the technicalities of a court case in their office, while retaining the use of much specialised terminology, will probably use grammatical and phonological forms of informal conversation. Here, lexis signals occupational style, while other linguistic features (possibly including low-register lexical items) reflect the informality of the setting and the personal relations involved. 4 Register and sociolect, however, are intimately linked. It often happens that a variety which developed as the everyday mode of communication of the ruling élite (i.e. a sociolect), carries such prestige that it becomes the vehicle for formal written and spoken communication for the entire community—in other words, it acquires the function of a register. Conversely, positive qualities stereotypically associated with working-class speech have often led to features of this sociolect being adopted by speakers higher up the social scale, for purposes of relaxed, informal communication (see Trudgill 1972 and Giles and Powseland 1975). The social and stylistic mobility of lexical items is discussed in more detail in the next chapter. LINGUISTIC VARIETIES AND LEXICAL LABELS Most dictionaries use a range of marques d’usage (what are here called ‘lexical labels’), to give some indication of the field, register or sociolect to which particular words or phrases are appropriate, and whether they are in current usage or somewhat archaic. Near-synonyms are also often provided in dictionary entries; for example amuser, désennuyer, divertir, égayer, récréer are added to the entry for distraire in the PR. As well as helping to pinpoint the denotational value of the headword, this practice gives readers a choice of items which may be appropriate to other registers, so that they are not obliged to reach for a thesaurus in their search for the mot juste
eBook - ePub- Gerard Van Herk(Author)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
genre – it’s a widely recognized category of event with its own name. Other genres might include the novel, the political speech, the lecture, or the knock-knock joke.A register associated with a particular occupation or activity often develops its own special vocabulary items, known as jargon . Jargon can involve special terms, as when linguists refer to fricatives or mediopassives , or specialized meanings for existing words, as when we give particular linguistic meanings to the words register or style . Jargon makes communication more effective for in-group members – we don’t need to keep saying things like “those sounds where our phonation is all hissy.” But jargon also excludes non-members, or creates barriers to participation. (Sometimes this is the point, as with criminal “secret languages,” often called argot .)Lots of Jargon: Frequent FlyersI participate in a community of practice that just loves jargon: a discussion board for frequent flyers. Much of the jargon is borrowed from the airline industry itself, especially abbreviations and acronyms. These include airport codes (everybody writes PDX, not Portland ), fare classes (it’s J and Y, not business class and economy ), airline codes (LX, not Swiss International ), and many other terms (GA for gate attendant ). Every SE (Super Elite) FF (frequent flyer) knows that an OP-UP (operational upgrade, a free upgrade to J because the airline sold too many Y tickets) is better than a LMUG (last minute upgrade, where you pay to turn your Y ticket into J). There are also terms specific to the community, such as kettle (a clueless hick traveler, from the old Ma and Pa Kettle films) or gate lice
eBook - ePubAn Introduction to Social Psychology
Global Perspectives
- James Alcock, Stan Sadava(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications Ltd(Publisher)
Even within a particular combination of regional and social dialects, a given individual’s speech varies from situation to situation in terms of speech register (Romaine, 2000). Speech registers are varieties of a language that are used in particular situations. They reflect one’s emotional state, and we can quickly judge whether a person is angry or happy or unfriendly just by listening to a tape recording of the voice. Choice of speech register also reflects the relationship between the individuals who are conversing, as well as factors such as the speaker’s perceived relative status, and the speaker’s judgement about the listener’s own typical speech register. Do you speak any differently to your mechanic than you would to your physician or professor? Our choice of register can tell people a great deal about how we view them. Speech registers also vary with the context: Think of a professor intoning a lecture with authority and eloquence. If you were to overhear that same person speaking in the same manner to a companion over dinner in a restaurant, he or she would likely strike you as pretentious and overbearing – all because the speech register is inappropriate in that setting. We adjust our speech to the situation, and as we go through our daily lives, we change registers frequently as we encounter a variety of situations. Because the use of certain speech registers reflects a speaker’s power relative to the listener, the choice of speech register can have debilitating effects. In some situations, this is because it reminds listeners of their relative lack of power and independence. For example, one speech register that we all are familiar with is what linguists refer to as baby talk or BT. This refers not to the way that babies speak but to the way that adults talk to two- to five-year-olds. It is recognizable by its high pitch and exaggerated intonations (Caporael, Lukaszewski & Culbertson, 1983), and it is a feature of all languages (Ferguson, 1977, 2011)
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