Occupational Register

3 Key excerpts on "Occupational Register"

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  eBook - ePub

  The Vocabulary of Modern French

  Origins, Structure and Function

  • Hilary Wise(Author)
  • 2003(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Although such concepts can form the basis of a useful framework for discussing variation in French, it is not difficult to think of recognisable varieties which do not fit neatly into a single category. Correspondence relating to business or administration, for example, constitutes a type of text where occupational style and register are inextricably mixed. The specialised lexis of a particular occupational group is usually involved, but register plays an important role too, in that business letters are generally forms of communication between people who have never met, and they express the respectful formality considered appropriate to the written mode, to the social distance involved and to the impersonal nature of the transaction. Beyond the usual grammatical and lexical markers of formal register, and the specialised vocabulary required for the subject under discussion, this kind of text is also marked by a range of specific formulae, especially at the beginning and end of the letter. Manuals such as Ponthier’s Le grand livre de la correspondance commerciale et des affaires (1978) help to instruct users in the implications of Cher Monsieur, as opposed to simply Monsieur, as an opener, and in the subtle nuances of nos sentiments les meilleurs, versus nos sentiments devoués or respectueux, in the closing formula. Occupational style is to an extent independent of register; in a court of law, the relevant occupational style, at least on the part of the professional participants, is necessarily going to correlate with the grammatical forms and standard pronunciation appropriate to a formal, public and indeed ritualised occasion. 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

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  The Routledge Companion to Education

  • James Arthur, Andrew Peterson, James Arthur, Andrew Peterson(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  2010 ). For example, in talking with close friends, individuals probably would use a more oral, or informal register; people are more likely to activate the academic language register when giving a class presentation or writing a research report on the negative environmental consequences of the recent “oil spill” in the US Gulf of Mexico.

  Developing academic language proficiency is similar, in some respects, to learning a second language. Primary-language ability means knowing “how to talk” in the situations of everyday life. As such, it encompasses the language socialization processes of a child’s culture. Learning the academic language register, however, is not regarded as an automatic process. The fact that learning this register is not automatic, as the previous discussion on social dialect variations indicated, appears to be a major educational challenge for second language learners and monolingual-speaking children who come from less literate households in both the US and the European Union. There is a substantial body of research revealing that the vocabulary, syntax, and discourse features of the academic language register must be taught (e.g. Bowers and Kirby, 2010 ;

  Gersten et al., 2007

  ; Hakuta et al., 2001 ), if not with multiple experiences during the preschool years, such as shared storybook reading, then in elementary school, middle, and high school. In particular the interface between vocabulary and syntax begins to change around ages 9 to 10 years old and continues through adolescence, as found in the increasing linguistic density of expository writing (Berman and Nir, 2010 ). Berman (2007 ) contends there is a difference between being a fluent native speaker of a language, as indicated by command of the everyday oral language register, and becoming a proficient user of language for school learning, which is intertwined with literacy learning well into adolescence and beyond. In contrast to the oral language register, the academic language register represents a new tool for thinking and communicating in more literate ways (Short and Fitzsimmons, 2007 ; Verplaste and Migliacci, 2008). Finally, each content area, whether it is literature, mathematics, history, geography, science, or social studies, uses its own specialized academic language register (see, for example, Ravid et al., 2010 ; Schleppregrel, 2007

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  An 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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