Formality and Context Competence

1. Formality and Context Competence Sean Curley

2. Language Competence • Understanding and effectively using a particular language requires several degrees of competence • Lexical competence: knowing the words of a language and their meanings • Syntactic competence: knowing how to put those words together in meaningful ways • We can use real words in the language, and put them in the proper order, and still sound “wrong” • We can’t just know the what and how of language, but the where and when (context competence) • Shown by appropriate register choice

3. Introduction to Register in Linguistics • A register is a subset of all the linguistic rules that we have available to us • We change our register to meet the expectations of a situation • Different social gatherings • Different individualsin similar social scenarios • Depends on personal relationship

4. Why Do We Care? • Context-incompetence can have very negative consequences • Business • The age of the global economy • Different languages, different rules • Ex.: Tu and Usted in Spanish • Ex.: Japanese honorifics • Education • Students of different socioeconomic status (Payne 2008) • Students from lower SES may default to incorrect register • The rise of CMC communication • “Chatspeak” and its lexicon • “The linguistic ruin of this generation” (Axtman 2001) • But wait…(Tagliamonte and Dennis (2008); Varhagen et al (2009))

5. Register Observations • A standard for registers would be nice to have • Those unfamiliar with registers could use such a reference • There are a lot of registers to classify • Formality seems to be a common difference amongst registers, and the biggest area of potential misinterpretation • Developing the standard around the concept of formality would be, at the very least, a good starting point

6. What Do We Need? • A working definition of formality • So that we know by what measure to evaluate speech acts • Some sort of scale of formality • So that we can provide an idea of formal levels • So that we can classify registers based on these levels • An evaluator for speech acts • So we can insertthose acts into our formality registers and have a useful scale • Can these even be developed, and how? • (That’s my research question.)

7. Literature Review • Past attempts at developing scales • Joos (1967) • Defined formality registers in terms of the relationship between communicators • Frozen – Formal – Consultative – Casual – Intimate • Every language has these five levels • Gemmell (2009) • Defined formality registers by social consequences (cultural scripts) • Language-independent • Formal – Somewhat Formal – Everyday Courteous – Slightly Informal – Informal • Past attempt to define and measure formality • Heylighen and Dewaele (1999) • “Deep formality”: ambiguity avoidance • F-measure, analyzed speech acts by word type

8. Discussion - Definition • Formality should include ambiguity avoidance, we should use the correct choice of words to minimize the chance of being misunderstood • It should also include politeness rules, as if we are not polite enough (or even too polite), we also run the risk of being misinterpreted • An attempt at a definition: “The level of formality of a communicative act is the degree to which the communicator is concerned (perhaps cautious) with the act being correctly interpreted by the recipient.” • As a speech act decreases in formality, it will be less about what is literally said; the recipient must use more effort or have more background knowledge to correctly interpret the act

9. Discussion - Scale • The five levels that Joos and Gemmell use are a good starting point; let’s create the scale by situations of increasing formality with the situations in which to use them • Ceremonial: Rituals; strictly follows appropriate forms • Presentational: Academic work, business meetings • Transactional: Conversation between professionals towards gaining information • Casual: Conversation between friends • Internal: Close friends or family

10. Discussion - Evaluator • The evaluator is going to need more work • Heylighen and Dewaele’s research is useful for relative formality and might help to determine bounds, but seems to ignore politeness • A proper evaluator should include ambiguity avoidance along with politeness • Politeness rules of a language need to be observed and enumerated • There are some obvious ones (slang is typically frowned upon in more formal situations) • Should we evaluate by number of rules, strength of rules? • Use F-measure to better differentiate?

11. Conclusion • Creating a useful objective scale is possible; it’s just really difficult • Defining the scale is the easy part • Evaluating acts is hard because defining and measuring politeness is hard • The evaluator will inevitably be at least somewhat specific to the culture in which it was developed • Once we have the tools, we can use themto… • Evaluate our own speech • Use it as a teaching tool for students learning language

12. References • Axtman, Kris. “‘r u online?’: The Evolving Lexicon of Wired Teens.” Christian Science Monitor, Dec. 12, 2002. < http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1212/p01s01-ussc.html>. • Gemmell, Maggie Sue. "Defining Formality Levels: Cultural Scripts as a Guide to the Formality Scale of Register." Thesis. University of Texas, 2009. University of Texas Libraries Digital Repository. Web. <http://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/handle/2152/ETD-UT-2009-08-207?show=full>. • Heylighen, Francis, and Jean-Marc Dewaele. "Formality of Language: Definition, Measurement and Behavioral Determinants." Internal Report (1999). Center "Leo Apostel", Free University of Brussels. Web. <http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.30.6280&rep=rep1&type=pdf>. • Joos, Martin. The Five Clocks. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1967. Print. • Payne, Ruby. "Nine Powerful Practices." Educational Leadership 65.7 (2008): 48-52.ASCD. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Web. Sept.-Oct. 2011. <http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/apr08/vol65/num07/Nine-Powerful-Practices.aspx>. • "Register (sociolinguistics)." Wikipedia. Web. Oct.-Nov. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Register_(sociolinguistics)>. • Tagliamonte, S. A., and D. Denis. "Linguistic Ruin? Lol! Instant Messaging And Teen Language." American Speech 83.1 (2008): 3-34. Web. <http://web.uvic.ca/ling/coursework/ling395/395_LOL.pdf>. • Varhagen, Connie, G. P. McFall, Nicole Pugh, Lisa Routledge, Heather Sumida-MacDonald, and Trudy E. Kwong. "Lol: New Language and Spelling in Instant Messaging."Reading and Writing 23.6 (2009): 719-33. Department of Psychology, University of Alberta. Web. <http://www.psych.ualberta.ca/~varn/Documents/VarnhagenMcFall2010.pdf>.