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Style
The variations of speech that occurs within
individual speakers who come from a single
location.
Style andFormality
At times, we are more careful or relaxed
in our speaking or writing.
The varying levels of attention to
variety forms a natural continuum.
Explanation: the stylistic variation is
the result of the care that speakers and
writers take with their expression.
The more formal de situation, the more
attention we pay to our language.
Audience Design,
AccommodatioandNormativism
Audience design: a speaker who can
control more than one variety chooses a
level of speech according to the audience
he or she is addressing.
Accommodation: we automatically
adjust our speech to be more like that of
our interlocutor.
Normativism: the approach taken by
purists who claim that there is one
‘correct’ version and that all variation is
incorrect and bad.
Specialized varieties
Register: the special variety especially
marked by a special set of vocabulary
associated with a profession, occupation
or social group and forming part of its
jargon.
A specialized jargon serves to label new
and needed concepts and also to establish
bonds between members and enforce
boundaries for outsiders
Cant: thieves and underworld jargon,
which goal is to make it hard for outsiders
to comprehend conversations.
Domains
These are the typical social situation with
three defining characteristics: place, role-
relationship and topic. Domains are named
usually for a place or an activity in it.
• A one common domain is
home.
• Role-relationships include:
family members and visitors.
• Topics (which depends on
the cultural patterns) may
be: activities of the family,
news about a family
Slang and Solidarity
Slang is one way of estabilishing social identity.
Its main characteristics are:
the special kinds of ‘intimate’ or in-group speech.
The rejection of formal rules.
Its freshness and epheremerality.
Free usage of taboo expressions., e.g. fuck, shit.
It’s the feature of speech of the young and the powerless.