Re: Venting thread
Posted: Thu Dec 05, 2024 11:56 pm
To me the literary language is typically 'high register', except in cases such as intentionally informal writing ('hafta', 'gonna', 'gotta', 'woulda', 'coulda', 'shoulda', 'sposta', 'kinda', 'sorta', and like*, for instance), literal direct quotations that seek to preserve actual speech verbatim, the use of interjections such as 'yeah', 'well', 'nah', and like, forms such as 'thing is...', and similarly uses of words such as 'thing' and 'stuff' in a quasi-pronominal fashion. All of the posts here are primarily 'high register', for instance, even ones written in a 'plain' or 'conversational' tone, with the exception of the latter three types of forms which are used commonly where they would be avoided in more literary writing.bradrn wrote: ↑Thu Dec 05, 2024 9:46 pmI’m not so sure. I wrote my Master’s thesis in a style which my supervisor described as ‘conversational’, and everyone seemed to like it a lot. IIRC, the feedback from reviewers was that it was easy to read.Travis B. wrote: ↑Thu Dec 05, 2024 8:45 pmThey specifically said that educational and journalistic texts should be written like "casual speech" (to quote), i.e. in a low register. How we are writing right now is not like casual speech at all, rather it is a rather formalized written register. Probably the only allowance for lower-register features in our writing here is common, rather standardized contractions (and this is not really lower-register either, as many of the very common contractions found in everyday speech do not typically feature in our writing here).
More generally, I feel that the English ‘high register’ admits a considerable amount of variation. We just don’t see a lot of it because, frankly, most people are terrible writers. (This applies especially to papers in the sciences.) But it is definitely possible to remain in a formalised register while keeping the text easy to read. It doesn’t necessarily involve importing features directly from casual speech — or even using contractions — but rather in avoiding features which are exclusive to high register, which I presume is what Starbeam meant by ‘ornamental language’.
EDIT: I should give some examples of those ‘features which are exclusive to high register’. Off the top of my head, they include: replacement of common words (especially verbs) by uncommon ones; greater frequency of the passive voice and other impersonal constructions; greater use of acronyms and symbols; highly embedded clause structures. I’m sure we can think of more if we try.
* And even these are rather formalized; for instance these are not reflective of my own speech, where all of these are subject to further elision and assimilation processes not reflected even in informal writing (with the exception of 'I am going to' > 'I'ma' where the final 'a' reflects a long nasal schwa).
Of course, as you say, there are variations in the literary 'high register'. For instance, there is the often-nearly-unreadable hyper-high register a lot of scientific papers are written in, as you mention, on one hand, and the register that forum posts like those here are commonly written in here that I mentioned above, on the other hand. But that does not mean that they reflect speech even when common tics of markedly high registers are avoided. I think that written language that avoids these things should not be compared with "casual speech" because it really is not it at all.
For instance, it is far more homogeneous across all of English than casual speech is. Even in the register of forum posts the main hints that everyone is not from the same corner of the Anglosphere, aside from English dialect discussion, is things such as -'ize' versus -'ise' and word choice differences such as 'parking lot' versus 'car park'. But these are rather minor in the greater scheme of things. There are no hints of my dialect except that I am most likely an American from my non-linguistic posts here, for instance, and even these hints are easy to overlook. Even the language of forum posts is highly standardized when one takes these minor details into account. (Most of the idiosyncrasies are actually really about things such as capitalization, punctuation, and like more than the underlying language except for possibly the tendency of some posters to write in very long, complex sentences that can be a pain to tease apart.)
Likewise, it is easy to understand by non-native English-speakers who may have little contact with everyday speech by actual native English-speakers. Conversely, non-native English-speakers can be readily understood by native English-speakers who would likely have at least some modest difficulties if they met in Real Life. The main exceptions to this are the frequent use by some of expressions from certain corners of the Anglosphere, particularly India, which are not readily understood in the Anglosphere in general. (Yes, I mean "kindly do the needful".)
There is no real concept of "accent" in it, as it is largely a written register and not a transcription of speech. Take for instance, someone from Scotland who natively speaks in Scots at home writing in this register of English on the Internet being very readily understood by English-speakers who have never been on the same continent as Scotland, whereas if they even attempted to write in a more direct transcription of Scottish English (much the less actual Scots) they would have difficulties being understood. Contrast this with, say, the IRC Berlinisch (which could be mistaken for Low German to the uninitiated) I am familiar with from my activist days of long ago, frequently using spellings such as 'ick' for StG 'ich', 'nich' for StG 'nicht', 'Tach' for StG 'Tag', and so on.
Consequently, we can say that forum English, for instance, even when it is 'plain' is still strictly a pan-Anglospheric written register and not reflective of anyone's actual speech. This is probably a good thing, because it enables widespread communication that would likely be far more difficult if we all tried to emulate our speech in writing. I remember deliberately writing in very informal English in IRC ages ago (I was intentionally pushing trying to bring written English closer to spoken English) and confusing non-native English-speakers to no end who were not familiar with actual spoken English. These days, even in IRC, I largely write like I do here, which is probably for the best.
