Language Varieties and Textual Properties: A Deep Dive
Cultural Varieties and Linguistic Registers
Diastratic Varieties
Diastratic varieties involve factors such as age, sex, economic status, education, and profession. These factors are classified into physical and social:
- Physical factors include varieties occasioned by differences in sex or age. Many of these differences reflect the social role played by the speakers of these groups and their role in society. Children, youth, adults, men, and women are distinguished by their physical traits.
- Socio-cultural factors are integrated by the occupation of the speakers, their education, and their level of registers. In general, groups with higher social and economic status use varieties closer to the norm; they are considered varieties of prestige compared to other disadvantaged groups that deviate from the norm.
Age and the diversity of social groups lead to the appearance of specialized languages, known as jargon. Professional jargon is used to give cohesion to the group and differentiate it from others and is characterized by the use of specialized terminology. There is also slang, the variety corresponding to marginal groups that develop a form of speech that prevents comprehension by people outside the group. These idioms are called slang, among which crime and juvenile slang stand out.
Idiomatic Registers
All speakers use language differently depending on the situation in which they are. The variety of language that the same speaker uses to suit each communicative situation is called register. The speaker chooses the way of speaking according to various factors such as the relationship between listener and speaker, setting, channel, and theme. We can also distinguish different registers, such as formal-informal, general-specific, or oral-written.
Differences Between Formal and Informal Registers
- Formal:
- Use of declarative models.
- Careful pronunciation.
- Use of precise vocabulary.
- Use of formulas, treatments, and complimentary resources.
- Informal:
- Use of a variety of expressive resources.
- Relaxed pronunciation of sounds.
- Presence of an imprecise lexicon and phrases.
- Search for affinity and affection.
Concept of Text and its Properties
A text is a linguistic unit larger than a sentence with a specific communicative purpose. It consists of statements related to convey a meaningful message. All texts must adhere to the principles of adequacy, coherence, and cohesion.
Adequacy
Adequacy is the text feature by which the text is adapted to the context of discourse and the communicative situation. It is often said that a speaker is communicatively competent when they have the ability to say what should be said at the right time and in the right way, conforming to the situation.
Coherence
Coherence is the connection of different parts of a text, that is, when the text elements relate to each other, creating a unified whole. For the text to be a unit of meaning, this unit must be the integration of all statements about the main idea. Therefore, the main idea is contained in the message, and the secondary ideas support it. This information that is added to the text is called thematic progression and can be done in three ways:
- Maintaining a theme, where the idea always remains and new information is added.
- Deriving other ideas so that these new ideas are part of the theme.
- Linking ideas, sharing the theme.
Speaking of its external structure allows us to distinguish different parts at a glance, as it is usually divided into paragraphs. But a text can also be divided into chapters, units, stanzas, and, in theater, acts and scenes.
Cohesion
Finally, we are dealing with cohesion, which is achieved by linguistic elements that connect the ideas of the text; these are called cohesion resources. The most important resources that can be highlighted are:
- Phonic reiteration: This involves the repetition of sounds and modes of statements.
- Grammatical reiteration: This involves the repetition of a grammatical category or the same scheme.
- Lexical substitution: This consists of the repetition of meaning through the use of synonyms, antonyms, and other forms.
- Grammatical substitution: This consists of the repetition of meaning through the use of pronouns or adverbs.
To avoid excessive repetition, lexical and grammatical substitutions are used, as discussed before. We also find ellipsis, which consists of the removal of linguistic elements that do not provide new information to the text.