Understanding Language Registers: Standard, Literary, and More

Posted on Feb 9, 2025 in Other university degrees and diplomas

Standard Language Register

Standard: Generic and specific topics, oral and written channels, objective intention, medium reliability. Characteristics:

  1. Variety: Supradialectal, used by the public, oral and written.
  2. Facilitates intercommunication for the whole linguistic community.
  3. Associated with media, education, publishing, information, and dissemination areas.
  4. Holds a first degree of formality.
  5. Conforms to grammatical regulations.
  6. Neutral, not marked by jargon, colloquialisms, or vulgarisms.
  7. Pretends to be objective and impersonal.
  8. Used in a variety of areas: news, interviews, shopping, administration, propaganda, advertising.

Scientific-Technical Language Register

Scientific-technical: Specific topic, written channel, objective intention, high formality. Characteristics:

  1. Cultivated register, high formality, basically used in writing by the public.
  2. Precise expression without ambiguity.
  3. Avoids polysemy and double meanings.
  4. Uses specific, monosemic words.
  5. Abundance of artificial and abstract symbols (logic, math, physics, chemistry).
  6. Lexicon with neologisms, jargon, foreign words, and Latinisms.
  7. Always objective, therefore avoiding personal references of all kinds.
  8. Uses clear and controlled syntax in general.
  9. May include passive sentences, non-personal verb forms, nominalizations, and the use of the 3rd person.

Literary Language Register

Literary: Specific topic, written channel, subjective and objective intention, high reliability. Characteristics:

  1. Formal register, cultivated, and used by the public, basically written.
  2. Generally subjective, especially in poetry.
  3. Presents realities invented or recreated by the author.
  4. Uses metaphors, comparisons, metonymy, and figurative senses.
  5. Uses polysemy, synonyms, and ambiguity.
  6. Not precise and unambiguous, and can be interpreted in different ways.
  7. Very elaborate, expressive, and evocative.
  8. Uses cultivated forms, archaisms, and dialectal terms.

Family Language Register

Family Register: Generic topic, oral channel, subjective intention (interpretation and reporting), low formality. Characteristics:

  1. Basically oral, although it may appear in writing.
  2. Associated with family and private uses, considered informal.
  3. Expresses a subjective attitude.
  4. Very expressive and connotative language that combines words, gestures, intonation, parallelisms, and other resources.
  5. Simple, because it is produced spontaneously, repetitive.
  6. May contain inaccuracies and vulgarisms.
  7. Resources: Comparisons, figurative senses, phrases, euphemisms, exaggerations.
  8. Elementary and specific vocabulary, but not very expressive and easily changeable.
  9. Syntax: Abundance of juxtaposition.
  10. The function can be varied: emphatic, ironic, euphemistic, sarcastic, etc.
  11. Depends on the context and immediately shows the interrelationship between sender and receiver.

Vulgar Language Register

Vulgar Register: Generic topic, oral channel, subjective intentionality, low formality. Characteristics:

  1. Oral and informal register, always used in private.
  2. Expresses things clearly without euphemisms or rhetoric.
  3. Habitually uses swear words and vulgar expressions.
  4. Refuses to break taboos (sexual, religious, or those related to physiological functions).
  5. Associated with marginal social strata and sometimes used by young people of any social layer.
  6. Very little developed and often deviates from the norm, with vulgarisms and vulgarities.
  7. Uses resources from the family register, but with exaggeration.