Words: 2598
Through it, people are converse and express heir feelings, ideas, or intentions clearly. In short, language is the main tool in communication. In communicating, there are at least two parties. They are the speaker or writer, and the listener or reader. In this modern time, there are several languages being used. The language used by a person may depend on various factors. It may depend on the place, the time, the occasion, who they are conversing with, and etc. Thus, there are many different linguistic forms. Most of these linguistic variations are highly systematic.
Speakers of a language make choices in pronunciation, repertory, word choice, and grammar depending on the factors affecting the use of a certain linguistic variation. These factors include the speaker’s purpose in communication, the relationship between speaker and the audience to whom the speaker expresses the message, the production circumstances, and the social characteristics of the speaker. These factors make up the whole situation or setting in the communication process. When communicating, people do not necessarily use the standard language despite the fat that it could be understood by most people.
People sometimes use their own language variation, which depicts their identity. The choice of the language being used by people when communicating is affected by the factors mentioned earlier. Depending on the speaker’s preference, he/she could switch languages when speaking with different people, or he/she could choose not to. Though commonly, people do not use the same language variation when speaking with an audience in a class and when conversing with his group of friends. The variety of language used by a speaker in a particular setting is called register.
The situations cited above are just examples of settings where different registers can be used. There are lot more settings where register would definitely vary if the speaker is being affected by the factors which are mostly found in the situation itself. These reasons, the researchers are interested in determining on how UP Mindanao students’ register vary in different settings. B. Review of Related Literature Ever since the evolution of languages began, there have been many language variations introduced. This languages can be applied in certain situations and have their own boundaries.
Naturally, people tend to find the appropriate language to use when a particular situation or setting. Most beakers of a language know how to use many dialects, using one with friends, another when on a job interview or presenting a report in class, and another with talking with family. These are situational dialects, also called registers or styles. Though, we use registers unconsciously, without us knowing that we are trying to fit in the language that we are using in the current situation when We speak. B. 1 General Literature B. 1. 1 Sociolinguistic Definition Register is the level of formality used when speaking or writing.
Victoria Frocking and Robert Roadman, authors of An Introduction to Language, call it a stylistic variant of a language appropriate to a particular social setting, also called style”, and “situational dialects”. Dell Homes suggests that register, or social variation in speech, is “located along such dimensions as the kind of speech event being engaged in (e. G. Sales talk as compared to man-to-man talk), the roles of the various parties (e. G. Talk to children compared with talk to adults), the topic of the discussion (e. G. Children’s talk about toys compared with their talk about discipline), and the style of the discussion (e. . Whether informal or formal)” (CTD. In Woodlot 44). From this, we can conclude that the determinants of register include social setting situation, addresser and addressee, and topic. In other words, language has to be appropriate to the individuals speaking and hearing it, and it also must match particular occasions and situations. Linguistic varieties linked to occupations, professions, or topics have been also termed register. The register of law, for example is different from the register of medicine, which in turn is different from the language of engineering – and so on.
Registers are usually characterized solely by vocabulary differences, either by the use of particular rods, or by the use of words in a particular sense. In society, people use many kinds of language varieties that describe the changes in situational factors, such as address, setting and topics. Each occupational group or social group has the difference of specific vocabularies associated. Therefore, each group has a different register and even individually, register varies (Harold 1996). 8. 1. 2 History The term “register” was first used in 1956 by the linguist Thomas Bertram Reid.
Following Reed’s initial use of it, and its development in the sass’s, Holiday and his colleagues (1964) described it as “a variety according to use, n the sense that each speaker has a range of varieties and chooses between them at different times. ” This use-related framework for the description of language variation (as contrasted with the user-related varieties called dialects) (Haiti and Mason, 1 990) aims to “uncover the general principles which govern [the variation in situation types], so that we can begin to understand what situational factors determine what linguistic features” (Holiday, 1978).
It is only when linguists showed interest in actual speech and discourse that the term turned up in foundational linguistics works like those of Firth and Pike. In Firth’s (1957) work, register finds a possible equivalent in the “restricted language,” which he defines as “serving a circumscribed field of experience or action” with “its own grammar and dictionary”. He emphasizes the use Of practical methods in linguistic analysis, and points out that a domain becomes easier to manage when the linguist must draw abstractions from a whole linguistic universe which consists of many specialized languages and different styles.
F-rite considers science, technology, politics, commerce, industry, sports, etc, or “a particular form of genre,” or a “type of work associated with a single author or a type of speech function with its appropriate style or tempo” as domains of “restricted languages. ” It is Holiday, a pupil of Firth, who, along with his (mostly Australian) associates, “eventually gave currency to the term ‘register’ as such.
For Holiday, register is “the clustering of semantic features according to situation type,” and “can be defined as a configuration of semantic resources that the member of a culture typically associates with a situation type”. The theory of register thus derived “attempts to uncover the general principles which govern” how ‘the engage we speak or write varies according to the type Of situation”. He warns linguists against “posing the wrong question” of “what features of language are determined by register? In the process of seeking such a link. He tells us that we should instead seek for the factors that determine the selection of language. “Following the functional-semantic tradition pursued by Firth”, Holiday (1978) finds the concept of register “a useful abstraction linking variations of language to variations of social context” and suggests “that there are three aspects in any situation that have linguistic uniqueness: field, mode, and tenor” (Egging, 1994:52).
According to him, field refers to “what is happening, to the nature of the social action that is taking place,” mode concerns “what it is that the participants [of a transaction] are expecting language to do for them in that situation,” and tenor has to do with who are taking part in the transaction as well as the “nature of the participants, their status and roles (Has and Holiday, 1985:12). These three register variables delineate the relationships between language function and language form.
In other words, a register is constituted y “the linguistic features which are typically associated with a configuration of situational features-?with particular values of the field, mode and tenor” (Holiday, 1976:22). For example, the tenor off text, which concerns the relationship between the addresser and the addressee, can “be analyzed in terms of basic distinctions such as polite-colloquial-intimate, on a scale of categories which range from formal to informal” (Haiti and Mason, 1990:50).
In the same vein, the mode of an interaction which manifests the nature of the language code being used can be distinguished in terms of, among other wings, spoken and written. B. 1. 3 Formal and Casual/landforms Register The difference between formal and informal English is not a difference between correct and incorrect, but a difference of what is known as register. As stated above, a register is a variety of language related to a particular subject matter or area of activity, a set of words and expressions as well as syntactical features that may be said to characterize that specific area of language.
There are many registers: technical, academic, mathematical, scientific, etc. Very broadly speaking we can also speak of a “formal” and “informal” register in English. In writing academic reports, discussing in front of the class and the like, it would be normal to draw most of the vocabulary and expressions from the formal register, and few, if any, from the informal. This entails avoiding colloquial (everyday) or slang expressions in your writing assignments. Myers, 2006) Formal register is a type of register that incorporates Standard American English and is used by professionals or in situations where in most cases, people are not familiar with one another. It is also used whenever the speaker is talking in a formal situation, where the formality of the situation loud be affected by the listeners and the subject of the talk. (Canada, 1999). The formal register is usually a one-way participation with just the speaker, with no interruptions. Technical vocabulary or “fuzzy semantics” with exact definitions are important.
In the formal register, the following are usually observed by the speaker: ;Prescribed grammar ;Correct pronunciation (with velar nasal instead of alveolar nasal) reporting, not reporting’ ;Choice of formal words Ex: father instead of dad ; Refraining from usage of nigh words Ex: mint Informal register is a type of register used with more familiar people in usual conversation. In the informal style of register, contractions are used more often, rules of negation and agreement may be altered, and slang or colloquialisms may be used.
Informal register also permits certain abbreviations and deletions, but they are rule governed. Example of the rules is deleting the “you ” subject and the auxiliary often shortening questions. Instead of asking, “Are you running in the marathon,” a person might ask, “Running the marathon? ” In the informal register, rules of contraction are often used. One is the example stated above. Others include the following: Rules of negation and agreement may be altered ; Words that do not occur in formal style are used ; Permits abbreviations and deletions One of the most common marks of the informal style is the use of slang.
These words are hard to define. It is “one of those things that everybody can recognize and nobody can define”, therefore in a sense, colloquial. Examples are spaced out, right on, hang up, rip off, barf, pooped. Although, these slang words have already gained a degree of acceptance, but not total acceptance. B. 2 Related Studies There have been studies conducted about register. Buddhism (2001 ) investigated registers used in National Basket Ball Association (NAB) Games in US of America.
In his analysis, he found that generally registers used in the NAB games are in form Of word or phrase. Sandbar (2005) conducted his research on registers used in Billiard Game. He showed that the registers used in Billiard Game are in the form of word and compound word. He also found that register on billiard game are able to be divided based on characteristic and the meaning. Based on the characteristic, register can be divided into four terms. They are Technical term, Shot term, Instrument term, and General term.
Whereas based on the kinds of meaning, registers can be grouped into six categories: the register meaning is narrower than the real meaning, the register meaning is broader than the real meaning, the register meaning shares some features of meaning, the register meaning is identical to real meaning, and the register meaning presents new word that has no real meaning. 8. 3 Definition of Terms Setting. This refers to the totality of the situation where the subjects are being observed. UP Mindanao Students.
This refers to the subjects being observed for this research. Register. This refers to the independent variable of this study. Informal/Casual. This refers to the kind of register which is being observed in this study, particularly the setting where the subject is among his/her friends. Formal. This refers to another type of register which is being observed in this study, particularly the setting where the subject is reporting or discussing topics in class where his/her classmates are the target audience. Field.
This refers to the situation surrounding the subjects that we have Tenor. This refers to the relationships between the speakers being observed ND their target audience when they spoke. Power Relations. This refers to the relationship between addressee and addresser. Frequency of Contact. This refers to the rate at which the addressee and addresser have conversations. C. Statement of the Problem This study aims to answer the following questions: 1 . What is the relationship between the two headings of register (field and tenor) to its formality scale? 2.
What are the similarities between the register/language used by the speaker in formal and casual setting? 3. Based on the observations, could it be possible that the registers/languages seed in each setting are affected by other factors such as gender of the speaker and gender of the audience? D. Objectives of the Study This study aims to achieve the following: ; To determine the relationship between the two headings of register (field and tenor) to its formality scale ; To determine the similarities in the register/language used by the speaker in the two settings? To determine the possibility that the registers/languages used in each setting are affected by other factors such as gender of the speaker and gender of the audience. E. Theoretical and Conceptual Framework E. I Theoretical Framework Speech Act Theory: When we speak, our words do not have meaning in and of themselves. They are very much affected by the situation, the speaker and the listener. Thus words alone do not have a simple fixed meaning.
Register Theory In the Holiday (also called Australian) functional theory of language (Hymn, 1996), “analysts are not just interested in what language is, but why language is; not just what language means, but how language means (Luckier-Tarry, 1993). Holiday stresses the need for a look into the context in which a text is produced while analyzing and/or interpreting a text. He points out that the ally pressing question here is “which kinds of situational factor determined which kinds of selection in the linguistic system? ” (Holiday, 1978). E. Conceptual Framework In this study, the subjects were observed as to how they would speak in different settings, in formal and in casual settings. The subjects are consciously speaking in front of the class and with their close friends, but unconsciously, their choice of words is affected by the situation they find themselves in. In the formal situation, most likely, the subjects would be using appropriate formal words, observing their grammar and pronunciation, not only because of the situation they’re into, but because of the kind of people they are dealing with in that particular social setting.