Informality in Language

Informality in Language i; Victoria Neufeldt "nformality in general is not considered a difficult notion. Few .people would feel they could not easily identify an informal social event as distinguished from a formal one, and fewer still would argue that there is no distinction. Even as applied to language, the notion of an informal register is perceived as straightforward and is confidently dealt with in virtually all guides, manuals, and textbooks that address questions of usage. The informal register is described essentially as usage that is distinct from some standard and that is acceptable in relaxed, everyday, or familiar situations and contexts but not those that are structured, formal, academic, conservative, serious, etc. On consideration, however, the situation is far from clear. Far too much is assumed, from the notion of register itself to the meanings of the terms used to discuss and analyze it. Several questions need to be answered: • What is the basic, undifferentiated style or level of language from which informal usage is to be distinguished? • Is informality a describable feature of language and if so, can it be described as a lexical feature? • How does informal usage arise, and how can we identify it? • Where does slang fit into linguistic register? Writers of usage handbooks all discuss register, but it is invariably accepted as a given, without sufficient criteria offered for identifying marked items. These guides traditionally devote space to a discussion of two or three styles or levels of usage, with one, often called "standard," serving as the style base from which informal language is distinguished. Victoria Neufeldt An illustration of the way usage handbooks typically treat informality is offered by two standard works of this genre: Harbrace College Handbook, 12th ed., 1994 (HCH) and The Litth, Brown Handbook, 6th ed., 1995 (LBH). The HCH opposes "informal" and "formal." "Formal" is implicitly identified with the "unlabeled words in [a] dictionary." Three examples are provided (201): INFORMALdopeygyppedbellybutton FORMALstupidswindlednavel No guidance is given to the reader, beyond the above odd examples, on how to identify relative formality in the vocabulary as a whole. In fact, the handbook at this point abdicates all responsibility and explicitly sends the reader to a dictionary to look for labels. Then, slang is dealt with in a separate subsection (201-02). No explanation is given of the distinction between "informal" and "slang" or why slang is being treated separately. Certainly slang is presented here as something different in quality from informal usage. For instance, slang, apparently unlike informal terms, "on occasion ... can be used effectively, even in formal writing." On the other hand, "much slang is trite, tasteless, and imprecise ." The example given of this kind of slang is the word awesomewhen it is used "to describe anything approved of." In this use, it "becomes inexact and flat." What makes awesome slang rather than informal is not explained (presumably it is the dictionary label that does it) . The LBH takes a similar approach (445, 447) but does a better job of explaining what its base level or style, called "standard English," is: "the written English normally expected and used in school, business , the professions, government, newspapers, and other sites where people of diverse backgrounds must communicate with one another." In opposition to this stands everything else, including regionalisms, slang, colloquial language, neologisms, euphemisms, dialect, archaic and obsolete words, etc. No mention is made of a formal register. The kinds of usage that are not standard are to be used with caution, if at all, and reserved for "special situations, as when aiming for a special effect with an audience you know will appreciate it." Like the HCH, the LBH objects to slang for its imprecision. But informal usage is also deplored for this reason. Most slang, the authors say, is "too flippant and imprecise for effective communication," and as for "colloquial language ," it "does not provide the exactness needed in more formal college , business, and professional writing." This is very odd semantic analysis. Surely there is as much vagueness in standard vocabulary as in Informality in Language informal or slang vocabulary; besides, vagueness can be a desirable quality in many contexts. The claim of greater precision of standard language is not supported...