Formality vs Informality (and all that lies between).

[metal56]

Do you agree with this statement?

"A formal style is characterized by detachment, accuracy, rigidity and heaviness; an informal style is more flexible, direct, implicit, and involved, but less informative."

From:


Formality of Language: definition, measurement and behavioral determinants

FRANCIS HEYLIGHEN & JEAN-MARC DEWAELE

...

And later in the same paper:

It is proposed that formality becomes larger when the distance in space, time or background between the interlocutors increases, and when the speaker is male, introverted or academically educated.

[Andrew Patterson]

Generally, yes. But it should be remembered that there is more to register than just the level of formality.

[JuanTwoThree]

The following is highly formal, far from detached, not in the least bit heavy, direct, involved and written by an introverted educated male for an unseen and unknown reader:

"The fields between the lakes are small, separated by thick hedges of whitethorn, ash, blackthorn, alder, sally, rowan, wild cherry, green oak, sycamore, and the lanes that link them under the Iron Mountains are narrow, often with high banks. The hedges are the glory of these small fields, especially when the hawthorn foams into streams of blossom each May and June. The sally is the first tree to green and the first to wither, and the rowan berries are an astonishing orange in the light from the lakes every September. These hedges are full of mice and insects and small birds, and sparrowhawks can be seen hunting all through the day. In their branches the wild woodbine and dog rose give off a deep fragrance in summer evenings, and on their banks grow the foxglove, the wild strawberry, primrose and fern and vetch among the crawling briars.

I came back to live among these fields and lanes 30 years ago.
My wife and I were beginning our life together, and we thought we could make a bare living on these small fields and I would write."


Memoir John McGahern (Faber &Faber) 0-571-22810-0


Or what about this from a not dissimilar academic male writer:


Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children,
Hidden excitedly, containing laughter.
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.

TS Eliot. First Quartet

If your paper writers were only referring to humdrum writing styles then they might be right. I'm not sure.

However the high octane stuff has plenty of counter examples: The merely well written, let alone the brilliantly written, can't be conveniently categorised as either:

" characterized by detachment, accuracy, rigidity and heaviness"

or "more flexible, direct, implicit, and involved, but less informative"

[metal56]

The following is highly formal, far from detached, not in the least bit heavy, direct, involved and written by an introverted educated male for an unseen and unknown reader:

What's highly formal about that?

[JuanTwoThree]

Well, in no particular order: total absence of slang or weak forms, use of low frequency words (green (vb) wither fragrance briars etc) , precision of specific terms (all the flower names), unusual word-order (In their branches the....) inversion (On their banks grow...), sentence length(25+ words in many sentences), distance and detachment( passives etc) in the first paragraph (obviously the change of tone when the author's "voice" is heard is deliberate and partly achieved by the formality of the preceding paragraph), use of "the" and flower name in singular to generalise( "the wild woodbine" and not "wild woodbines"), this combined with the careful use of plural verbs ("give" and "grow").

Rhetorical style ( repeated use of "and": "and the lanes" "and the rowan berries" "and sparrowhawks" "and on their banks") which I think was intentional plus the slight archaisms (the glory of, among these fields and lanes, a bare living).

Formal might not be the best word to describe the style but it certainly has many elements of formality and Irvine Welsh it ain't:

" It was a tricky ***ger: a smart new Formica-topped job which seemed to constantly shift its weight and spill all over the place. Like wrestling wi a ***kin crocodile, he thought......"

[metal56]

Well, in no particular order: total absence of slang or weak forms, use of low frequency words (green (vb) wither fragrance briars etc) , precision of specific terms (all the flower names), unusual word-order (In their branches the....) inversion (On their banks grow...), sentence length(25+ words in many sentences), distance and detachment( passives etc) in the first paragraph (obviously the change of tone when the author's "voice" is heard is deliberate and partly achieved by the formality of the preceding paragraph), use of "the" and flower name in singular to generalise( "the wild woodbine" and not "wild woodbines"), this combined with the careful use of plural verbs ("give" and "grow").

Rhetorical style ( repeated use of "and": "and the lanes" "and the rowan berries" "and sparrowhawks" "and on their banks") which I think was intentional plus the slight archaisms (the glory of, among these fields and lanes, a bare living).

Formal might not be the best word to describe the style but it certainly has many elements of formality and Irvine Welsh it ain't:

" It was a tricky ***ger: a smart new Formica-topped job which seemed to constantly shift its weight and spill all over the place. Like wrestling wi a ***kin crocodile, he thought......"

Got it. Thanks. But, what about this?

"Much of what in a formal language must be expressed explicitly in order to avoid ambiguity, will be conveyed in natural language by implicature, that is, by implicit reference to a shared framework of knowledge and its implications."

Could it be that your "precision of specific terms (all the flower names)" is part of a shared framework of knowledge?

And this?

"The choice between the two ways of formulating the same idea will clearly depend on how much knowledge the persons to whom the message is addressed are presumed to have about the context in which it was uttered. The less they know, the more important it is to avoid context-dependent expressions, replacing them by explicit characterizations."

[JuanTwoThree]

Yes but the tree and flower names are not implicit. If your quote is true then in "natural language" the whole list would be substituted by "wild trees and flowers" where the reader and the writer agree what was meant.

Mind you I don't know what half of the trees and flowers are so the effect is more of an unshared framework of his knowledge and my ignorance.

There certainly is a formal language that can't risk ambiguity (guarantees, contracts and the like) which needs "to avoid context-dependent expressions, replacing them by explicit characterizations"

This I suppose is the inevitably (?) "rigid and heavy" formality from your first post.

Perhaps "literature" should be left out of this.

[metal56]

Yes but the tree and flower names are not implicit. If your quote is true then in "natural language" the whole list would be substituted by "wild trees and flowers" where the reader and the writer agree what was meant.

Mind you I don't know what half of the trees and flowers are so the effect is more of an unshared framework of his knowledge and my ignorance.

There certainly is a formal language that can't risk ambiguity (guarantees, contracts and the like) which needs "to avoid context-dependent expressions, replacing them by explicit characterizations"

This I suppose is the inevitably (?) "rigid and heavy" formality from your first post.

Perhaps "literature" should be left out of this.

<Yes but the tree and flower names are not implicit.>

They are to a city boy such as yours truly.

[Stephen Jones]

"A formal style is characterized by detachment, accuracy, rigidity and heaviness; an informal style is more flexible, direct, implicit, and involved, but less informative."

As you've stated in a later post one of the most important elements is that of the necessity to make things explicit. I believe the comments about accuracy and rigidity come from that. As for 'heaviness', that seems to me to be an irrelevancy, and it is not sure what is meant by d'etachment'.

Also it seems the writer is not distinguishing various separate conditions for formal style. Formal style caused by social distance (which may well be asymmetrical in that the formal style will only be used from the subordinate to the superior, whilst the superior address the subordinate in a more informal style), formal style caused by the subject matter, formal style caused by a lack of a shared framework between the speakers, and formal style caused by the lack of knowledge of the context. There may be a correlation between these, but it is not a necessary one.

It is proposed that formality becomes larger when the distance in space, time or background between the interlocutors increases, and when the speaker is male, introverted or academically educated.

Again confusing different things. And the second part may well again be a question of simple correlation. Males are more likely to be dealing with factual matters than relational ones, and thus a formal style will be more appropriate, independent of whether male speech is inherently more formal/explicit in the same cirumstances; equally with regard to introversion - introverts are less likely to make chit-chat, and thus a more formal style will be appropriate to a larger proportion of their utterances; and again the academically educated are more likely to be talking about the kind of subject matter that lends itself to social style - the casual speech of educated Britons and Americans is actually is less formal than that of their less educated counterparts.

[Andrew Patterson]

The ancient world had a completely different take on style.

The Romans divided style into:
High Style or Grand Style to move
Middle Style intended to please
Low or Plain Style intended to teach

In Greece, Hermogenes book Peri Ideon (On style) deals with the subject of style by dividing it into:
1. Clarity
2. Grandeur
3. Beauty
4. Rapidity
5. Character
6. Sincerity
7. Force

These were further subdivided.

I would say that register is basically using the most appropiate style for the intended audience.

[metal56]

I would say that register is basically using the most appropiate style for the intended audience.

That's exactly what it is.