Informal Language

• Functions

  referential, emotive, conative, phatic, metalinguistic, poetic
• Referential


  Describes language user sharing information (facts, ideas, opinion) with their intended audience. e.g. newspaper
• Emotive (aka expressive function)


  allows addressers to express emotions and desires. may or may-not be real. e.g. eulogy
• conative


  involves directions, questions and commands. aims to cause an audience to react in some way. persuasive, directed towards the audience. e.g. recipe
• phatic


  creates and maintains social connections between the writer or speaker and their audience. builds rapport.
• metalinguistic


  describes language itself. the metalinguistic function allows speakers to check whether they have been understood. checking whether the message has been received. e.g. glossary
• poetic (aesthetic)


  focuses on the message itself, over communicators. considers the beauty of wit of the words within them. manipulate the language in a creative way. e.g. novel, ads, poetry.
• (Social) purpose


  linguistic innovation, social harmony, social taboos, rapport, in-group membership
• (social) purpose

  1. intended goal of interaction, 2. what the speaker is trying to achieve
• linguistic innovation


  manipulation of existing language features to create something new, e.g. new terms, expressions and pronunciations. LANGUAGE IS NOT STATIC.
• social harmony


  positive social environment in which individuals feel comfortable, respected and at ease with one another. getting along.
• social taboos


  topics that are considered uncomfortable or controversial, and are usually avoided in social contexts.
• Rapport


  a sense of friendliness, harmony and shared understanding in a relationship.
• in-group membership


  a sense of belonging to any kind of social group, such as a family, community, classroom, friendship group or group defined by a shared interest. (e.g. fans of a particular musician/sporting club). - slang
• Intimacy, solidarity, equality


  to bring people closer together.
• intimacy


  closeness and connection between individuals, closer than rapport.
• solidarity


  a feeling of unity between individuals, based on shared experience/purpose. (we're on the same page; we share the same values/beliefs/goals)
• equality


  individuals in an exchange are seen as equal status, deserving of mutual respect.
• positive/negative politeness


  language to BUILD relationships
• positive politeness


  language strategies that reflect how another person is valued and positively regarded by others.
• negative politeness


  language strategies that respect another individual's ability to act autonomously and allow their freedom.
• standard English


  spoken/written English that represents an agreed upon common standard and is codified in dictionaries, style guides and grammar manuals.
• standard English


  spelling norms, uses full sentences, consistent tense, involves standard vocab and grammar, holds prestige, more uniform, jargon.
• standard English


  appropriate use of capital letters, full stops, exclamation marks, apostrophes, etc.
• standard English


  a linguistic 'best practise'/'benchmark' (correct, precise, pure and elegant), used in schools, law courts, government insitutions, etc., can be spoken in any accent, artificially created, codified guides record, regulate, tidy up and iron out the language
• non-standard English


  any form of language that is not codified as standard
• non-standard English


  non-standard spelling (e.g. yesssss), non-standard use of capital letters and exclamation marks (e.g. say WHAT???!!!), sentence fragments (e.g. i can't even), non-codified slang, non-codified abbreviation (e.g. NGL), non-standard grammar (e.g. 'i've done me back in')
• non-standard English


  frequent variation, dialects that are not the 'standard dialect', not necessarily informal
• Morphological patterning


  abbreviation, acronym, backformation, blending, compounding, conversion, contractions, initialisms, shortening
• abbreviation


  shortened version of a word/phrase created through it's initials and other symbols. neither an initialism or acronym. (e.g. iykyk, gr8, VCAA)
• Acronym


  word formed with the first letter in a series, pronounced as one word. (e.g. FOMO, GOAT)
• Backformation


  the formation of a simpler word from an existing one that appears to be derived from it (e.g. television >televise)
• blending


  a word formed by joining parts of two plus words together (e.g. Jorts, Brexit)
• compounding


  a word formed by joining two FULL words together (e.g. Girlboss, Facebook)
• Conversion


  changing parts of speech to which a word belongs without adding affixes. Different word class. (e.g. uber (noun to verb), Google (noun to verb))
• contractions


  a word formed by removing some letters and marking them with an apostrophe. (e.g. don't, can't)
• initialism


  a word formed from initial letters of a series of words, pronounced separately. (e.g. TMI, MVP)
• shortening


  forming a new word by removing part of a longer word. (rizz, demo)
• syntactic patterning


  parallelism, antithesis, listing
• parallelism


  repetition of grammatical structures two or more times in succession (e.g. work hard, play hard (verb + adjective structure)