Types of Speech Styles

Speech Styles

They are patterns of speaking characterized by distinctive pronunciation, vocabulary, intent, participants, and grammatical structures.

Martin Joos

He claimed the existence of five kinds of styles in the following order-intimate, casual, consultative, formal, and frozen.

Martin Joos

According to him, it is common for humans in a communicative situation to easily move from one style to the one next to it, but not to the one not near to it.

Martin Joos

According to him, it is also possible to make use of two styles at the same time when engaging in artful speech such as preaching.

Intimate

This style is used between people who have very close relationships. They share a lot of experiences and have a lot of experiential knowledge in common.

Example: family members, best/close friends, and couples.

Intimate

People speaking with this style:

• Don't care about grammar or pronunciation.

• May give meaning to certain words that only they know.

• Do not plan or monitor their speech and may in fact employ a lot of sentence fragments and broken speech such as a spouse saying "cold" when talking about coffee prepared by the partner.

Casual

It is an informal communication between groups and peers who have something to share and have shared background information but do not have close relations.

Example: classmates

Casual

Jargon, slang, and vernacular language are used in this style of speech.

Casual

People speaking with this style:

• Use a lot of trendy words and phrases and speak in incomplete or elided sentences.
  Example: "Meet at the mall?" or the removal of the subject such as in "Bought it yesterday."

• Use slang.

• Don't need to be careful about pronunciation, grammar, or choice of words as much as a person speaking in consultative style because the casual speaker assumes that his or her friends are used to the speaker's way of speaking.

• Assume that his or her listener (also a friend) knows a lot about what is considered public information that the speaker alludes to very frequently.

Consultative

• It is used in semi-formal and standard communication.
  Example: teacher and student

Consultative

Here, the speaker constantly observes the listener's verbal and nonverbal cues for feedback as to whether the speaker seems to be giving too little or too much information. It is because the speaker does not know how much the listener knows about the topic or what they agree on regarding the topic.
It is also the style used in talking to strangers.

Consultative

Professional or mutually acceptable language is a must in this style.

Consultative

People speaking with this style:

• Pronounces words well, chooses words carefully, and speaks in complete sentences to minimize misunderstanding.

• Does not plan much of what he or she will say.
  (What the speaker will say next depends on the feedback provided by the listener.)

• Provides a lot of background information and if the listener shows any indication of incomplete understanding, then they attempt to provide more elaboration and explanation.

Formal

• It is a one-way straightforward speech.

• It is called upon when speaking in formal settings no matter how the participants are related to each other.

Formal

Much of the language spoken in this style depends on what the education system has taught individuals as to be used in formal settings.
Example: State of the Nation Address

Formal

What the speaker says is something that has been prepared beforehand in this style of speech.

Formal

This style requires careful attention to producing well-formed sentences and to coherent, very logically-organized speech. This is also true in the choice of words and pronunciation.

may

One important word used in formal style is the word “___” (such as in, you may speak now").

Latinism

In Formal speech styles, what sentence structure is used?

Latinism

sentence structures that are very similar to Latin but not considered natural English.

Formal

People speaking with this style:

• Plans the speech or utterances well in advance.

• Do not gauge how much background information or her listener knows.

• Provides all the background information that he or she thinks the listener needs.

Frozen

• It is the most formal communicative style that is usually used during solemn ceremonies and events.

• It is not really intended to give a particular message but to allow a reader to find many meanings for oneself.

Frozen

• It exists as literature for a given community.

• Its emphasis is on its role-for creatively deriving ideas on the part of the reader (or listener when the text is spoken). Needless to say, the entire text is produced in advance.

Frozen

• It exists as literature for a given community.

• Its emphasis is on its role-for creatively deriving ideas on the part of the reader (or listener when the text is spoken). Needless to say, the entire text is produced in advance.
  Example: pledges

Frozen

This speech style does not require any feedback from the audience.