ELA: Formal Language Metalanguage

Just to revise formal language

Jargon (definition)

Technical or specialised terms used within a specific field

Jargon (purposes)

• Positive: asserts authority/expertise by demonstrating a detailed understanding, and makes language more precise

• Negative: excludes/confuses individuals and groups (when an audience does not have expertise)

• Example: ‘forceps’, ‘gauze’, ‘scalpels' are part of medical jargon.

Euphemism

Def: Language that mitigates a taboo or potentially offensive topic.

Euphemism (purposes)

• Positive: supports social harmony by lessening a statement’s impact (may be upsetting to an audience)

• Negative: avoids directness, leading to communication breakdown

• Example: ‘let go’ rather than ‘fired’ in a job context.

Double speak

• Def: Language that purposely obfuscates the meaning/intent of a statement.

• Eg: ‘collateral damage’ to refer to peoples’ deaths —> jargon, syntactic & semantic patterning is used to manipulate true meaning —> look at politicians

Rhetoric

• Def: Language used to persuade another into action, either supporting an ideology or physically doing something.

• Eg: subsystem patterning, repetition, euphemism, connotative language

Non-discriminatory language

• Def: Language that focuses on creating inclusivity/equality, by avoiding prejudice and stereotyping.

• Eg: ‘firefighter’ instead of ‘fireman’, ‘police officer’ instead of ‘policeman’

Formal language

• Expected in professional, academic, political and legal contexts —> usually used to communicate serious topics

• Language is non-discriminatory and inclusive to not threaten social harmony

• Language may be inaccessible for some audiences as jargon relating to the semantic domain of interest may be unfamiliar to them.

Formal language (functions)

• Referential: the conveyance of information (eg. speeches, announcements or professional communication)

• Emotive: careful selections of words with particular connotations may be used to convey emotion (eg. pausing during a speech to reflect sadness)

• Conative: speakers may selectively share information to persuade their audience (eg. negative politeness strategies and low modality verbs when starting commands)

• Phatic: upholding social connections which involve discussing more neutral topics, with a greater social distance (eg. politeness strategies in openings and closings)

• Metalinguistic: may be evident when explaining jargon, industry-specific terms, etc. in order to ensure they are clearly understood.

• Poetic: a focus on the aesthetic features of language (eg. semantic and syntactic patterning, word choice, etc.) to create emphasis in carefully-constructed messages.

Politeness strategies

• Def: Strategies used to build connections as a means to achieve social harmony

• Positive: strategies that unite people through empathy & common bonds, and encourages others to feel valued.

• Negative: strategies that promotes social cohesion, by not imposing on the audience to show respect to their autonomy —> can also be used to assert social hierarchies through polite honourifics.

Positive politeness strategies

• Emphasising similarities: highlighting shared characteristics to establish camaraderie (eg. “Those of us who have been in this position will know what this means.”)

• Showing interest: expressing interest in the audiences’ opinions/experiences through asking questions and listening attentively (eg. “What subjects are you doing next year?”)

• Using humour: making jokes/witty remarks to create a relaxed and friendly atmosphere (eg. “Stephen was the youngest child and self-proclaimed favourite!”)

• Offering compliments: complimenting the audience to boost self-esteem (eg. “You have been a joyful part of our community.”)

• Inclusive language: using inclusive pronouns to establish belonging and a common ground (eg. “As a nation, we all must come together.”)

Negative politeness strategies

• Hedging: using tentative language to avoid imposing on the audience’s autonomy, particularly when challenging them (eg. “Perhaps you’d enjoy a subtler flavour”)

• Indirect language: using vague language such as euphemisms to convey a message with an inferred meaning (eg. “Is this something you intend to hand in?”)

• Low modality verbs: including modal verbs to indicate probability or uncertainty, in a less imposing manner (eg. “Could you possibly pour me a glass of water”)

• Apologising: making apologies to show deference and acknowledge potential imposition on the listener (eg. “I do apologise for the interruption.”

• Other mitigation strategies: using language to soften the impact on what is being said such as tag questions, downplaying, terms of address, etc.

Promoting social harmony

• Def: Involves the breakdown of barriers that exist between cultures and social groups

• Pur: Formal language such as non-discriminatory language, euphemisms, politeness strategies can achieve this by minimising face-threatening acts.

Negotiating social taboos

• Def: actions/beliefs that create discomfort for a particular community

• Pur: formal language such as euphemisms or figurative language can be used to help negotiate discussion of social taboos (including lexical choice, nominalisation, and tense)

• Eg: a CEO of a company losing money may say ‘experiencing a negative cash flow' to avoid the negatively connotated ‘debt’.

Building rapport

• Def: likely to be built when respective negative face needs are met, as this provides them with the autonomy to engage in the discourse.

• Pur: formal language can respect social distance and autonomy, allowing for rapport to be maintained in a methodical way.

Social distance (formal language)

• Formal language could indicate a large social distance between interlocutors as participants could be unfamiliar with each other

• Hence standard formal language is used as it is unlikely to offend —> includes euphemisms, mitigating strategies, etc.

Authority (formal language)

• Formal language could indicate a hierarchy within a relationship

• Using terms of address, apologies, low modality verbs could all indicate that the receiver holds authority or imposition over the speaker

• Passive constructions could also be used to remove subject agency

Establishing expertise

• Formal language demonstrates expertise and to differentiate individuals from others in a particular field

• Features such as jargon, patterning (antonymy & parallelism) demonstrates the complexity and depth of a person’s understanding, hence their audience is more likely to believe them.

• Jargon may disengage audience due to a lack of coherence, as it sometimes obfuscates the message.

Clarifying (formal language)

• Formal language ensures clear communication as it gives the ability for the speaker to be specific and precise.

• Clarity is important in formal texts as it often needs to address a wide audience who do not necessarily have shared knowledge/values.

Manipulating (formal language)

• Def: giving prominence to one linguistic aspect to bias the audience

• Formal language is used to manipulate audiences by focusing the message on one viewpoint without paying attention to others.

• Features such as front & end focus, clefting may emphasise the ideas the speaker wants to promote.

Obfuscating (formal language)

• Def: the intentional use of language to make it more difficult to discern the meaning of a message.

• Formal language can be used to mask/obfuscate information they do not want the audience to know, such as information which may diminish reputation

• Features such as rhetoric, double-speak or jargon could be used to achieve obfuscation.

Openings

• Def: participants establish contact and introduce the topic/purpose

• In formal contexts, they are usually rehearsed

• Eg: “I’d like to begin by acknowledging…”

Closings

• Def: how participants end the conversation

• In formal contexts, they are formulaic and may be used to meet politeness standards.

• Eg: “I wish you all the best in the future.”

Adjacency pairs

• Def: sequentially-linked utterances/turns of a conversation

• In formal contexts, they may be used as topic management (Q and A in an interview) or to meet politeness standards.

• Eg: H: “Welcome.” G: “Thank you.”

Minimal responses/back-channeling

• Def: brief replies in a conversation that acknowledge and encourage another speaker.

• In formal contexts, they help maintain conversational flow and indicate listening.

• Eg: “mm hmm”, “yeah”

Overlapping speech

• Def: where two or more participants speak simultaneously

• In formal contexts, overlapping speech indicates there may be a power imbalance between participants, or the environment is not harmonious —> hence rarer in formal contexts.

• Eg: Consultant: “We need to be realistic about how this [merger will impact sales.]”
  CEO: “[It is our only strategy]”

Discourse markers/particles

• Def: linguistic elements that do not carry semantic meaning, but help organise conversation & speech.

• In formal contexts they improve cohesion, or to soften blunt statements, especially when there is a power imbalance/social distance.

• Eg: “Well, I don’t think you provided the whole truth.”

Non-fluency features

• Def: Aspects of discourse that reduce cohesion

• Includes pauses, filled pauses, false starts, repetition, and repairs

• In formal contexts, non-fluency features signals formulating thoughts/remembering prepared thoughts OR can be used intentionally, such as pausing to create emphasis.

Topic management

• Def: The methods speakers use to manage a topic —> Includes initiation, development, shift, change, loop, termination

• In formal contexts, shifts may be planned due to the prepared nature of formal conversation —> these may be flagged (eg. using a discourse particle)

• Topic management may also reveal hierarchies, as the more powerful position usually transitions between topics.

Turn-taking

• Def: When speakers take alternate turns when talking

• In formal contexts, turn-taking tends to be smooth and directed, with answers to questions or completion of adjacency pairs

• Turn-taking may also indicate power imbalance, as those in power may use imperatives, while the other responds.

Management of repair sequences

• Def: Speakers identify and correct communication errors in spoken discourse

• In formal contexts, they may have the intent of showing expertise/authority at the expense of their social distance with the audience —> the expert is in a higher hierarchial position than the audience

• Eg: A teacher may correct a student’s grammar, but it is less socially acceptable for a student to correct a teacher’s

Code-switching

• Def: When a speaker switches between two or more languages in spoken discourse.

• In formal contexts, code-switching may occur to bridge cultural boundaries to establish social harmony & unity.

• Eg: An ethnolect speaker using appropriate non-English honorifics for elders.

Lexical choice (formal cohesion)

• Using concise vocabulary that is relevant to the topic

• Includes synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, hypernymy, and jargon

Collocation (formal cohesion)

• Increases cohesion for a specific audience using co-occuring words —> increasing understandability and efficiency

• Eg. business jargon contains collocations “land a deal”, “circle back”

Information flow (formal cohesion)

• Presenting information in a way that maximises understanding, especially given there is less clarification time in formal texts.

• Eg. clefting (it- and wh-), front focus, end focus

Referencing (formal cohesion)

• Organising information for the audience and avoiding repetition —> increases understandability

• Eg. anaphoric, cataphoric and diectic

Repetition (formal cohesion)

Used intentionally for emphasis on the author’s main arguments, hence increasing memorability

Substitution (formal cohesion)

Careful planning/editing of texts to avoid unnecessary repetition while still being concise (through replacement)

Ellipsis (formal cohesion)

When a word is assumed to be understood in context, hence avoiding unnecessary repetition.

Conjunctions (formal cohesion)

• Improves clarity for the audience by the tying of phrases

• However formal texts do not usually start with conjunctions.

Adverbials (formal cohesion)

Signposts the order of the text, enhancing overall cohesion for readers (eg. “very carefully”)

Inference (formal coherence)

• Using inferences help the audience make connections that may not be explicitly stated

• However there is a greater reliance on explicit communication as texts may be addressed to many audiences from different backgrounds.

Logical ordering (formal coherence)

• How information is released affects how easy a text is to follow.

• High level logical ordering = more likely formal contexts

Formatting (formal coherence)

Formal contexts maintain conventions in formatting, as the expected position of the information contributes to the ease in which it can be found.

Consistency (formal coherence)

• Includes punctuation, spelling, tense, voice and referencing, and the manner in which the audience is addressed.

Conventions (formal coherence)

• Formal texts adhere to conventions, as the audience’s familiarity with conventions reduces the cognitive load required to understand the text.