Austrailian British and American

Mxsmanic   Sunday, May 29, 2005, 15:27 GMT
"Formal and informal registers" are one of the peculiarities of British English that separate it from American English. Americans don't embrace the master/slave, upstairs/downstairs contrasts that the British continue to uphold, so they have no notion of "registers."

Nevertheless, these differences are small (however big they appear to British eyes) and don't interfere with comprehension, although I suppose they might raise eyebrows in an audience with the Queen. It's possible to read written works of considerable length without ever knowing if the author was British or American, which would be quite unlikely if there were truly large differences between the two varieties of English.
Gjones2   Monday, May 30, 2005, 01:43 GMT
>"Formal and informal registers" are one of the peculiarities of British English that separate it from American English....they [Americans] have no notion of "registers."

Aren't you exaggerating a bit there?

(Or, in another register: "That ain't so. Was that what you was meaning to say?" :-)
Travis   Monday, May 30, 2005, 02:27 GMT
Mxsmanic, well, I wouldn't be quite so sure. The British are definitely losing such, with the fall of Received Pronunciation and the rise of Estuary English, which is coming to be an actual common "standard English English", you must remember; in the case of the English English, you're more describing the historical situation than the present situation. Also, in American English one does have registers alright, even though they are somewhat different from that in English English, as individuals usually maintain multiple forms in parallel to each other, whereas classically in English English, you wouldn't have someone who would switch back and forth between, say, RP and Cockney at will.

I myself generally speak in a register that is very "progressive" overall, and which is basically cliticized as heavily as possible, and relies heavily on periphrasic modal constructions. However, if I wish to, I can speak in a register that is highly formal and in ways almost archaic, even though not to the degree of Early Modern English though. Such includes using "shall" and "must" heavily, avoiding periphrasic modal constructions, preserving the use of old-style verb negation (yes, I mean "not" coming after the main verb, rather than using negated auxiliaries and modals), actually using "whom" outside of fixed expressions, productively using the present and past subjunctives of "normal" verbs, pronouncing /W/ separately from /w/, and using very conservative word pronunciations that I would rarely use in my normal everyday speech except for strong emphasis. However, unlike the dialect situation in the UK, this is a switch in register that does not correspond to a switch in dialect, one must remember.
Kirk   Monday, May 30, 2005, 02:37 GMT
<<"Formal and informal registers" are one of the peculiarities of British English that separate it from American English. Americans don't embrace the master/slave, upstairs/downstairs contrasts that the British continue to uphold, so they have no notion of "registers.">>

That's untrue, Mxsmanic. For better or worse, Americans still have various registers. I don't speak exactly the same with my grandparents as I do with my best friends. This also goes beyond the obvious level of lexical distinctions--when speaking with my friends my age my phonology actually changes somewhat, without thinking my speech starts following more progressive speech forms. I know I'm not the only one who does this. I've mentioned before that my vowels can change significantly according to the situation--with my friends they're more progressive along the California Vowel Shift, while when speaking with my grandparents the changes are less pronounced.

Different still is my register when I'm giving a speech or reading a text aloud (in terms of pronunciation/phonology where my phonology is more conservative than my informal speech) or when I'm writing. While the system may be a bit different from the UK, it's ridiculous to claim there are no formal and informal registers in American English.
american nic   Monday, May 30, 2005, 02:56 GMT
I think if you got a Scots speaker, a AAVE speaker, a Liberian speaker, and a Singaporean speaker, they'd have some trouble understanding each other.
Travis   Monday, May 30, 2005, 03:15 GMT
Same with me as with Kirk in that when I read English text aloud, I generally speak in a far more formal/conservative register than in my normal everyday speech with respect to phonology (grammar doesn't apply here, as I'm simply using the grammar of whatever's written). However, sometimes I will actually cliticize words in text I am reading even though they're not written in a cliticized fashion, simply because not cliticizing such, even though such is not written as cliticized, just doesn't sound natural or fluid enough. (As an aside, it often irritates me a lot when I watch anime that has been dubbed and the English-language voice actors don't seem to properly cliticize words that I'd expect them to, as if they were reading off text rather than actually *speaking*, even though they're speaking in some dialect of North American English)
Deborah   Monday, May 30, 2005, 04:43 GMT
I noticed an interesting use of registers when I first started working in office jobs. My co-workers and I would speak quite differently in the office than we did when we were having lunch together, even if we were isolated in an office with a closed door, with no one else listening.
Kirk   Monday, May 30, 2005, 04:52 GMT
<<I think if you got a Scots speaker, a AAVE speaker, a Liberian speaker, and a Singaporean speaker, they'd have some trouble understanding each other.>>

Haha! Maybe. I'm picturing that scene now in my head. However, stranger things have happened. Indeed, I bet there would be much more chance for people to not understand each other in such situations--however, I bet even after a little while they could at least get somewhat used to each other's speech patterns and probably get the gist of what the others were saying. It would be a fun experiment, tho :) Also, it'd be interesting to see who understood whom the most and who had the greatest troubles understanding another person. My guess would be that the AAVE and the Singaporean could understand each other best, while maybe the Liberian and the Scots speaker (also, is this a Scottish English speaker or a speaker of the separate language, Scots?) might have the most trouble. Just my predictions.

<<I noticed an interesting use of registers when I first started working in office jobs. My co-workers and I would speak quite differently in the office than we did when we were having lunch together, even if we were isolated in an office with a closed door, with no one else listening.>>

That's pretty interesting! Come to think of it the same has sometimes happened with me--I've had good friends I've worked with and in the occasional meeting or more formal thing that we were required to attend our speech to each other was of course different than how we talk when we're just hanging out.
Deborah   Monday, May 30, 2005, 04:54 GMT
To clarify: "My co-workers" referred to a small group of co-workers within the entirety of my co-workers.

Is the use of profanity taken into account when talking about registers?
Travis   Monday, May 30, 2005, 05:01 GMT
If that were actually Scots proper, then the others'd likely have some major problems; I at least have major problems understanding *written* Scots (not Scottish English), so I'd bet spoken Scots'd be even more difficult for many. However, I bet Scottish English was what was meant there, as it was implicit that these were all English dialects that were being spoken of, but if we did use Scots proper rather than Scottish English here, we might as well as throw in a speaker of West Frisian as well, for the hell of it.
Kirk   Monday, May 30, 2005, 05:10 GMT
<<However, I bet Scottish English was what was meant there, as it was implicit that these were all English dialects that were being spoken of, but if we did use Scots proper rather than Scottish English here, we might as well as throw in a speaker of West Frisian as well, for the hell of it.>>

Yeah, I agree, such an experiment should only include speakers of English, obviously, as mutual comprehension between speakers of English and other languages would be an entirely different project. Accordingly, the speaker should speak Scottish English, not Scots, which, no matter what politics say, is a separate language from English on a neutral linguistic point of view, much as Cantonese and Mandarin are actually separate languages, not dialects of the same language.

But, yeah, I also think american nic probably meant "Scottish English," or at least that's what I was assuming.
Travis   Monday, May 30, 2005, 05:18 GMT
Yeah, we should use a Scottish English speaker here, as throwing in a Scots proper speaker (who isn't using English here) is like throwing in a West Frisian speaker, ie is a whole different matter in itself, and'd make things much harder to understand as a whole for all involved.
Adam   Monday, May 30, 2005, 19:13 GMT
There is NO guarantee that a Briton, an Australian and an Aussie will be able to understand each other if they are having a conversation.

Even British people can't understand each other sometimes, so what chance does an American or an Australian have of understand all British people? I can wager £10 that if an American and an Australian were in the same room as a Geordie or a Scouser they would not be able to understand anything that the Geordie or Scouser says. People from other parts of England even find it difficult to understand a Geordie or a Scouser. And people from all over England sometimes find Scottish accents unintelligible.
Adam   Monday, May 30, 2005, 19:19 GMT
" do believe that it's a simplification to say that all native English speakers will be able to understand any other native English speaker. I'm from the southern parts of the UK and I sometimes find it difficult to understand some people from the northern parts "

I agree.
Ryan   Monday, May 30, 2005, 20:04 GMT
"I can wager £10 that if an American and an Australian were in the same room as a Geordie or a Scouser they would not be able to understand anything that the Geordie or Scouser says."

Americans can't understand a single thing that both Paul McCartney and Sting say, you're right. To what address should I send my 10 pounds?