Bathing Suits and Speeding Tickets > Carrie Jantz

Do you wear your bathing suit to funerals? Your best silk gown to baseball games? No—of course not! Instead, you (hopefully) wear your bathing suit to the beach and your evening gown to black tie events. You choose the clothing that suits the occasion. Clothing is like language—as with clothing, particular language registers are appropriate in different situations. Our choice of whether to use formal or casual language in our writing determines our perspective, sentence structure, vocabulary, and punctuation. When we use the wrong language register on the wrong occasion, we end up seeming disrespectful, uneducated, or just plain weird.

When students write, they also must choose whether to use formal or casual language. Often, they struggle with this choice. Sometimes, they make the wrong decision – they may choose formal language when casual would be appropriate, or, more frequently, choose casual language when formal is called for.

In these cases, they often have a sense that their written work does not “sound right” but they sometimes don’t know why. Then, it can be helpful to discuss the difference between formal and casual language. Here’s how I explain the difference to my students:

Casual language is very conversational—incomplete sentences, contractions, and slang are “at home” in a casually written piece. We might use casual language when we write a short note to ourselves, in creative writing, or when we send an email to a friend.

Here’s an example: If you were speaking with a friend on a hot summer day you might say, casually, “Holy crap! It’s smokin’ hot out here!” However, if you said that same sentence to someone with whom you have a formal relationship (for example your boss or a police officer who pulled you over for speeding) your words would sound, and be, out of place.

This is because formal language is “proper.” Complete sentences, correct grammar, and “by the book” sentence structures are important. Formal language is appropriate for things like essays and professional emails.

It can be helpful to think of formal language this way ‐‐ If your friend were angry with you and you said, “Hello, , how may I help you?” you would sound odd; however, if you were returning a phone call to your boss or speaking with that police officer who pulled you over the same question would sound, and be, completely appropriate.
 

When we are aware of the difference between formal and casual language we can also help our students to be aware of this issue as well. This helps them make appropriate choices in their writing. After all, they work way too hard on the content of their work not to present it as professionally as possible.

Carrie Jantz is a professor in Professional Studies at Kaplan University.

[This article was originally published in our August, 2009 issue.]