Lexical layers 1: register and genre

One of my pet hates when it comes to vocabulary teaching is when I see materials that don't venture beyond the basic denotational meaning of a word or phrase – that is, the thing or idea it refers to in the real world. So, we could say that purchase is another word for buy, that wonga is money or that built like a brick shithouse means large. But that's really only the first layer of meaning peeled off and in many cases, is not enough to really understand what the speaker intends by their choice of word(s) and is nowhere near enough to know when and how you can use it yourself.

I especially come across this on social media with posts from all kinds of sources (trusted and less so) offering fun words of the day or sets of useful phrases or lists of synonyms, all aimed directly at learners but invariably explaining nothing at all about when or where or to whom the words would be appropriate. And, to be honest, conventional published materials don't always fare much better either, with the teaching of idioms being an area liable to see me sinking my face into my hands in despair.

In ELT, it's an issue that tends to get increasingly relevant as students work their way up the levels. A lot of the vocabulary we teach at the lowest levels is the very high-frequency words. Many of these tend to be fairly neutral; there's not much more to say about table, pencil, car, walk or blue. As students expand their vocabulary beyond the basics though, the picture gets less clear. Yes, there are still plenty of neutral words, especially simple concrete nouns like tunnel, stadium, fennel or sieve, but there are many more words with multiple layers of meaning that we really need to be getting across to students so that they properly understand the language they read and hear, and perhaps more importantly, so they don't go around inadvertently giving the wrong impression or making dreadful faux pas.

Register and genre

The concept of register in language teaching, if it gets covered at all, tends to get reduced to 'formal' and 'informal'. You might come across a lesson on formal and informal messages in which Yours faithfully is labelled as formal and love from as informal. Register, though, goes much further than that. Here's a definition from Oxford Dictionaries:

register: linguistics
A variety of a language or a level of usage, as determined by degree of formality and choice of vocabulary, pronunciation, and syntax, according to the communicative purpose, social context, and standing of the user.

Let's start off by just focusing on words that are typically used in particular contexts or genres (types of text or speech). The most obvious of these are labelled in learner's dictionaries. So, you'll find that purchase is labelled as formal because it's not a word we typically use in everyday, informal conversation. At the other end of the scale, wonga is likely to be labelled as informal or slang. How far learner's dictionaries go with other register labels varies, but you might come across a word like herewith labelled as law/legal, kinetic might appear as specialized or technical or have a science label, and elegiac will likely be shown as literary. Of course, you could dig around in any genre and turn up a whole host of typical vocab that would seem odd used elsewhere:

Business jargon: core values, scalable, going forward, think outside the box

Tabloid journalism: mum-to-be, blonde bombshell, love rat, (jobs) axed

Football commentary: play to the whistle, against the run of play, hit the woodwork, handbags

Academia: epistemological, existential, ibid, give rise to, allude to

Official announcements: Kindly refrain from …, Bags must be stowed …, Please proceed to …, Alight here for …

As proficient speakers of English, we mostly don't notice these choices until there's an obvious mismatch. My favourite example of this (apologies if you've seen me quote this before!) is from a television advert from a few years ago for a job search website. A primary school teacher is seen speaking to a class of five-year-olds … name that register!

I put it to you that on the morning of the 17^th you did enter the Story Time Corner and with malice aforethought you did inflict grievous injury upon one Mr Boo-Boo Bananas.

Then there's the distinction between language in current use and words or phrases that are falling out of use or have become 'marked' because they no longer feel contemporary. In a dictionary, you might find labels indicating language that's dated (used within living memory, but not current: phone box, discotheque, groovy), words that are old-fashioned (the fair sex, gramaphone, wedlock) and old use (only really found in literature from centuries past: thou, smite).

Of course, these are very broad distinctions which any proficient English speaker could refine into scales of formality, of datedness or of specialization. And exactly where the boundaries lie are grey areas that will vary between speakers – a point I'll return to in a later post.

In the classroom, I think the thing to remember is that context is key. If you come across a new word or phrase in a reading or listening text, by all means look at the (denotational) meaning to help students understand the text, but don't then take it out of context and slot it into a productive activity or add it to a words-to-learn list without considering any restrictions on its use. Encourage students to note who used it and where it came from, to look out for it in future and again, notice the context. Help them avoid rushing to use newly-learned vocabulary where it doesn't really fit. To take a recent example I came across online offering alternatives to please for asking for things politely, just adding kindly to a request probably isn't going to go down well. As most learner's dictionaries note, it's either used in very formal, usually official instructions - We kindly request you read the following information carefully - or it's actually a tetchy, passive-aggressive show of annoyance – Kindly move your car immediately!

In my next post, I'll be looking at another lexical layer: connotation.