Register: Language Formality in Creative Writing–#AuthorToolboxBlogHop

This week’s post is part of the monthly Author Toolbox Blog Hop where you will find a community of writers sharing tips and tools for the craft and business of writing. Do check them out!

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It wasn’t since the impromptu graduation ceremony we held in March that I have had such a busy week. Staff Introduction Week swept in on Monday with full days of workshops on resetting school culture, classroom sanitization, teaching thinking skills, and nonviolent communication. Outside of official time, I packed up to move offices, and my husband and I worked through the final plans for coordinating next week’s Student Introduction Program. So school begins. I’m glad to be here, hectic as it is.

Each department planned a brief demonstration lesson for our colleagues, and my group’s forms the basis for today’s post, a language skill relevant to all writing: register, the formality of our language.

Today, we’ll discuss how register works in English–it’s more complex than we might think–why it matters, and how to use it well.

What is register?

Like tone, which describes the overall attitude conveyed by language, register describes language’s overall level of formality. We can think of register as a sliding scale, from familiar, colloquial language (in linguistic terms called vulgar) at the low end to high-formal (think legal language, or addresses to royalty) at the other.

As part of code switching, we frequently modify our register without conscious thought; however, as with many writing skills, bringing a dose of intentionality to all aspects of our writing can help us make thoughtful decisions to achieve the precise effects that we desire.

How is register used in creative writing?

The most obvious place to consider register in fiction or other narrative writing is in character dialogue. In different situations, different characters speak differently, and register as much as anything else is part of that language shift. A character who speaks informally to his friend will switch to a formal register in an official setting; a character who flouts social convention may reject formal register, using informal language when she speaks to people in authority, and this refusal to follow the rules of register can be part of what builds her rebellious character.

But register is just as relevant for our narrators: first person narrators, true characters in their own right, routinely tell their stories through vulgar all the way up to formal registers, and the register used has a powerful impact on how readers perceive that character and connect to the narration. While third person narrators more commonly tend toward formal language, I find the idea of an informal third-person narrator actually a quite appealing experiment.

Another consideration is reading level. Highly formal language also tends to be more challenging for readers to comprehend, and it can make therefore for a slower reading experience. Pacing of a story can actually be heightened by lowering the register.

What does register look like in English?

English doesn’t have a formal word for “you” as many European languages do, but rest assured, register is alive and well in English. English modulates register through specific uses of vocabulary, punctuation, and grammatical structure. Let’s take a look at a few:

Vocabulary

English is a great mutt, a mixture of Anglo-Saxon, Germanic-language words overlaid with Norman French and Latin-derived words, not to mention the host of other loanwords English has accumulated from Wampanoag to Persian.

In modern English, words of Germanic origin lower register, while French or Latin vocabulary raises the register. Latin-derived words are often slightly higher in register than the French. Many English words have Germanic, French, and Latin synonyms that can be interchanged to affect register.

Here are a few examples, and you can find a lot more here:

Germanic	French	Latin
kingly	royal	regal
leave	abandon	relinquish
ask	demand	inquire

More common and shorter words (even French or Latin-derived ones) tend to be low-register in English. Longer, less common words raise the register.

Phrasal verbs (which, in any case, are also Germanic) lower register in English. These are called phrasal verbs because they contain two words (like a phrase), usually a main verb plus a preposition. So bring up is lower-register than mention; put in is lower-register than insert.

Most idiomatic expressions and clichés also lower the register of a text. A house that cost you an arm and a leg is less formal than a house that cost you a lot, even if the expression is less colorful!

Punctuation

A primary way punctuation affects register is the use or avoidance of contractions and abbreviations. Contractions and abbreviations are informal language features, and one of the quickest ways to lower register is to add them. Exclamation points, “scare-quotes,” and unorthodox capitalization also lower the register of a text.

Language Feature	Lower register	Higher register
Contractions	I’ve never seen a fish that didn’t like to swim.	I have never seen a fish that did not like to swim.
Abbreviations	Suzy ran 4K cuz she can.	Suzy ran four kilometers because she can.
Other punctuation	i met some “COOL KIDS” on the street!	I met some self-described cool kids on the street.

Grammatical structure

The sentence structures we use also significantly impact register. While a general rule applies that simpler, shorter sentences equate with lower register, some specific considerations can help us use our grammar as precisely as possible:

Active & passive voice

The passive voice makes a sentence more formal in English. This is a tricky one, however, because the passive voice also lowers the energy of a sentence and is therefore often avoided in academic contexts that otherwise require formal register:

Lower register (active voice)	Higher register (passive voice)
My dog ate my homework.	My homework was eaten by my dog.
Don’t forget your umbrella at home.	Umbrellas must not be forgotten at home.

Simple vs. complex sentences

The more a sentence employs subordinate or dependent clauses, the more formal it becomes. Subordinate clauses are sections of a sentence that contain a subject and verb but cannot stand on their own. Some subordinate clauses will always appear even in informal writing, but we can choose to layer them up or to highlight them through more prominent placement in order to raise the formality of a passage. Take a look at this example:

Lower register (fewer, less-prominent subordinate clauses)	Higher register (more, more-prominent subordinate clauses)
Mabel registered only a slight surprise because the heat had come the night before. She saw a palm tree erupt spontaneously from the toilet, and the carpet in the hallways appeared to have dissolved into sand.	Because the heat had come the night before, Mabel registered only a slight surprise at seeing a palm tree erupt spontaneously from the toilet, and even less when the carpet in the hallway appeared to have dissolved into sand.

In this example, I prefer the lower-register version. I think it captures the absurdity of the situation a bit better, highlighting by its very matter-of-factness the ludicrous situation.

Question construction

English has a surprising number of ways to make questions! Generally, a direct question is considered neutral-to-informal in register. We can raise the register by using an indirect question and lower the register through a question tag:

Low register (question tag)	Neutral register (direct question)	High register (indirect question)
I can borrow your phone, can’t I?	Can I borrow your phone?	Would you be willing to let me borrow your phone?
It’s going to rain this afternoon, isn’t it?	Will it rain this afternoon?	Do you anticipate rain this afternoon?

Inverted word order

One wonderful feature of English is its occasional ability to mess with word order for a particularly formal effect. In certain contexts (usually involving a negative adverb at the beginning of a sentence), the subject and verb of the sentence can be switched:

Lower register (normal word order)	Higher register (inverted word order)
I’ve never seen this dog before!	Never have I seen this dog before.
Sylvia realized only later that she had a monster stuck to her back.	Only later did Sylvia realize that she had a monster stuck to her back.
If the moon had been shining that night, we could have danced.	Had the moon been shining that night, we could have danced.
We didn’t know that it would rain.	Little did we know that it would rain.

You can find a much more thorough explanation of this inversion feature here.

Final thoughts

Almost all texts mix formal and informal language features to some degree, and from this comes the continuum of registers in English, from utterly informal texts that have never seen an inverted subject-verb order in their lives to legalese where every contraction would be anathema. The most natural writing will be somewhere in between, combining formal and informal features intentionally to create the effect we desire.

How do you use register in your own writing? What contexts do you write in different registers, and what language techniques do you like to use to change register for readers?

Thank you for reading, and best wishes for the coming week!
Jimmy