REGISTER:
We can communicate using different registers and different types of language, depending on the context - for example:
For formal and informal register; 'Would you mind passing the salt?' is appropriate for a formal situation with strangers, whereas 'Pass me the salt' would be used for a situation where friends are talking, or possibly when being rude.Register | TeachingEnglish | British Council
Here's a good introduction:
Register: Language Formality in Creative Writing–#AuthorToolboxBlogHop – Words like trees
We need to be teaching and learning about it:
MultiBrief: Language register: What is it and why does it matter in education?
How Did That Register? Five Levels of Formality in Language | ALTA Language Services
Here are some of those different contexts:
Jay Doubleyou: writing about your holiday in different registers
Jay Doubleyou: register: populism, culture wars and woke
Jay Doubleyou: learning to use the appropriate register @ fawlty towers
Jay Doubleyou: writing with register: a lesson in using different levels of 'politeness'
Jay Doubleyou: high culture > popular culture --- high register > low register
It becomes much more difficult to change register or 'voice' in the middle of speaking or writing
Do native English speakers face difficulty in switching between registers?
CODE-SWITCHING:
We can call this 'code-switching':
Register and style: code-switching
Code-switching isn't just for bilingual people: Code-switching is switching between multiple different languages, dialects, and registers depending on the social situation the speaker is in.
Although we usually talk about code-switching in terms of switching languages, utilising different registers in communication is also considered code-switching. A teenager at school may talk to their friends and classmates using a casual register, then code-switch to a formal or consultative register when talking to their teacher.
Register and Style: Definition, Meaning & Examples | StudySmarter
It's quite a hot topic:
Code-Switching in Language | Definition, Types & Examples | Study.com
For example:
In popular usage and in sociolinguistic study, the term code-switching is frequently used to refer to switching among dialects, styles or registers.[9] This form of switching is practiced, for example, by speakers of African American Vernacular English as they move from less formal to more formal settings.[10] Such shifts, when performed by public figures such as politicians, are sometimes criticized as signaling inauthenticity or insincerity.[11]Code-switching - Wikipedia
HETEROGLOSSIA:
Mixing up register/voice/language can go beyond the sociology and politics of language.
Here's an interesting idea: 'heteroglossia':
In literature it refers to different voices used within a text, so that might be the differentiation between characters and an omniscient narrator, or it could be different sociolects (class/regional etc dialects) represented by characters. Any time the speech of someone in the text tells you about who they are and how they're different to others in the text is an example of heteroglossia. In non fiction, the same applies, only the heteroglossia arises out of people's real differences rather than having to be invented by an author. Linguistic code in this context is deliberately vague, but does entail that the characters should be using mutually intelligible language. So, it might be two male characters that both speak English but one is poor and black and uses ebonics and one is rich and white and speaks a more formal, standardised way, or it could be two middle class people but the male uses more assertive language and the female is more passive.Confused about 'heteroglossia' meaning : r/linguistics
With more from Wikipedia:
Heteroglossia is the presence in language of a variety of "points of view on the world, forms for conceptualizing the world in words, specific world views, each characterized by its own objects, meanings and values."[1] For Bakhtin, this diversity of "languages" within a single language brings into question the basic assumptions of system-based linguistics. Every word uttered, in any specific time or place, is a function of a complex convergence of forces and conditions that are unique to that time and place...
The hybrid utterance, as defined by Bakhtin, is a passage that employs only a single speaker—the author, for example— but uses different kinds of speech. The juxtaposition of the different speeches brings with it a contradiction and conflict in belief systems.
In examination of the English comic novel, particularly the works of Charles Dickens, Bakhtin identifies examples of his argument. Dickens parodies both the 'common tongue' and the language of Parliament or high-class banquets, using concealed languages to create humor. In one passage, Dickens shifts from his authorial narrative voice into a formalized, almost epic tone while describing the work of an unremarkable bureaucrat; his intent is to parody the self-importance and vainglory of the bureaucrat's position. The use of concealed speech, without formal markers of a speaker change, is what allows the parody to work. It is, in Bakhtin's parlance, a hybrid utterance. In this instance the conflict is between the factual narrative and the biting hyperbole of the new, epic/formalistic tone.
Bakhtin goes on to discuss the interconnectedness of conversation. Even a simple dialogue, in his view, is full of quotations and references, often to a general "everyone says" or "I heard that.." Opinion and information are transmitted by way of reference to an indefinite, general source. By way of these references, humans selectively assimilate the discourse of others and make it their own.
Heteroglossia - Wikipedia
Let's draw back to give a bit more context.
Here's a very readable look at all of this by Jena Barchas of the Everyday linguistic anthropology blog:
Words have flavors: indexicality, heteroglossia, intertextuality
Let me start with an obvious point: we all have boatloads of resources at our disposal for making meaning. Not just our words — we’ve also got our clothing, our posture, the way we walk — but for now, I’m mostly going to talk about words.
All these resources communicate through indexicality. Basically, they point to other meanings. Classically, smoke indexes fire: it doesn’t look like fire, but it points to it by means of long association. Of course, smoke could mean that there’s a smoke machine rather than a fire. But most of the time, it doesn’t.
When we talk about indexicality and language, we’re generally talking about different ways of saying the same thing, which carry different meanings.
For example:Using a higher pitch indexes femininity. It doesn’t resemble a woman in any way, but it’s connected by regular proximity. When men want to make it clear that they’re imitating women, the first thing they do is raise the pitch of their voices.
If I stop someone on the street and ask them for the time, do I say, “Yo” or “Excuse me, sir”? In fact, both are correct — but they tell you different things about me, that person, and our relationship.
Speaking a particular language or dialect often indexes group affiliation.
Accents index a particular region.
Slang indexes a particular age, among many other personal characteristics.
In short, words have flavors.
Consider the word “dude.” These days, it indexes a sort of laid-back Californian vibe, in addition to heterosexual masculinity. It’s not a quotation from a specific original source, but it’s connected to a way of talking, a voice in the broadest sense.
Or consider the words “beget” and “Sabbath.” They’ve both got Judeo-Christian Bible flavor. “Wack,” “talk to the hand,” and “the bomb” have ’90s flavor. “Actionable” and “productize” have corporate flavor. “Occupy” indexes leftist politics and inequality — and it’s only done so for about five years.
As you can see, a single language — in this case, English — always contains multiple voices and varieties. And it doesn’t matter how self-contained and original a single stretch of language is; it contains elements that index various contexts, norms, and voices.
When we talk about this sense that language always contains multiple voices, we’re talking about heteroglossia (lit. “different voices”). (The term was coined by Russian literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin and promptly appropriated by linguistic anthropologists.)
We also often talk about a special case of heteroglossia, which we call intertextuality: the borrowing, quoting, or reworking of a recognizable (oral or written) text.
The movie Clueless is a reworking of Jane Austen’s Emma.
If I say “Accio pencil,” what am I referring to? What will you do? (I once heard a student say this in class, and another student picked up the pencil she’d just dropped.)
Internet memes often blend multiple texts, as do parodies.
So what? Why is this interesting?
Here’s why: both heteroglossia and intertextuality only work as devices if we can assume that some voices and texts are shared. “Accio pencil” is only meaningful if you’re also familiar with Harry Potter; this faux-mercial is only funny if you’ve seen this (real) commercial; a man raising the pitch of his voice to imitate his mother-in-law only makes sense if you share the knowledge that women have high voices.
Language isn’t homogeneous within a group of people, and language is never neutral. Heteroglossia makes visible our knowledge and assumptions of just how that diversity is organized.Words have flavors: indexicality, heteroglossia, intertextuality | Everyday linguistic anthropology
Let's finish with a challenge to teachers in the classroom:
Dialogic education is a teaching method which is in stark contrast with monologic teaching methods. Nowadays, the educational
systems all around the world characterize monologic education in which the ideas and voices of the teachers are the first and last
ones uttered in the classrooms, textbooks are aimed so that students learn how to speak and write “correctly” and the time extent
of the class is so short that teachers are struggling to cover all the “important” points mandated in the textbooks and by
educational authorities.
In contrast in dialogic education, the teacher shares his or her authority with the students; the voices of
the students are heard and their opinions are valuable. In a dialogic class, the students are divided into groups to practice
“exploratory talk” and “think reasonably”. The aim in discussing different opinions is just that; discussing different opinions not
winning or losing. The role of the teacher is to facilitate the process; he or she is not a judge or referee, he or she is simply a
guide. A dialogic environment is like a carnival; to borrow from Bakhtin. There are no omnipresent powers.
The current study
shows that different components of Bakhtin’s dialogism concept can be a very good starting point for a modern and effective
theoretical framework for learning and teaching processes.
Dialogism versus Monologism: A Bakhtinian Approach to Teaching
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