Sociolinguistics: Registers

The term register has been used for more than four decades now in linguistics, in order to describe and analyze stylistic and functional variation in language use. It is a concept deeply ingrained in sign language instruction for more than 30 years. In teaching sign languages, the most influential models have been those proposed in the 1960s and 1970s by Martin Joos, Charles Ferguson, and Michael A. K. Halliday, respectively. These models are discussed in light of critical issues regarding sign languages (SLs). Until today, the conceptions and applications of “register” in SL teaching and SL linguistics vary widely and are not researched well enough in order to be grasped easily by SL learners. This holds especially for second-language (L2) learning, given that roughly two-thirds of all users of sign languages are nonnative users, that is, L2 learners, of SL. Also, both the cultural differences in SL registers versus spoken language registers and the impact of language contact and cross-cultural communication on register in sign languages are crucial factors that urgently need further research.

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Figure 1 Register Variation Between (a) ASL for “Die, Pass Away” and (b) ASL for “Die” (Informal)

Source: © Patty Shores

As a linguistic term, register was first introduced and elaborated in the late 1950s and early 1960s, drawing on a metaphor from the musical technique of organ playing: Different sets of organ pipes are tuned in different ways and are used to achieve a great variety in tonality according to any specific expression of emotion and intensity that is scripted in the musical score. In a similar way, language use can be adapted differently in accordance with a situation; social context; interpersonal relations; discourse type or text genre, respectively; and subject of talk or text, respectively.

For example, “baby talk” and “foreigner talk” constitute addressee-related, situational “broken” language registers, which were studied in the 1970s and 1980s by Ferguson on an empirical basis. His approach has been most influential in the American tradition of sociolinguistics. In a broad sense, within his framework, register comprises specific modes of communication, such as L2 communication or lingua franca communication, as well as languages for specific purposes. Also, it is connected to his concept of diglossia, meaning the existence of a “high” standard variety associated with written language and formal registers, and a “low” vernacular variety of a given national language. Diglossia is the case, for example, in Switzerland with Standard German [Page 908]versus Swiss German dialects, but it does not apply in the same way to minority languages such as SL.

As a typical example of SL variation in terms of register, consider Figure 1a and 1b, two ASL signs denoting the verb die. Both signs comprise an upside-down, turning motion of the flat hand and are accompanied in the second half by a mouth shape. However, the formal sign in Figure 1a uses both hands in a bimanual motion turning upside down and from left to right. The informal sign is carried out single-handed and uses a smaller space just in shoulder height on the right side for the upside-down turning motion.

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