• What is informal language?
• Informal language characteristics
• Examples of informal language
• Formal language

We explain what informal language is, its characteristics and various examples. Also, what is formal language.

Informal language can be accompanied by gestures to convey the message.

What is informal language?

When we speak of informal language, or in more precise terms the informal register of speech or informal linguistic register, we refer to the colloquial or casual way in which a language is used, always in a context specific communicative.

That is, it is the way we speak in situations of familiarity, trust or closeness with our interlocutors, unlike formal language, which we use in formal, important and respectful situations. This is because speakers do not always use our language in the same way. idiom, since we adapt to the communicative situations that we face in our life.

For example, we do not speak in the same way when we are in the square with our friends and when we are defending an academic work before a specialized jury, since each situation has levels of demand and of responsibility different. That is the difference between an informal record and a formal record, respectively. It is the same language, but used in two very different ways.

Thus, informal registration is typical of situations of trust and familiarity, or of everyday circumstances in which women rules courtesy and protocol they relax. It is a casual way of communicating, in which we pay little attention to the language itself, since we have other tools of the moment to make us understand.

Generally, it also involves the complicity of our interlocutors, or the time and space to explain something that has not been understood. It is also considered synonymous of colloquial language.

It can help you: Oral language

Informal language characteristics

The informal, colloquial or family register is characterized by the following:

• He pays little attention to the precision and correctness with which the language is used, allowing a certain margin of imprecision and ambiguity, since it is not a planned way of speaking, but the result of pure improvisation.
• Allows the use of fillers, rudeness, Word games Y expressions that are accompanied by gestures or mimicry to understand each other, since they generally have the complicity of the interlocutor.
• It favors simple structures, with a lexicon limited, and always favors immediate understanding over correctness and style. It is therefore practical and pragmatic.
• Go to the slang, the jargon or vulgarisms between the interlocutors, in such a way that whoever listens from the outside will understand little of what has been said.

Examples of informal language

Depending on the context, informal language can occur both between friends and strangers.

Here are a couple of examples of informal language:

Conversation between two friends:

One says to the other: “Hey, buddy, how's your old lady going? The day before or yesterday you told me that I was half sick, right? ”. His interlocutor replies: "Yes, crazy, we have been to the doctor about a thousand times, but it is not right."

How do we know that this conversation is informal?

• They refer to each other in a lighthearted way ("compa", "crazy").
• They use a familiar lexicon (“old” for “mother”; “she doesn't give a foot with a ball” for “she can't find a diagnosis”).
• They use colloquial twists (“medio malita” for “sick”; “like a thousand times” for “many times”).

Conversation between two men who have just crashed their cars in the middle of the street.

The first to get out of the vehicle yells at the other: “Are you blind? Didn't you see that he had the low beam on? Where did you get the license from? "

How do we know that the tone in which he speaks is informal?

• You refer to your interlocutor in a disrespectful way, with offensive insinuations.
• Although he is talking to a stranger, he dispenses with courtesy (he does not say “you”, for example.
• Asks rhetorical questions whose purpose is to express his annoyance to the other ("Are you blind?").

Formal language

Unlike the informal register, what we call formal language is a way of using the language that attends to conventions and correctness, and is usually used in situations of respect, protocol or intellectual demand, in which informal language would not have room.

For example, if we are about to receive an ambassador from another country, it is common for us to use formal language, referring to him with formal titles and with a language worthy of a polite conversation.