Formality of Language: definition, measurement and behavioral determinants

A new concept of formality of linguistic expressions is introduced and argued to be the most important dimension of variation between styles or registers. Formality is subdivided into "deep" formality and "surface" formality. Deep formality is defined as avoidance of ambiguity by minimizing the context-dependence and fuzziness of expressions. This is achieved by explicit and precise description of the elements of the context needed to disambiguate the expression. A formal style is characterized by detachment, accuracy, rigidity and heaviness; an informal style is more flexible, direct, implicit, and involved, but less informative. An empirical measure of formality, the F-score, is proposed, based on the frequencies of different word classes in the corpus. Nouns, adjectives, articles and prepositions are more frequent in formal styles; pronouns, adverbs, verbs and interjections are more frequent in informal styles. It is shown that this measure, though coarse-grained, adequately distinguishes more from less formal genres of language production, for some available corpora in Dutch, French, Italian, and English. A factor similar to the F-score automatically emerges as the most important one from factor analyses applied to extensive data in 7 different languages. Different situational and personality factors are examined which determine the degree of formality in linguistic expression. It is proposed that formality becomes larger when the distance in space, time or background between the interlocutors increases, and when the speaker is male, introverted or academically educated. Some empirical evidence and a preliminary theoretical explanation for these propositions is discussed. Short Abstract: The concept of "deep" formality is proposed as the most important dimension of variation between language registers or styles. It is defined as avoidance of ambiguity by minimizing the context-dependence and fuzziness of expressions. An empirical measure, the F-score, is proposed, based on the frequencies of different word classes. This measure adequately distinguishes different genres of language production using data for Dutch, French, Italian, and English. Factor analyses applied to data in 7 different languages produce a similar factor as the most important one. Both the data and the theoretical model suggest that formality increases when the distance in space, time or background between the interlocutors increases, and when the speaker is male, introverted or academically educated.