Cambridge Writing: Formal vs Informal Language

if you have watched any of my videos about writing for cambridge exams you have probably noticed that i keep repeating myself i always explain the same stuff so once and for all here is my ultimate guide to formal and informal language hi and welcome to teacher phil where i help people like you pass their cambridge exams make sure you subscribe and like the video and with all that being said let's get straight into it using the right register in your writing is really key to success in any cambridge exam you need to demonstrate that you can use formal neutral and informal language correctly and appropriately if you are not quite sure what that means and what the differences are between these different styles of language then make sure you keep watching the first thing that we need to keep in mind are contractions contractions are always a combination of two words put together for example do and not become don't the second idea we should look at when we talk about formal neutral and informal language are phrasal verbs and idioms phrasal verbs are combination of a verb and at least one preposition with a very specific meaning some phrasal verbs are formal enough to use in formal writing but many of them are simply too informal so we should avoid them the same goes for idioms idioms are expressions that have a literal meaning as well as a hidden meaning that we use in specific contexts again we cannot use them in any piece of writing that we want but we have to check when it is appropriate to do so the third idea we need to keep in mind are colloquial expressions colloquial expressions are as the name suggests expressions that we normally use in spoken language that means that they are usually rather informal and shouldn't be used in formal language and fourth of all and last but not least we also need to keep in mind other structures like certain grammatical structures other vocabulary and so on but now let's have a look into this in a little bit more detail now we are going to examine how we use or don't use these different categories or ideas in the different styles of language formal neutral and informal have a look at this simple graphic that shows you what you can use in which style for example contractions are good in informal and neutral writing but not in formal texts phrasal verbs and idioms should only be used in informal style it is quite difficult to know which phrasal verbs are okay to be used in formal english and which should be avoided in formal texts and only be used in informal writing i've prepared a list with common phrasal verbs and the meanings so you know exactly which ones you can use in formal writing as well the link is in the description box below and let's keep going back with our graphic we can also see that colloquial expressions are also a feature of informal writing only other structures that we need to be careful with include for example passive verb forms imperatives or linking expressions also the more direct we are the more informal we are if we generalize if we use indirect language we are more formal now you might think all right phil this is all nice now i know about these different criteria and these different kinds of expressions but how do i know which style i have to use in each individual task so let's move on and let's look at a practical example and analyze if we need to use formal neutral or informal language if we want to analyze a task and find out which style the correct one is for our text we can do two things number one we can look who is going to read our text for example we might have to write to the director of our school or to our teacher which means we should probably use formal language if our reader is for example a friend or another student we can use more informal language the second thing we can analyze is the language in the task itself if we find certain features of formal or informal language in the task we can use the same style to reflect the register in the task so let's have a look at an example task of a c1 advanced review you can see that i've already highlighted the key pieces of information that tell us about the most appropriate register for this specific task in green you can see that we are going to write to an english friend called chris writing to a friend already tells us that we might be able to use informal language here on top of that i put some orange boxes around informal language features we can find contractions we can find colloquial expressions like cheers and we can even find informal punctuation here in the form of an exclamation mark at the end of the second sentence i hope this video clears up all the confusion about formal and informal language and i hope that you will be able to take this information and use it in the future remember that different tasks ask for different styles and each style asks four different features we need to be careful with contractions phrasal verbs and idioms colloquial expressions as well as other grammatical structures if you practice and if you get a little bit of a routine analyzing different tasks you will find it easier and easier to choose and to apply the right register for every task as always thank you for watching the video please remember to subscribe and like the video and also check out the different links in the description box below and of course i will see you next time

Channel: Teacher Phill

Views: 894

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Id: Y2ShJOMhJ-4

Length: 7min 57sec (477 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 24 2021