Definition of Cultured, Standard and Colloquial Language

1. The learned language is normally accepted as the standard written variant, used for literary creation, both artistic and scientific.

2. Standard language is that variety that is imposed on others that exist in the same (or similar) context, related to the State and to the existence of literature written in it. In any case, in practice, the written standard is given greater relevance than the oral standard.

3. In essence, the colloquial language is that variant used by the linguistic community to communicate continuously and more casually. It is given orally and contains forms not accepted by the generality of written language (with more tendency to the cultured form). This consists of a family style and is commonly used in informal situations.

Quote (APA)

Indira Ahmed Fernandez | Jul. 2022
Bachelor of Hispanic Letters

Language is a system of signs that are linked to form understandable messages for the rest of the speakers. For this to happen effectively, it is necessary that the speakers share the same system, that is, the same language or language. Spanish is realized through its multiple varieties, being the fourth language with the most speakers in the world. But these varieties do not occur only from the geographical or temporal point of view, but also the context and social stratum must be considered.

The variation of the language according to its social context is a fundamental property of all particular languages; but, according to the dialectologist Francisco Gimeno Menéndez, little is still known about the nature of this question, since there are difficulties in determining the causes of the phenomenon. Even so, the role played by the social system in the diversification of linguistics. In this way, Ferdinand de Saussure, founder of structural linguistics, distinguished in 1916 the "parole” (speech) that we produce to communicate, from the “language” (language), systematic entity registered by our brain and object of linguistics.

standard language

According to various linguistic studies, language is closely related to the concept of State, which makes some models of a variety prevail over others. Manuel Alvar distinguishes the following characteristics of the standard language:

A) Imposition on other linguistic varieties

B) Principles of prestige motivated by the adoption of this variety due to a greater number of speakers (collective validity), state imposition (or politics, as happened with the unification of Castilian by Queen Isabella of Castile)

C) Homogeneity and leveling of the system

D) Creation or existence of literary works in said variety

E) Differentiation, necessary for the establishment of points of comparison between the different varieties.

educated language

This variety is intrinsically related to training, since someone with high levels of study will know the correct forms and will use them to issue messages (generally in writing) formulated with excellence.

This linguistic level is manifested in writing in essays, scientific production in general, and the generation of literary works. Orally, it manifests itself in conferences (López del Castillo, 1976, classifies the language in the levels explained in this note).

The creation of literature largely determines whether a language is considered standard, but the rule cult contains forms that differentiate it from this, in addition it also makes use of rhetorical figures. For example, the first work written in Spanish language It was "The song of the Cid", which reaffirmed the language as a standard recounting the deeds of the hero in the expulsion of the Arabs from the territory Spanish. This started a wide literary tradition that placed the language as the most representative within the Romance languages.

The cultured language shows a high degree of formality, which differentiates it from the familiar or colloquial language. In short, it is about the use of the correct forms from the lexical and morphosyntactic point of view.

colloquial language

The spoken language, the oral "variant", is strongly associated with the group sociocultural of greater prestige, whose practice implies acceptance. This is considered quite flexible with respect to written language. As a rule, much attention is not paid to the speech, but the main object is the message itself, expressed within the framework of everyday life.

We know that language has a mostly utilitarian function in human communication, which is why developed characteristic forms of this context that allow a certain expressive freedom when formulating messages. However, in everyday life two cases can occur:

1. That the messages received are not understood, or are understood in another way, with a perfect formulation,

2. messages are understood, even if they have not been well formulated.

In these cases, the context and the correspondence with the same reality play a fundamental role (eg. two people from Guadalajara will perfectly understand the “idioms” to which they are accustomed, even if the message is not written correctly grammatically).

For the analysis of verbal (oral) communication, the discipline of "conversation analysis", which starts from the assumption that verbal communication is an interactive process: all speech is the result of a building made by two The sequence of dialogues, speaking turns, repetitions, reformulation, agreement and disagreement of the participants are the elements on which conversational analysis is based.

The concepts of "popular language" (or vulgar) and colloquial language should not be confused. The first is related in particular to low socioeconomic groups and levels of education or training: a person with little or no studies will not know the correct forms and will use a social variety of the language to make their points understood messages. The colloquial language has become the denomination given to what was traditionally known as familiar and spontaneous.