Stylistic register

A stylistic register is a level of speech determined by the degree of its officiality, solemnity or informality and selected in accordance with the situation of communication, the topic and the addressee. Traditionally high (solemn, bookish), neutral (common) and low (colloquial, lowered) registers are distinguished, each of which has its own set of lexical and syntactic means. The ability to command registers and to combine or contrast them appropriately is the basis of the culture of language and of artistic mastery. In literature a deliberate change of register — a transition from the elevated to the everyday or vice versa — serves as a means of characterisation, irony, emotional contrast. The concept of register is closely linked to style, the stylistic norm and the functional varieties of speech and belongs to the key categories of stylistics and the theory of verbal communication.