Excuse the Informalities

"We are going to set up an artificial “language” to avoid difficulties of vagueness, equivocation, amphiboly, and confusion from emotive significance."

Excuse The Informalities

     There are certain informalities humans enjoy around family and friends.  We speak with a natural vulgarity and offense that would have us cast out of society if spoken in the wrong environment. There needs to be an alternative to saying whatever is on your mind, to writing exactly what you think. All speech and modes of communication are not viable in every circumstance. There has to be a moment of direct care in how we communicate. Speeches should not be given in the dialect of a dive bar. Not every document can be written in the language of a postcard. We need to have a general way of communicating with each other that shields us from the ambiguity of informal practices. There needs to be some formality that does not just prevent confusion and offense but makes communicating with each other easier. That is why there is formal language. A formal language is a natural language regimented by the educated to be used as a tool to communicate with others with as little ambiguity as possible.

Humanity communicates with each other in many different ways. Humans communicate with their eyes, their hands, and their body. Humans communicate happiness or pleasure with a smile and they communicate melancholy or depression with tears or a frown, or an eerie blank stare. Humans generally understand that a face can look “blank.” Humans have this innate ability to sense when someone is upset or anxious, adulated or surprised. But a lot of the ways humans naturally communicate can be misconstrued. A smile can also be a sign of tragic disbelief; a frown can simply be resting bitch face and the person “frowning” may not mean to project any emotion typically associated with a frown. Sometimes, speaking or writing, using the language native to your location can often times be the most effective way to convey thoughts, wants, wishes, needs, and be great supporters of the physical markers of emotions.

     Still, language can be exceedingly ambiguous and can contain many dialects filled with all sorts of regional colloquialisms. The annunciation and understanding of some words can get lost in regional accents. This can be found in a group of people who all technically speak the same language but often times, have difficulty understanding each other. The English language is spoken all over the world with different dialects, spoken with many different accents. For example, a woman from London, a woman from Kingston, and a woman from New York City are waiting for their beverages at a coffee shop. They begin to speak to each other and complain about the slow service. They all speak English but they all speak a form natural to where they are from in the English-speaking world.

They use certain words and phrases with which they are familiar. The woman from London in a Cockney accent exclaims, “Bollocks! Where is my bloody drink?” The woman from Jamaica in a Jamaican accent responds, “Bloodclot. Yes. Where dem drinks dere?” The woman from New York City in a Brooklyn accent, “Let’s fucking go, here. Give me my goddamn beverage. I have to get outta here.” A lot of concepts and ideas in which they are familiar are not native to every English-speaking country. Furthermore, Cockney, a working class Londoner accent, a Jamaican accent, and a Brooklyn accent could possibly confuse the cognates they share as English speakers further confusing communication.

     All three of the women berating the barista are speaking their natural language. That is one of the beautiful attributes and conundrums of natural language. According to the preeminent English dictionary, the Oxford English Dictionary, a natural language is “A language that has evolved naturally, as distinguished from an artificial language devised for international communications or for formal logical or mathematical purposes.” Humans speak like the people speak where they are from which can be redundant and vulgar. It can be harsh and uncivilized. There is still too much ambiguity, too many regional specific words and phrases. Natural language can be literal or metaphorical. Tone varies and can determine emotion and meaning. Natural language can also be very informal and all others who speak their shared language may not know all of the informalities of a particular dialect.

      The three women are employing very informal language when speaking to the barista. The Oxford English Dictionary does not have a definition for informal language but a website called the Oxford Dictionaries defines informal language as “a language mainly used between people who know each other well, or in relaxed and unofficial contexts.”  Although, they were in a place of business, which could be considered a formal setting, surrounded by many people who may be offended by boorish and crude language, informal language is used. Natural language does not have any rules or environment where it is not used it is only suppressed.

The three women eventually receive their beverages, with apologies from the barista, but before they go their separate ways, they exchange business cards. They bonded over each other’s temperament. Later in the week the woman from London, who is an architect, the woman from New York City, who is an engineer, meet at the woman from Jamaica’s, who is a venture capitalist, downtown office. They want to build an art center to keep people from becoming baristas. They sit around a big conference table and discuss the logistics of building the center. Their lawyers draft contracts for the land and read over the building permits and the environmental reports. All three of the women and their lawyers do not have any trouble understanding one another and what they want to accomplish together. The women are communicating with each other using formal language.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines formal language as “chiefly Math., Logic, and Computing a set of strings of symbols formed according to some rule or rules which determine how the symbols in a given collection can be combined." Dictionary.com defines formal language as “a language designed for use in situations in which natural language is unsuitable.” The women are speaking a very formal English that is typical in academia, government, and other professional settings. Formal English is being used as a tool to conduct business and to be clear with each other about their intentions in the venture. There is no vulgarity or angry tones or words and phrases that are misunderstood.

While the English Language does have a formal language, Medieval Logic is an example of a strict formal language. English has many different and dictionaries and no governing academy so there can still be some ambiguity in the definition of words. From The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy about John Buridan, one of the most influential medieval logicians, “Historians of logic usually classify Buridan among the terminists or ‘moderns’, a diverse group of thirteenth and fourteenth-century logicians who regarded the semantic properties of terms (literally, the ‘ends [termini]’, or subjects and predicates, of propositions) as the primary unit of logical analysis” (Zupko). Buridan was writing in Latin at the time. He and some of his contemporaries focused on well-defined criteria in Latin, choosing to cast aside what was not necessary to explain a multitude of theories. Often times after exhaustive arguments, they devised grammar and rules of use that distinguish the Latin used in Medieval Logic from the Latin of the Aristotle works they were translating. Medieval logic is highly regimented but there is still disagreement on how to use terms. It may not be possible to eliminate all ambiguity in a language using formal language but the goal is to get rid of as much ambiguity as possible.

Buridan and the other logicians at the time were working out these theories in universities. Buridan went to the University of Paris where he received a Master’s Degree and most of his discourse was with others similarly educated. The three women, who are building The Center for the Arts to Keep People from Becoming Baristas, also have an advanced education. The woman from London has a master’s degree in architecture from the University of Oxford. The woman from Jamaica has a master’s degree in finance from the University of the West Indies, and the woman from New York City has a master’s degree in engineering from Columbia University. They learned how to speak and write in formal language at their respective universities so that they could communicate effectively in their respective careers and industries. The formal language they all understand eliminates the possibility of being offended by the sensibilities of a particular region, social status, and education status.

It is important to recognize that formal language must be learned and that learning comes most often from universities. Those who are educated are regimenting language. The English language does not have an official academy or governing body that determines grammar, spelling, use of its symbols, and the rules of its use. Its formalization is based upon how most people use its grammar and how most people spell a word. This makes formality of the English language difficult, hence the different dictionaries with different definitions of formal language. English is regimented to be close to the language used and taught in its prestigious universities. Shared papers, studies, and rules of grammar are written in a formal English. Seminars and lectures are given using formal English, the print media also influences formal language.

Since, English does not have a governing body of its use there can still be slight ambiguity when speaking it formally, but there is still an understanding that it does have a formal dialect, a dialect of English that should be generally understood to maneuver smoothly throughout the English-speaking world.

Languages like Spanish and French have formal dialects that are highly regimented. Spain and France have academies that govern the use of their languages and publish rules about use and grammar. The Royal Spanish Academy and the French Academy formalize their respective languages so academics and politicians from Madrid can communicate with scholars from Mexico City or Buenos Aires. Politicians from Paris can communicate with as little ambiguity as possible with French speakers from all over the planet.  

The informal natural language the three women used with the barista is the type of offense that formal language wants to avoid. The ability for the three women to conduct business together is why there is formal language. Formal language attempts to put those who use it on an equal level of communication. There needed to be another form of communication that is specific to the shared language. There needed to be a formal language, the supreme dialect of the language that is used to communicate with each other in a way that is not ambiguous and does not change with the environment. If our regions with our different dialects want to communicate with each other on a level we all understand it is necessary to understand and develop a formal language. Now, that we have a formal language developed we can communicate with understanding using a higher dialect.