Preliminary Recommendations

Interim recommendation: style

There is a small number of parameters of style that are frequently invoked, and will serve as an interim classification. They are offered below without definitions, and the user should add his or her own precise use of the terms.

I.2. style

 

I.2.1. Formality

 

I.2.1.1. informal

 

I.2.1.2. formal

 

I.2.2. Preparation

 

I.2.2.1. considered

 

I.2.2.2. impromptu

 

I.2.3. Communicative grouping

 

I.2.3.1. conversational group

 

I.2.3.2. speaker/writer and audience

 

I.2.3.3. remote audiences (e.g. radio, TV)

 

I.2.4. Direction

 

I.2.4.1. one-way

 

I.2.4.2. interactive

 

These categories largely reflect external types; as the research reported above is showing, these generally accepted labels are not clearly definable, and no doubt rest on bundles of detailed selections of grammar and phraseology that have still to be discovered. One newcomer to the categories of style is mentioned below.