Abstract
Formality‐informality is an often cited descriptive dimension of language. The purpose of this study was to discover some properties of the formal lexicon in English. Subjects listened to five sets of utterances, each containing six interrelated items, and for each item chose a probable listener. The items were composed predominantly either of Latinate or of Germanic words, and of high and low frequency words within each etymology. Also, in each set two items were designed to compare the effects of slang. A prior analysis yielded two clusters of listeners: employer/professor or stranger (Formal) and close friend or brother/sister (Informal). Slang items were perceived overwhelmingly as addressed to informal listeners. Subjects judged that the Latinate items, more than the Germanic, were addressed to formal listeners. Within the Latinate forms, word frequency had no effects; among the Germanic forms, low frequency words were more formal than high frequency ones.
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