Today’s guest post is by Jason Konopinski.

I’ve always fancied myself a student of linguistics.

One of my favorite courses during my undergraduate career at Elizabethtown College was called History of the Language. Much of the course work was focused on identifying and discussing the pressures exerted on English by various historical, social, and economic forces and charting the evolution of the language through various literary forms.

It was a fascinating (albeit grueling) course that gives color to the way in which I observe conversation and discourse on the social web.

In his 1962 book The Five Clocks, German linguist Martin Joos introduced a model that describes the five registers (a variety of language chosen by the speaker relative to context or social setting) of English. (more…)