Changing the register

Text A: Formal
Steven joined me for a stroll today. Accompanied by my friend Nat, we walked for a short while before journeying to my house. When Steven had to return home I escorted him to the bus stop. When we arrived we kissed but I felt terribly rotten about the whole occurrence. Undoubtedly, Steven is a kind man but when we kissed, I felt no feelings towards him. He is a very considerate person so I felt comfortable in being honest with him about my true feelings and he understood how I felt. I am overjoyed to announce that we are attending the movie theatre together this coming Saturday.
I received my results from the French examination that I sat yesterday and I am thrilled with my achievement. I obtained 31 marks out of 32 so I am really quite cheerful.
In addition, my acquaintance, Claire, was miserable in English recently. I understand what is troubling her but I felt awfully helpless as I know the only person who can improve the situation is Tony.

Text B: Frozen
DARLENE: Good morrow.
TROY: Beloved, tis your betrothed.
DARLENE: TROY?
TROY: Tis, Beloved.
DARLENE: O Lord, the baby hath begun weeping
TROY: Tis true, I can hear her sombre sobs.
DARLENE: Tis our young infant.
TROY: How doth she?
DARLENE: She doth not sleep well, and I hath return’d to work, therefore art tired.
TROY: I only wish that I could help thou, beloved.
DARLENE: Dearest Troy, when will thou returneth?
TROY: The future holds hope for my return, my Beloved.

Commentaries:

Text A

The original text had a colloquial register and included many grammatical inaccuracies. Therefore, my ultimate goal was to ensure that the text contained correct spelling and was grammatically correct in order it to have a formal register. For example, it previously contained many phonetic spellings such as ‘wif’ and ‘Neway’ which I changed back to their original form (‘with’ and ‘Anyway’). It also included homophonic representation, such as ‘2,’ and elision, such as ‘outa.’

Once these were amended I could address the actual register. Firstly, I decided to improve the sentence structures. The sentences in the previous text were not varied: they were mainly simple and short sentences. I included more variety in my sentences such as starting a sentence with an adjective, such as ‘undoubtedly.’ This was more formal compared to the basic sentence structure used in the original.

In addition, I tried to adopt more adventurous language, vocabulary and phrasing in the formal version. Instead of basic lexis such as ‘friend’ and ‘happy’ I used ‘acquaintance’ and ‘overjoyed.’

Text B

The original text had an intimate register and consisted of basic, informal language. In order to challenge myself I made the decision to change the register to frozen and give it a Shakespearean style. I began with changing various simple words such as the greeting at the beginning of the text. Instead of ‘Hello’ I used ‘Good Morrow’ which I had excessively used when studying Romeo and Juliet at GCSE level. I also replaced modern-day endearments such as ‘Honey’ with ‘Beloved’ which is more timeless.

I carried out some general research on Shakespearean language to create an idea about what well-known Shakespearean words mean. As a result of this I was then able to include verbs and pronouns such as ‘art’ instead of ‘is’ and ‘thou’ instead of ‘you.’

Furthermore, I also adopted the grammar of the period as well by using various examples of elision such as the verbs’ tis’ and ‘return’d.’