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Using a real classroom rewrite after an overly informal, aggressive message, the text shows how students improve clarity, grammar, and required email components while varying tone. It distinguishes formality from deference, noting that languages such as Korean link deference to honorific systems, whereas English often conveys it without suffixes. 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I didn’t despair because my course would soon cover email formatting, thoroughness and clarity, and common surface-level errors to avoid. Nonetheless, I decided to use the email asa learning opportunity and, having changed the sender’s name, gave my students a few minutes of class time to rewrite it. In addition to following appropriate email conventions, they were expected to supply the real or contrived details required for a meaningful and coherent message.  \nGenerally, the results were good. Many students managed to provide specific details about why they were writing the email. Some asked that they be permitted to retake the quiz that had led to the initial email. Students were also more careful with case and grammar than the original sender had been, and most supplied the requisite email components.  \nI found it more interesting, however, to analyze the range in tone. Several students noticed that the initial email had been too informal and came off as aggressive. Some overcompensated by writing excessively formal missives; one addressed the recipient as “Your Excellency”! A few included flatteries that were just plain obsequious (e.g. ,“All of the other professors here should learn from you”) . A few students used imperatives like  \n“Let me take the quiz again” or declaratives like “I want to take the quiz again .” These constructions would have worked well in the L1, with an appropriate honorific attached, but seemed too blunt for English language communication.  \nThe problem, of course, was an inability to write in a register that was appropriate to the communicative task and cultural context. Register is an amorphous construct, but for our purposes, it describes the balance between formality, deference, and the appropriateness of a writer’s style to a given text. Finding the correct register for a text is a complex endeavor that includes, among other factors, sentence structure and word choice. But it also involves decisions about formality and whether to assume a deferential tone or to take a more authoritative stance.  \nOne problem that quickly emerged when I introduced the topic of register was that students had difficulty distinguishing between formality and deference. One student asked,“Aren’t they the same thing?” Her question made sense because, in many languages, deference is so closely linked to formality. For example, the Korean honorifics pronounced yo , seyo , and imnida illustrate a progression from everyday polite, but not deferential usage, to usage that is both very polite and very deferential. Deference in English, on the other hand, requires no system of honorific suffixes and can be expressed with informal and even impolite constructions.With this in mind, I designed a lesson and an assignment  \n28  \nENGLISH  \nTEACHING  \nF ORUM  \n2 02 0  \n[americanenglish.state.gov/english-teaching-forum](americanenglish.state.gov/english-teaching-forum)  \n\n| The problem …was an inability to write in a register that was appropriate to the communicative task and cultural context. |  |\n| --- | --- |\n| around formality and deference in American | to their parents and to their elders in |\n| English with a focus on writing.What follows | general. Students show deference to their |\n| is a general outline that may, of course, be | teachers, employees show deference to |\n| altered as you see fit. | their employers, and so on . As soon as your students understand this concept, however, |\n| Both formality and deference are easier to | it is important to introduce the nuances. |\n| identify than to define, but it’s a good idea to | Deference can be situational, and you may |\n| initially defineformality as a rigid a","cbCaiq5cLWkxmSJm","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaiq5cLWkxmSJm","pdf",128049,"English","# Teaching Register to EFL Writers\n## Email rewriting as a learning activity\n## Tone, formality, and deference\n## Distinguishing formality from deference in English\n## Teaching nuance through situational practice","[{\"question\":\"How did the instructor use the initial email to teach writing register?\",\"answer\":\"The instructor treated rewriting the received email as a learning opportunity, having students apply appropriate email conventions and provide coherent message details.\"},{\"question\":\"What common tone problems appeared in students’ rewrites?\",\"answer\":\"Some students were too informal and aggressive, while others overcompensated with excessively formal phrasing, including very deferential address forms and obsequious flattery or blunt imperatives.\"},{\"question\":\"Why is formality different from deference, and how is this taught?\",\"answer\":\"Formality follows conventions, while deference is an attitude of submission by one party to another. Students often confuse them, so the lesson introduces the distinction, including English-specific ways of expressing deference and situational practice.\"}]","Teaching Register to EFL Writers - Formality and Deference in Written Communication | PDF",1789810597]