Register choice for two audiences
A Year 11 student writes a 250-word blog post in Bosnian about a school recycling project. She is writing for two audiences at once: her Bosnian teacher, who expects formal Standard Bosnian, and her cousins in Sarajevo, who use informal language and slang. She drafts the opening sentence using the informal second-person singular, because that is how she talks to her cousins. Her teacher has marked earlier drafts for using informal address in a formal text. The student must submit one version to her teacher and may post a second version online. She has limited class time and can revise only one draft.
1. Should the student keep the informal address in the version she submits to her teacher? Explain your judgement using register and audience.
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No. The teacher is a formal audience in a school assessment context, so the submitted version needs a consistent formal register. Informal second-person singular address belongs to the cousins' register, not the teacher's.
The reasoning is not that informal Bosnian is wrong. It is that register must match audience and purpose. The student can keep the informal version for the online post to her cousins, where it fits. But mixing registers in one text, especially addressing the teacher as if she were a cousin, breaks the relationship the text is supposed to build.
The practical judgement is to revise the submitted draft into formal address and keep the informal draft as a separate online version. That way she meets the assessment requirement without losing the voice that suits her cousins.
2. The student says she has no time to write two full versions. What is the best compromise, and what is the risk?
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The best compromise is to submit the formal version to the teacher and post only a short informal excerpt online, for example the opening paragraph rewritten for cousins. This protects the assessed text, which is the one that counts, while still showing she can shift register.
The risk is that the online excerpt may look like a different text rather than the same message for a new audience. If the task requires the same content in both versions, a short excerpt may not satisfy it. She should check the task wording before choosing.
A second risk is inconsistency: if she edits quickly, informal forms may survive into the formal draft. She should read the submitted version once specifically for address forms before handing it in.