3 Writing Styles That Every Language Learner Should Know

There are styles of writing as there are authors. When writing a news item, a report, a technical report or a script, the text is approached following a series of grammatical and syntactic rules and at the same time following the principles of a personal way of choosing the words, the rhythm, the order and form of texts.

This personal form of writing is known as style. Numerous writers, critics, and researchers of the language have tried to define it. Some have considered it the writer’s fingerprint, others have taken it as an object of study to study the text as an aesthetic artifact.

The truth is that, in general, the style is determined by the tastes of each person and their possibilities of using the language, but it is also conditioned by the objectives of the text itself and even, sometimes, by the type of recipients to which it goes. managed.

However, despite the fact that the style is something personal, the writing manuals, in order to simplify its study, have identified some very general categories in which, more or less, all the diversity and quantity of existing styles are inserted. The three most used are: the journalistic, literary and scientific style. Next we will point out its characteristics.

Journalistic style

It is used mainly in the media. It is a style that is determined by a specific intention: to report a fact to an audience. Therefore it is a style that requires a prose with precision, without ambiguity, direct to the point and simple so that anyone can understand it.

In the whole range of registers that this style makes possible, there are all journalistic genres: from the brevity and conciseness of the news; the length and argumentative tone of the report; even the most literary tone of the chronicle. Each genre requires different tones, extensions and types of speech, which is why not only the author’s style is necessary, but also an understanding of the style of the genre itself.

Literary style

The function of the literary style is aesthetic, unlike the journalistic one that is to inform. Texts with this type of style are characterized by the use of literary figures such as metaphors, similes, hyperbole, metonymies, among others. In turn, this style varies according to the different literary genres you choose, namely: the novel, the short story, the poetry, the dramatic text, the essay, the memoirs, etc.

Many schools and literary currents have tried to define the literary style at different times and through various approaches. However, at a general level, its study has been based on the following three fundamental factors: the author, the work and the reader, which influence in a certain way with the development of a style.

Scientific style

This style is determined by the dissemination of technical or scientific knowledge, which is why it is characterized by prose with specialized terminology. The intention of scientific texts is the disclosure of advances or very specific research findings.

These characteristics will determine the quality but above all the effectiveness in the transmission of knowledge, through texts. In the scientific style there is no place for speculations or opinions without arguments, much less for literary figures or for the imagination. In this sense, the text has a purely utilitarian function.