BU Center for the Assessment of Sign Language Interpretation (CASLI) Practice Test 2026 - Free Sign Language Interpretation Practice Questions and Study Guide

Register is the style or variety you choose to fit a specific situation. It’s driven by the surrounding context—the setting, the participants, the purpose, and the topic—so it shapes what counts as appropriate language, including level of formality, terminology, and tone. Because of that, the chosen register helps align the discourse with the context, governs what topics are suitable for that setting, and reflects or enforces the cultural expectations tied to that situation. The speaker’s schema, however, is an internal set of mental knowledge and expectations you use to understand and produce language. It isn’t determined by the register you select; you can draw on your schema across different registers, even as your outward language changes to fit each setting.