Register theory Presented By Ata ul ghafer & Shoiba sabir Department of Applied Linguistics GCUF

1. “Register Theory”

2. Outline
• register(context of situation)
• History and Origin
• Halliday’s Model of Context
• Sub categories of register
1. Field
2. Tenor
3. Mode
• Genre(context of culture) Goal oriented

3. Language is code of human communication and there are more than
six thousand codes around the world that could be seen in action.
Every code varies from the other one and also has variation in itself. In
linguistics, these variations are termed as
1. Dialect 2. Sociolect
3. Idiolect 4. Accent
5. Slang 6. Jargon
7. Register

4. Register
A register is a variety of a language used for a particular
purpose or in a particular social setting .

5. History and Origin
• The term register was first used by the linguist Thomas Bertram Reid in
1956, and brought into general currency in the 1960s by a group of
linguists who wanted to distinguish among variations in language
according to the user and variations according to use. Halliday in 1964
and 1976 interpreted the term. And now it could be seen almost in
every book, lecture and notes of the Linguistics when it comes to
discuss the language variations.

6. Halliday’s Model of Context
• Halliday’s in his “Model of Context” explains that there are following
three strands that are crucial to study the register.
• 1. Field
• 2. Tenor
• 3. Mode

7. 1. Field
• Field is “what is being talked about” or “What the text is about”. We
can say it is the main theme or topic of the whole discourse. Field
could be named according to its subject matter i.e. Science,
Education, Literature or more specifically. When we want to analyze
the text for its field we have to explore the lexical items. These lexical
items will help us to tag a field to that text. Following two questions
should be kept in mind when doing the analysis of the text for tagging
a field to the text.
Q1. Which discipline do the lexical words refer to?
Q2. How well known are the lexical words to a general audience and to
a specialized audience?

8. 2. Tenor
• Tenor is the term used for the people involved in the communication and
relationship between them. It is easy to analyze tenor in spoken discourse
than written. Because in spoken discourse all participants are present and
participating but in written discourse writer and participants, both, are
anonymous. Following three variables are considered to study when
analyzing tenor
1. Power Relations
a. Equal b. Unequal
2. Formality
a. Formal b. Informal
3. Closeness
a. Distant b. Close

9. 4.Mode
• Mode is the role of the language. It is the part that language plays in
discourse. To pin point the mode, it is studied that “how the text is
organized”.
• Text organization leads to know the mode of the discourse. Mode
could be written and spoken. These categories could further be
divided into sub categories. Spoken discourse could be spontaneous
and non-spontaneous. Written discourse could be written to be read
aloud like speeches, to be sung and to be normal read i.e. News
papers, magazines etc. Mode of the language plays a crucial role to
get the desire outcomes. Mode is chosen very carefully by the
speaker/writer to achieve the impact of his/her concern.

10. Genre
• Genre means “ kind “ or “ form” and it refers to major types of literature:
poetry, drama & epic.
• The interpretation of social context includes two levels of communication:
• genre (context of culture)
• register (context of situation) (Martin,1992, p. 495).
• Genre refers to different communicative events which are associated with
particular setting and which have recognized structures and
communicative functions. Generally In the field of Applied Linguistics

11. Genre
• Genres are the culturally evolved ways of achieving goals that involve
language. They are "staged, goal oriented social processes" (Martin,
1992, p. 505) in which people engage as members of their culture.
They are "social because we participate in genres with other people;
goal-oriented because we use genres to get things done; staged
because it usually takes us a few steps to reach our goals" (Martin &
Rose, 2003, pp. 7-8). Each genre is therefore characterized by a
distinctive schematic structure with a clear beginning, middle and end
through which the function of the genre is realized.

12. Goal oriented
Example:
goal-oriented social practices that have evolved in our culture to enable
us to get things done. If our purpose was to obtain employment, for
example, then a relevant genre to use would be a job application. If our
purpose was to draw up a legally binding agreement, then an
appropriate genre would be a contract. Or if we wanted to tell
someone how to use a video camera, we might choose the genre of
giving instructions.

13. Register vs Genre
• Genres are specific communicative event.
Communicative purposes is the distinctive feature of genres. / eg.
lectures Genre
• Register is a type of languge.
associated with a particular field of activity or profession. This lg. may
be used for various purposes. /eg. Instruction manuals

14. context of culture
• The language system evolves within the context of a certain culture
(including beliefs, values, and behaviours) to meet the needs of that
culture. Our language choices will therefore be sensitive to the
cultural context as well as the context of a particular situation within
that culture. When we refer to ‘culture’, we don’t necessarily mean
national cultures (e.g. ‘Australian’, ‘Asian’, ‘British’). Rather, we often
think about cultures as a collection of discourse communities,
subcultures, or social institutions such as sporting groups, theatre
aficionados, book clubs, friends, and family.

15. context of situation:
• a specific situation within a culture that gives rise to a particular
register.
• Any combination of these contextual features creates the register of a
situation . In one situation we might find a couple of old friends
(tenor) discussing (oral mode) their holiday plans (field).
• In another situation, we might imagine a teacher and principal
(tenor) corresponding through emails (written mode) about the
agenda for the staff meeting (field). As you can imagine, the language
choices will differ considerably depending on the register.

16. Thank you for your attention