Register and Genre in

Discourse Analysis

Discourse Analysis
Basic concept of register
 Register is text varieties of a language associated with
particular situations of use (James and Michael, 2012).
 According Douglas and Susan (2009) the register perspective
characterizes the typical linguistic features of text varieties,
and connects those features functionally to the situational
context of the variety.
 In her book, Barbara (2008) stated Register is usually defined as
a set of lexical (vocabulary) and grammatical features that
accompany and help to identify discourse that occurs in a
particular recurrent situation.
 Basic concept of register
According to Biber and Conrad, the description of a
register includes three major components:

 The situational context

it involves description of the circumtances of text production and
reception, as well as the relationships among participants.
 The typical linguistic feature
it includes all lexical and grammatical characteristics that are typical of the
text variety.
 The functional relationships between the first two
components
These linguistic features can occur in any text from any variety. What
makes them register features is that they are especially frequent and
pervasive in some text varieties in contrast to other varieties
 Text sample 1: academic research article

Nouns are underlined: pronouns are marked in bold italics

 This paper reports an analysis of Tucker’s central-

prediction-system model and an empirical comparison
of it with two competing models. One of these
competing models is a modification of Tucker’s model
developed by Bashaw. The other is the standard linear-
regression model. The term “central-prediction system”
refers to any centralized statistical system for the
prediction of academic success at a given educational
level from achievement at a previous level.
Text Sample 2: Conversation (two women with
an infant)

Nouns are underlined; pronouns are marked in bold italics

A: She cut herself?

B: I’m not sure
A: Yeah, she cut her lip.
B: Okay. Oh my gosh—a big fat lip.
A: <sighing> Oh, oh.
B: Oh, that hurts. <sighing> oww
A: You want a little ice? a little paper towel?
B: Yeah, that would be great. This orange juice is not gonna
feel good. I’m just gonna put some water in here. It won’t
feel good, it won’t feel good, ‘cause it’s orange juice.
 Academic article Conversation

Written Spoken

Separate physical setting Shared time / place

No interaction Interactive

Professional background knowledge Personal background knowledge

Time for planning / editing Real-time production

Purposes: convey information Purposes: on-going action

Document past events Events: express feelings

 Basic concept of genre
 According Barbara (2008) the French word "genre" means "kind."
In English, the word has a long tradition of use in literary studies,
where it has been used to refer to conventional types of literacy
texts categorized by how they represent the world.

Douglas and Susan (2009) stated the genre perspective usually
focuses on language characteristics that occur only once in a text.

 Genres heve been characterized in this research tradition as

staged, goal oriented social processes: social since texts are
always interactive events: goal oriented in that a text unfolds
towards its interactants` purposes: staged, because it usually
takes more than one step to reach the goal (James and Michael,
2012).
 Orientation

RECOUNT Sequence
TEXT of Events

Conclusion
Why we should learn register and genre

We should learn register and genre

because, especially the register perspective
is useful for understanding the text variety
being described and the genre perspective
is especially useful for discussing academic
research articles.
 Register and Genre
in Discourse Analysis
 In Martin’s (1992) terms, the tenor, field and
mode of a situation constitute the register of a
text. As language realizes its social contexts, so
each dimension of a social context is realized by
a particular functional dimension of language.

 Halliday defines these dimensions as

the‘metafunctions’ of language: enacting
relationships as the interpersonal metafunction,
construing experience as the ideational
metafunction, and organizing discourse as the
textual metafunction.
Register and Genre in Discourse Analysis
ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK

Describing situational characteristics of

register and genre

Analyzing Linguistic Features

Functional Interpretation

A short introduction to corpus linguistics

Issues in the identification of register
and genre
1. General and specialized registers and genres

 Registers can be more or less specialized

 Example:

General Conversation Textbook

Specified Telephone Academic research
conversation book
More specified Family-dinner table Psychology
conversation research paper

 there is no single “right” level for a register

analysis
 genres are not as easily analyzed along a
hierarchy of generality – there’s no
general conventions used to structure the
different kinds of genre.
 Genre in a larger genre
 Example: introduction part in a research
article has its own conventional structure
that can be analyzed trough genre
perspective.
2. Culturally recognized register/genre
distinctions
 general registers/genres have short, simple
names like “conversation”. While more
specialized text varieties have longer more
complex names like “telephone conversation,
and soon”
 However, speakers do sometimes employ short,
simple names for specialized text varieties, like
syllabus, deed, etc.
 This situation happens within culture and
usually refers to genre
Methods for describing the situational
characteristics of a register

There are a number of sources of

information that can help you describe the
situational characteristics of a register:

1. Your experience and observation

2. Expert informants
3. Previous research
4. Analysis of texts from the register
 The framework for analyzing
situational characteristics
2. Relations among
1. Participants
participants
a) Addressor(s) (i.e. speaker or
author) a) Interactiveness
1. single / plural / institutional b) Social roles: relative status or
/ unidentified power
2. social characteristics: age, c) Personal relationship: e.g.,
education, profession, etc. friends, colleagues, strangers
b) Addressees
1. single / plural / un- d) Shared knowledge: personal
enumerated and specialist
2. self / other
c) Are there on-lookers?
3. Channel
a) Mode: speech / writing /
signing
b)Specific Medium:
◦ Permanent: taped /
transcribed / printed /
handwritten / e-mail / etc.
◦ Transient speech: face-to-
face / telephone / radio / TV
/ etc.
4. Production circumstances:
real time / planned / scripted /
revised and edited
5. Setting
a) Is the time and place of
communication shared by
participants?
b)Place of communication
 Private / public
 Specific setting
c) Time: contemporary, historical
time period
6. Communicative purposes
a) General purposes: narrate /
report, describe, exposit / inform /
explain, persuade, how-to /
procedural, entertain, edify, reveal
self
b) Specific purposes: e.g., summarize
information from numerous
sources, describe methods,
present new research findings,
teach moral through personal
story
c) Factuality: factual, opinion,
speculative, imaginative
d) Expression of stance: epistemic,
attitudinal, no overt stance
7.Topic
a) General topical “domain”:
e.g., domestic, daily
activities, business /
workplace, science,
education / academic,
government / legal / politics,
religion, sports, art /
entertainment, etc.
b) Specific topic
c) Social status of person
being referred to
Applying the situational analytical
framework in a register study
Starting a register analysis with a thorough description of the
situational characteristics can help you in several ways:
 Ensure that we carefully analyze the register which has
different culture
 ensure that we do not overlook sub-registers within general
register.
 ensure that we do not disregard important situational
characteristics that might be crucial in interpreting the
linguistic patterns
 Usually, reports or academic papers that
describe a register analysis do not discuss
all the situational characteristics of every
register studied.

 They might only present the major

characteristics that distinguish among
registers, or they might focus on those
characteristics that proved to be important
in interpreting the linguistic features.