Register and Genre

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Register and Genre
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SFL and StrataEach stratum is embedded in the
higher one
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To understand and produce discourse you need
knowledge of ALL strata
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Motivational relevancies (Hasan 1996)i.e. what
elements the sender cannot ignore in his/her
conception of what is relevant to the interaction

• The nature of the social process what is being
  achieved through the acts of verbal meaning.
• The nature of the relationship between the
  interactants
• The nature of the mode for the message
  transmission
• OR Field, Tenor and Mode (Halliday 1985)

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Field

• What is the nature of the social action that is
  taking place?
• What is it that the participants are engaged in?
• Hasan 1996 sees this as a cline of
  institutionalisation
• institutionalisation
  individualisation
• AND the cline of goal awareness
• visible
  invisible

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Tenor (1)

• Who is taking part in the interaction?
• What are the statuses of the participants?
• What are the roles of the participants?
• Are the relationships between the participants of
  a temporary or permanent nature?
• What types of speech roles are they adopting?
• Social distance cline
• maximal
  minimal

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Tenor (2)

• Further distinction to describe (dictate) tenor
  (Butt 2002)
• Regularity of contact
• Modes of contact (or multiplexity)
• Shared local history
• Cultural capital

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Mode (1)

• What part is langauge playing in the interaction?
• What is it that the participants are expecting
  language to do for them in that situation?
• What is the symbolic organisation of the text?
• What status does the text have?
• What is the function of the text in this context?
• What is the channel written or spoken?
• What is the rhetorical mode (e.g. persuasive,
  expository etc)? In other words what is being
  achieved by the text?

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Mode (2)

• What part is langauge playing in the interaction?
• constitutive
  ancillary
• What is it that the participants are expecting
  language to do for them in that situation?
  (process sharing)
• monologue
  dialogue

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Mode (3)

• Channel and Medium
• writtenness
  spokenness
• Channel phonic or graphic
• Medium spoken written
• (Messaging graphic channel with spoken medium)

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Context of situation (1)

• type of situation
• versus
• material situational setting
• e.g. reading of poem independent of whether in a
  school or theatre (language constitutive)
• Some material situational settings impinge on
  the language (discourse) more than others.

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Context of Situation (2)

• The situation types that recur in resonse to
  contextual demans of a particular culture
• context of culture
• which frames the context of situation
• Mutually constructuve, i.e. context of
  culture both determines and is determined by
  situation types, and context of situation both
  construes and is construed by the linguistic
  system Fenton Smith (2005)

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Context of Situation (3)

• The situation type and the types of expression
  that go with it are what have been defined as
• Register
• Each context of situation corresponds to a
  location along the dimension of register
  variation that is to a register Matthieson 1993

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Register (1)

• A register is a semantic concept. It can be
  defined as a configuration of meanings that are
  typically associated with a particualr
  situational configuration of field, mode and
  tenor. But since it is a configuration of
  meanings, a register must also, of course,
  include the expressions, the lexico.grammatical
  and phonological features, that typically
  accompany or REALISE these meanings Halliday 1985

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Register (2)

• Registers constrain the meanings that are likely
  to be made in situational contexts in society
• Not everyone has access to all registers (people
  have registerial repertoires)
• These repertoires determine the number of
  contexts that people can successfully operate in
• Defining registers defines the overall semiotic
  space of a culture (this is the task of the
  discourse analyst)

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Two dimensions to context theory

• Metafunctional elements in context which impinge
  on the functions of a text
• Stratal context realises culture which is in
  turn realised by language.

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CDA cognitive model(mentalist model)

• The relevant context is whatever mental model the
  participants form of the speech situation.

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Van Dijks contextual parameters

• (Social) Domain (similar to field general area
  of endeavour the participants perceive themselves
  to be working in implies an ability of
  interactors to identify domain)
• Institution (social groups, institutions,
  organisations)
• Setting (time and place)
• Local Actions (micro-level actions by which
  global tasks are accomlished)
• Participants (communicative, interactional,
  socio-political)
• Cognition (participants mental models of the
  social situation, their intention, knowledge of
  other participants and own beliefs and ideologies)

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DA and genre analysis a brief historyThree
main phases

• Textualisation focusing on lexico-grammatical
  resources, typical/frequent froms in specific
  genres
• Organisation focusing on coherence and cohesion
  and how these create a whole text
• Contextualisation going beyond the text itself
  to analyse the context and purpose of the text

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Learning about genres

• Most written genres studied belong to
  professional domains -
• Professionals learn the language of their
  profession at the same time and as an integral
  part of the content, knowledge and skills of
  their profession. (e.g. engineers learn how to
  draft a structural report as they learn about the
  calculations reported therein.
• How can a tranlsator acquire this knowledge for
  miriad of genres?????

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Genre Analysis Bhatias four-space model

• Language as text
• Language as genre
• Language as professional practice
• Language as social practice
• Vijay K. Bhatia 2004 Worlds of written discourse

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Genres fixed or dynamic?

• There is a certain interplay and tension between
  what Bhatia calls generic integrity (a text
  genre respects in the full all characterisitics
  of the genre), generic appropriation (a text
  uses features from another genre to achieve the
  desired outcome) and generic creativity (a text
  uses novel features to achieve the desired effect
  thus modifying the genre)

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Contextualisation of discourse

• Purposes institutionalized community goals and
  communicative purposes
• Products textual artefacts or genres
• Practices Discursive practices, procedures and
  processes
• Players Discourse and professional community
  memebership
• Bhatia 1999

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Broader context the whole picture

• Company reports/letters to shareholders
• Often issued with a disclaimer (exonerating the
  company from any responsibility if their future
  projections are not met)
• Have to go beyond the main letter (often
  depicting a rosy picture) - the disclaimer sheds
  a different light on the more positive tone of
  the letter to shareholders.
• Bhatia 2004

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Bhatia 2004 p 18
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Bhatia 2004 p 19
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Discourse as genre

• extends the analysis beyond the textual product
  to incorporate context in a broader sens to
  account for not only the way text is constructed,
  but also for the way it is often interpreted,
  used and exploited in specific institutional or
  more narrowly professional contexts to achieve
  specific disciplinary goals ibid p 20

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Translating genres genre knowledge

• When translating the translator needs to be aware
  of differences in the context of use, the
  lexicogrammatical choices may be different
  depending on the typical/distinctive
  lexicogrammatical froms of the particular genre
  in that particular social space

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An example

• CENTRO BENESSERE
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• UTILIZZO
• Eobbligatoria la doccia prima dellutilizzo dei
  servizi del centro
• Disinfettare i piedi allapposita vaschetta.
  Camminare scalzi o con ciabattine di gomma
• Per il rispetto e la quiete di tutti, parlare a
  bassa voce

SPA SOME SIMPLE RULES Please take a shower
before using any facility Please wash and
disinfect Your feet in the apposite tub. Wear
slippers or walk barefoot. Please be quiet and
enjoy the silence