Ways of Reading Third Edition - Martin Montgomery, Alan Durant, Nigel Fabb, Tom Furniss, Sara Mills 2007

7.1 Contexts that affect register
Unit 7 Language and context: register
Section 2 Language variation

The term ’register’ is used by linguists and literary critics to describe the fact that the kind of language we use is affected by the context in which we use it, to such an extent that certain kinds of language usage become conventionally associated with particular situations. Our tacit knowledge of such conventions of usage enables us to judge whether what someone says or writes is ’appropriate’ to its context. This is highlighted by our reactions when a text deviates from its appropriate register - as happens towards the end of the following announcement by a guard on a train:

May I have your attention please, ladies and gentlemen. The train is now approaching Lancaster. Passengers for the Liverpool boat train should alight here and cross to platform one. Delays are being experienced on this train and passengers intending to use this service should consult the notice board on platform one to find out what the score is.

The comic effect of this arises basically through a sudden (and presumably unintentional) switch of register (in the last italicized phrase). For the most part the announcement is typical of the formal language that British travellers have come to associate with train announcements, though we may feel that it is a little too ’high-flown’ for what is after all only information about trains and platforms. The unintended humour arises when the announcer juxtaposes the formal opening of the announcement with the much less formal conclusion (’to find out what the score is’) and thereby comically undercuts what has gone before. (See Unit 12, Juxtaposition.)

The most obvious way in which a text ’registers’ the effect of its context is in the selection of vocabulary. Our experience of language in context allows us to recognize that vocabulary items such as ’alight’ and ’consult’ are characteristic of the professional idiom that the railway company has selected for communicating to the public, and we are equally sensitive to the fact that ’to find out what the score is’ does not belong to that idiom. But differences in register involve differences in grammar as well as in vocabulary. For example, in the phrase ’Delays are being experienced’, the use of the impersonal passive construction contributes as much as the vocabulary choice to the formality of the announcement’s register.

Each of us experiences a variety of language situations every day and from moment to moment: speaking in a tutorial, talking on the phone to a bank manager, chatting to friends in a coffee bar, writing a letter. In response to these contexts, each of us switches from one register to another without effort and we are able to recognize when others do the same. By the same token, as we have seen in the railway announcement example, we are all sensitive to deviation in register.

7.1 Contexts that affect register

It is possible to isolate three different aspects of any context or situation that will affect the register of a text:

1 the medium of communication (e.g. whether the language is spoken or written);

2 the social relationships of participants in the situation (which determines the tone);

3 the purpose for which, or the field in which, the language is being employed.

7.1.1 Medium

The register of a text is partly constituted by the medium that is adopted for communication. The medium of a text is the substance from which the text is made, or through which it is transmitted, or in which it is stored. For register, the most prominent difference in medium is between speech and writing (see Unit 22, Speech and narration). Speech is usually made up on the spot and interpreted as it is heard. Writing, on the other hand, may involve long periods of composition and revision and the resultant text may be read and reread at leisure in circumstances quite remote - both in time and place - from that in which it was written. Written texts, therefore, tend to be more formal than spoken texts, which, by contrast, tend to be looser and more provisional in their structure and to feel less formal. In addition, speech and writing may also be shaped according to whether they pass though other media: a telephone conversation is not the same as a face-to-face chat; e-mail and texting have recognizably different register features from letters or newspapers. In public settings, spoken texts may be carefully prepared in advance and may take on the formal characteristics of the written mode. Our rail

announcement begins in this fashion before slipping into something much closer to everyday speech.

7.1.2 Tone (or tenor)

A second aspect of the context that affects register relates to the social roles that are prescribed for, or adopted by, participants in the communication situation. Differences in the text will result from whether the relationships between participants are informal or formal, familiar or polite, personal or impersonal. Thus, the tone of the text can indicate the attitude or position adopted by the writer or speaker towards the reader or listener. In the rail announcement, for example, ’ladies and gentlemen’ (which constitutes a marker of social distance signalling politeness), the intricate syntax (which, together with words such as ’attention’, ’approaching’ and ’alight’, signals formality), and the passive voice (which avoids reference to human agency - as in ’Delays are being experienced’) are all features of the impersonal register. The suggestion that passengers should ’find out what the score is’, on the other hand, assumes a much more informal and familiar relation between speaker and addressee - one that seems to clash with the context that has been previously set up.

7.1.3 Field and role

A third aspect of the context that affects register is the role of the communication. Language can be used for a variety of different purposes (to convey information, to express feelings, to cajole, to seduce, to pray, to produce aesthetic effects, to intimidate, etc.), each of which will leave its mark on what is said and the way it is said. In addition, most human activities employ their own characteristic registers because they employ ’field-specific’ vocabularies (or semantic fields). Fields in this sense include those occupied by the legal profession, the scientific community, the culinary arts, religious institutions, academic disciplines, advertising, football commentary (and the list could be extended almost indefinitely). All these fields involve the use of terms that are particular to them, the use of which thereby invokes particular situations. In Britain, for example, rail companies no longer address their passengers as ’passengers’ (people travelling in a train, etc.) but as ’customers’ (people who buy something). This involves an odd switch in field (and hence in register) from public transport to the general field of shopping that subtly changes the relationship between the rail company and the people who travel on its trains.