Discourse analysis

Discourse analysis

2^nd semester

Lesson 18 Context and Register

We have seen how the purpose of a text affects its production. What other contextual factors determine the choices of language we make when we create a text? And can we relate these factors directly to specific formal features of the text?
Of all the possible components of the context that might impact on the language choices in text production, just three seem to be particularly significant:

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  the what of the situation - what kind of social activity is going on, and about what sort of topic (what is called the field.)
  
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  the who of the situation - the participants, their relationship and so on (what is called the tenor)
  
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  the how of the situation - the means by which the text is being created, e.g. e-mail, fact-to-face talk, broadcast talk, written monologue and so on (what is called the mode).
  

These three contextual dimensions - Field, Tenor and Mode - determine what is called the register of the resulting text. That is to say, different configurations of these dimensions demand different kinds of choices at the level of grammar and vocabulary, and these choices create textual effects that we recognize as being appropriate to the context of the text's use. Thus, the register of a teenage magazine allows for such words as prezzie and snog that would be inappropriate in a children's encyclopedia or in academic correspondence, for example. By the same token, you would not expect expressions like ladies and gentlemen. .., are kindly requested to..., we would also be pleased if..., on a teabag wrapper.
Field of discourse is defined as “the total event, in which the text is functioning, together with the purposive activity of the speaker or writer; it thus includes the subject-matter as one element in it” (Halliday 1994, 22). The field describes activities and processes that are happening at the time of speech. The analysis of this parameter focuses on the entire situation, e.g. when a mother talks to her child.
The mode of discourse refers to “the function of the text in the event, including therefore both the channel taken by the language – spoken or written, extempore or prepared – and its [genre], or rhetorical mode, as narrative, didactic, persuasive, (Halliday 1994, 22).
Tenor of discourse (sometimes also referred to as style; cf. Esser 2009, 78) describes the people that take part in an event as well as their relationships and statuses. “The tenor refers to the type of role interaction, the set of relevant social relations, permanent and temporary, among the participants involved” (Halliday 1994, 22.). There might be a specific hierarchy between the interlocutors, e.g. when the head of a business talks to an employee, or they may have only a temporary relationship, e.g. when a person asks an unknown pedestrian for the time.