LE1028 Texts in Action Assignment 1
Katherine Luesley

According to Suzanne Romaine (2000:21) ‘register is typically concerned with variation in language conditioned by uses… and involves consideration of the situation or context of use, the purpose, subject matter and content of the message, and the relationship between participants.’ Consequently, my interpretation is that register can be - but is not solely - identified through linguistic choices and style. It is dependent upon the linguistic context and social situation surrounding the text- which can be identified as genre. Therefore, register is the language variety which results from the genre.
Genre differs from register in that it is mainly applied to literary texts or texts which hold strict conventions such as newspapers, poetry, fictional writing and legal documents. Naturally then, to carry out a genre analysis would mean looking at a complete text rather than an excerpt as stated by Biber and Conrad (2009: 17-18) ‘Text excerpts are not adequate for genre analysis, because they do not necessarily represent the linguistic conventions that define the genre’.
The data I obtained [Item 1] shows clearly that during the 24 hour period I received a larger range of differing language registers in comparison to the quantity that I produced. Language varieties I received came from a variety of contexts surrounding the text for example, listening to a lecturer deliver a presentation was formal in its approach and address and similarly, watching a BBC news programme where the presenter spoke formally in Standard English (or Received Pronunciation). The formal register in both could be identified through longer, more complex sentence structures and sophisticated vocabulary in addition to little use of contractions or slang. More frequently, I encountered informal registers such as conversations between friends and reading celebrity Tweets. The rapid development of technology has brought the use of virtual texts to the forefront of how we communicate and many informal registers I encountered during data collection emerged from Text Messaging and Social Networking [see Item 2]. Much of the language that I read and wrote virtually required a much larger pragmatic understanding because of the specialised vocabulary including abbreviations and acronyms as well as typical Twitter conventions i.e. hash tag followed by a key word to sum up a Tweet.
In contrast to the various registers I encountered, I did not change my language register at all throughout the 24 hour period and produced only an informal register in spoken, written and virtual text. The results would have differed had I been in alternative social surroundings for example, presenting a PowerPoint to my seminar group or had I emailed a lecturer in which cases I would have adapted my register to a formal style.
Similarly, I heard and listened to a wider range of dialects in comparison to dialects I produced. Generally, dialect is associated with geographic location. This may be any pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary which deviates from “standard language” i.e. Received Pronunciation. Less commonly referred to is social dialect or sociolect ‘which are language varieties associated with a particular demographic group e.g. Women vs. men, or different social classes.’ (Biber, Conrad, 2009: 11). In which case a sociolinguist may be able to identify my gender, ethnicity or social class through examining the linguist terms I use in speech.
In my research I focused on geographical dialect and as the utterances I collected were all personal between those I share a common discourse with, my speech was spontaneous and typical to my natural, informal style. This is evident from my results [Item 3] as I produced only one dialect which, geographically, is associated with Birmingham - and more generally - the West Midlands. Upon travelling to Manchester during the 24 hour period, I was able to come into contact with a larger range of dialects including a Northern dialect. Not only was the accent phonologically very different to my own but also characterised by vocabulary not familiar to my geographic location or social group for example, “nowt” used for the noun “nothing” and “dead” used instead of the adjective “very”.
It is interesting for me to identify just how important register can be in language. Register is functionally motivated so can easily be adapted to serve a different communicative purposes whereas dialect comes naturally to a speaker. An example of this may be a primary school teacher downwardly converging their speech style to accommodate a class of young children. The teacher will follow conventions of Child Directed Speech and slow down their speech, teach in present tense and change intonation, but generally there would be no shift in dialect. More importantly, register can be adapted in written texts as well as spoken where dialect cannot. Furthermore, a register analysis can be applied to any text by considering the linguistic and contextual factors.
Further analysis of my data could include specialising each of the registers and dialects to get more insightful results. Where I have specified ‘conversation’ I could categorise further to different social situations for example, conversation with close friend on public transport or conversation with a stranger on public transport. With specialised categories I could use a framework for analysing situational characteristics of registers and genres (Biber, Conrad, 2009: 40) This framework outlines seven characteristics for describing registers and genres as follows; Participants, Relations amongst participants, Channel, Production circumstances, Setting, Communicative purposes and Topic. Upon these results I could also undertake a linguistic analysis to identify particular genre and register markers. To extend this into a longer research project I would make comparisons with other text excerpts from similar contexts for example, a series of conversations in public places or emails sent between lecturer and student, identifying any typical linguistic features that characterise each one.

References
Romaine, S. (2000) Language in Society: An Introduction to Sociolinguistics: Oxford University Press: Oxford.
Biber, D. and Conrad, S. (2009) Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics: Register, Genre, and Style: Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.

[Item 1] Registers Produced | Dialect Produced | | Registers Heard and Read | Dialect Heard | Lecture notes, writtenINFORMAL | | | Tweets, virtual, readINFORMAL | | Interpersonal, spoken conversations between friends and family throughout 24 hour periodINFORMAL | Birmingham/ West Midlands – Geographic | | News Broadcast, TV, multimodal, read and heardFORMAL | Standard English/ Received Pronunciation/ BBC English | Tweets, virtualINFORMAL | | | Email advertisement, virtual, readINFORMAL | | Text messages throughout 24 hour period, virtualINFORMAL | | | University Email, virtual, readFORMAL | | Telephone conversation between friend, spokenINFORMAL | Birmingham/ West Midlands – Geographic | | Interpersonal, conversation between two people on public transportINFORMAL | Birmingham/ West Midlands dialect | | | | Lecture, multimodal- PowerPoint and speechFORMAL | Standard English | | | | Text Messages throughout 24 hour period, virtual, readINFORMAL | | | | | Academic article online, virtual, readFORMAL | | | | | Text Message Reminder from dentist surgery, virtual, readFORMAL | | | | | Spoken conversation with friends at Manchester UniversityINFORMAL | Manchester/ Northern dialect |

[Item 2]

[Item 3]