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Analyzing Text Varieties: Register,
Genre, and Style
Register, Genre, and Style
Text Varieties in Your Daily Life
We have to make a distinction between spoken language and written language. Conversation is the most common type of spoken language, found in examples such as television shows, commercials, radio, classroom lectures, and political speeches. Written language also plays an important role in daily life, with students producing various writings and many people reading more than they write or listen, such as newspapers, editorials, novels, emails, blogs, letters, and text messages.
Each type of text has its own linguistic characteristics. We use the terms "register," "genre," and "style" to refer to three different perspectives on text varieties.
Register Perspective
The register perspective combines an analysis of the linguistic characteristics common in a text variety with an analysis of the situation in which the variety is used. Linguistic features, such as pronouns and verbs, are functional and particular features that are commonly used in association with the communicative purposes and situational context of the texts.
Genre Perspective
The genre perspective is similar to the register perspective, but it includes a description of the purposes and situational context of a text variety. However, its linguistic analysis contrasts with the register perspective by focusing on the conventional structures used to construct a complete text within the variety, such as the conventional way in which a letter begins and ends.
Style Perspective
The style perspective is similar to the register perspective in its linguistic forms, analyzing the use of core linguistic features distributed throughout text samples from a variety. The key difference is that the use of these features is not functionally motivated by the situational context; rather, style features reflect aesthetic preferences associated with particular authors or historical periods.
Importance of Analyzing Text Varieties
As native speakers, we acquire many text varieties without explicitly studying them. However, many other varieties are usually learned with explicit instruction, such as writing the language of newspaper articles for a journalism job. From childhood, we are taught to read books of many different types and to recognize and interpret the differences among them. Textual tasks become more specific as a student progresses through school and university, where we learn the linguistic structures and patterns of a specific field.
The task of learning register/genre differences is even more challenging for a non-native speaker of a language, and register, genre, and style are fundamentally important for any student with a primary interest in language.
Texts, Varieties, Register, and Dialects
Linguistic variation is highly semantic, with speakers making choices in pronunciation, morphology, word choice, and grammar depending on non- linguistic factors, such as the speaker's purpose, the relationship between speaker and hearer, the production circumstances, and the social characteristics of the speaker.
We use the term "text" to refer to the natural language used for communication, whether it's realized in speech or writing. We distinguish between a complete text, which is an instance of extended discourse with a clear start and finish, and a text excerpt, which is a segment of discourse from a larger complete text.
Texts can be described according to their contexts, considering the characteristics of the people who produce the texts and the characteristics of the situations and communicative purposes associated with the texts. The general term "variety" is used for a category of texts that share some social or situational characteristics, and it can be associated with different groups of speakers that refer to dialects.
Register Analysis: Situation, Linguistic Features, Functions
Register is a variety associated with a particular situation of use, and its description covers three major components: situational context, linguistic features, and the functional relationships between the first two components.
Registers can be identified and described based on an analysis of complete texts or a collection of text excerpts, as the linguistic component of a register analysis requires identification of the pervasive linguistic features in the variety. Situational varieties can also be described by analyzing language features that characterize complete texts.
In contrast, genre features are not pervasive; they might occur only once in a complete text, often at the beginning or ending boundary, and they are often conventional rather than functional.
Iterative Process of Register Analysis
Register analysis requires both situational and linguistic analysis, often applied cyclically. The initial analysis of the situational characteristics can be important for selecting appropriate text samples, but unexpected linguistic patterns may require a re-assessment of the situational characteristics of the register. The process of register analysis is often iterative.
Functional Basis of Register Variation
The linguistic differences among registers are not arbitrary. Register analysis always includes a description of the situational context and an interpretation of why particular linguistic features commonly occur in that context. The functional associations between linguistic patterns and situational factors are the heart of studying register variation.
Levels of Register Specificity
Registers can be identified at different levels of specificity. A register can be extremely general, like textbooks, or more specific, like a particular type of textbook. As a register category becomes more specific, it is possible to identify its situational and linguistic characteristics more precisely.
Representative Text Samples for Register Analysis
A register analysis must be based on a representative sample of texts selected to represent the register as fully as possible. Generalizations about a register cannot be made from an analysis with a small number of texts unless there is supporting evidence from larger-scale studies.
Distinguishing Register and Dialect Variation
Dialects can be distinguished as either geographic or social varieties, and the linguistic features studied in dialect analysis are typically not associated with meaning differences, such as phonological variation. In contrast, the linguistic variables used in register studies are functional, reflecting the communicative purposes and situational contexts associated with different registers.
Comparing Register and Dialect Variation
The linguistic differences among registers are more extensive than those found in dialect variation. When using different registers, speakers employ linguistic features that are functionally motivated and related to the purposes and situations, whereas dialect differences are largely conventional, expressing a person's identity within a social group. Regardless of dialect differences, speakers using the same register are engaging in similar communicative tasks, and the characteristic language features used in a given situation are largely similar across speakers from different dialects.
Interpretation of Linguistic Differences
Genre Perspective
The focus is on the linguistic characteristics used to structure complete texts.
Register and Style Perspectives
The focus is on the pervasive linguistic characteristics of representative text excerpts from the variety.
Register Perspective
Characterizes the typical linguistic features of text varieties and connects those features functionally to the situational context of the variety. The analysis can be based on the sample of text excerpts. These features serve a crucial role in how texts from a particular variety are constructed.
Genre Perspective
Genre studies must be based on the analysis of complete texts from the variety. These language features are conventionally associated with the genre and conform to the culturally expected way of constructing texts belonging to the variety. Often focuses on the rhetorical organization of texts from a variety, especially the rhetorical conventions of written varieties.
Differences between Register and Genre Perspectives
Complete texts are required to identify the linguistic characteristics associated with the genre perspective, while text excerpts are not adequate. Any text sample can be analyzed from a register perspective, considering the typical linguistic features associated with the situational context.
Style Perspective
Similar to the register perspective in considering the typical linguistic features associated with a collection of text samples from a variety. Differs in the interpretation, as the linguistic patterns associated with style are not functional, but rather reflect the speaker's or author's attitudes and aesthetic preferences. Styles are normally distinguished for the texts within a register or genre, and can be associated with individual authors, groups of authors, or different historical periods.
Although all societies and languages have a number of registers/ genres, they do not necessarily have equivalent sets, and no individual speaker/writer can control the full set of text varieties found in the culture.
Primacy of the Register Perspective
The register perspective is regarded as the most important because linguistic features are functional and used to greater and lesser extents in different situations, allowing any text sample of any type to be described from the register perspective.
Situational Characteristics of Newspaper
Writing and Academic Prose
Similarities
A number of the situational characteristics cannot be specified, as these are general written registers with varying subregisters.
Differences
Research articles and textbooks, as academic prose subregisters, have different specific purposes and embody different sets of relationships between writer and reader.
Shared Characteristics
Both newspaper and academic prose conform to the prototypical production and comprehension circumstances of writing.
Communicative Purposes and Linguistic
Features of Newspaper Writing and Academic
Prose
Communicative Purposes
Both newspaper writing and academic prose have a generally informational purpose. However, there are some clear situational differences in their communicative purposes: Newspaper news reports recount events, describing what happened, rather than offering interpretations. Academic writing is expected to go beyond just narrating events and analyze, explain, and develop arguments.
Linguistic Features
Noun Phrases and Verb Phrases
Nominal features, such as nouns, premodifiers of nouns, and postmodifiers of nouns, are much more common in the written registers (newspaper and academic prose) compared to conversation. In contrast, personal pronouns and most verb phrase features are more common in conversation. The written registers have longer sentences, often containing one main verb but many nouns, resulting in a higher frequency of nouns than verbs. Nouns in the written registers tend to be modified by adjectives and prepositional phrases, making the referents very specific. These features relate to the differences in purpose, production/ comprehension circumstances, and physical settings between informational writing and conversation.
Type-Token Ratio
The written registers have a high "type-token ratio," reflecting the precision of noun phrases with their variety of modifiers, the need to be precise about the reference of noun phrases, and the variety of topics raised.
Comparison of Newspaper Writing and Academic Prose
Tense Usage
Academic prose uses far more present tense verbs than past tense verbs, while the frequency of the two tenses is about the same in newspaper writing.
Adverbials
Newspaper writing has more time adverbials than other adverbials, as well as place and process adverbials. In academic prose, neither place nor time adverbials are common.
Linking Adverbials
Academic prose has a higher frequency of linking adverbials, as it is expected to develop arguments rather than simply report events.
Attribution of Information
Newspaper articles more commonly use the less precise attribution phrase "according to" to identify sources of information. Information in newspaper articles can be attributed to a variety of sources.
Variation in Fiction Due to Style
Linguistic Analysis of Fictional Texts
Fictional texts can be analyzed linguistically, revealing the complexity of fiction and the adept manipulation of language by authors for different purposes and effects. Fiction provides another perspective on how a general register can vary, not from specialized subregisters, but from deliberate choices by authors to convey a story.
Narrative Perspective
One of the most important factors influencing fictional style is the perspective the author chooses for narrating the story:
First-Person Perspective
Frequent use of the pronoun "I" Reports the sensual perceptions, thoughts, and attitudes of the author Results in frequent complement clause constructions (that-clause and to-clause) where the verb or adjective in the main clause expresses a "personal stance" about the information in the complement clause
Third-Person Perspective
Told from the point of view of an external observer Can be a normal observer, who can only observe physical phenomena, or a superhuman observer, who is aware of the inner thoughts and feelings of characters In the former case, the descriptions of events are relatively "objective", with frequent use of third-person pronouns, past tense, and communication verbs In the latter case, the narrator is privy to the inner attitudes and feelings of characters, resulting in numerous stance expressions and frequent use of mental verbs controlling complement clauses
Dialogue Reporting
A second major parameter of variation in fictional stories is the extent to which the author decides to report the dialogue of characters, which can be more than the narrative prose.
Dialogue-Heavy Style
Employs many grammatical features common in face-to-face conversation, such as second-person pronouns, present tense verbs, questions, contractions, and ellipsis
Dialogue-Light Style
First-person narratives can simply report past events and places as observed by the main character, omitting reports of conversational interactions Characterized by a high frequency of first and third-person pronouns, past tense verbs, adverbials of time, and markers of personal stance
Blended Style
Combines conversational features (present tense verbs, modal verbs, contractions, ellipsis, and questions) with narrative features (frequent past tense verbs and third-person pronouns)
Oral Storytelling Style
Narrates the story as if it were being told orally or in a personal letter to a specific addressee Little direct reported dialogue, but numerous linguistic features of conversation (first-person pronouns, modal verbs, complement clause constructions, stance adverbials) Entire passage written in past tense, focusing on the report of past events
Narration of Events
Most common style is to narrate past events In some cases, the story is written as if the narrator is describing the events in real time This style results in frequent use of present tense verbs and time adverbials, creating a greater sense of immediacy and involvement than typical past tense narratives.
