REGISTER

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REGISTER. In SOCIOLINGUISTICS and STYLISTICS, a VARIETY of language defined according to social use, such as scientific, formal, religious, and journalistic. The term has, however, been used variously in different theoretical approaches, some giving it a broad definition (moving in the direction of variety in its most general sense), others narrowing it to certain aspects of language in social use (such as occupational varieties only). The term was first given broad currency by the British linguist Michael HALLIDAY, who drew a contrast between varieties of language defined according to the characteristics of the user (dialects) and those defined according to the characteristics of the situation (registers). Registers were then subclassified into three domains: field of discourse, referring to the subject matter of the variety, such as science or advertising; mode of discourse, referring to the choice between speech and writing, and the choice of format; and manner of discourse, referring to the social relations between the participants, as shown by variations in formality. See CONTEXT, JARGON, RESTRICTED LANGUAGE. For some specific registers, see ACADEMIC USAGE, BIBLICAL ENGLISH, COMPUTER USAGE, JOURNALESE, LEGAL USAGE, TECHNOSPEAK.