John Sampson

Genre , Style and Register . Sources of confusion ?

In: Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire. Tome 75 fasc. 3, 1997. Langues et littratures modernes - Moderne taalen letterkunde. pp. 699-708.

Citer ce document / Cite this document :

Sampson John. Genre , Style and Register . Sources of confusion ?. In: Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire.
Tome 75 fasc. 3, 1997. Langues et littratures modernes - Moderne taal- en letterkunde. pp. 699-708.
doi : 10.3406/rbph.1997.4190
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 Genre , Style and Register .

Sources of confusion ?
John Sampson
1 .

Introduction
During literature searches in early research preparation, this writer noticed that
the three descriptive terms which feature in the title have at times been applied by
different authors currently publishing in Linguistics in a haphazard and confusing
manner.
This paper seeks firstly to review how these terms have recently been invoked
by different contributors, and to examine the extent to which there may have been
contradictions. Secondly, it ventures to address the imbalance by evaluating the
important distinction between linguistic process and product. Finally, by
developing the above and by noting how such terms are applied in a discipline other
than Linguistics, it proposes some tentative paths towards a taxonomy based on a
hierarchical model. In this way it should be possible to separate the terms under
examination, and to produce a more logical and more scientific taxonomy. It
ascribes to each term a more narrowed (but less convoluted) definition, while
leaving each an essential rle within the whole.
When ambiguities reveal themselves within the true hard sciences to the
point where meaning is obscured, it is usual that steps are taken to resolve the
misunderstandings, with the aim of stimulating debate over the issue, and inviting a
rapprochement between the conflicting points of view. For Linguistics to be seen
and accepted as a subject area underpinned by modern scientific technique (and
selecting its terminology accordingly), such steps will also be necessary, although it
must be recognised that in Linguistics many confusions do result from the
difficulties involved in escaping from the hermeneutic circle of language seeking to
deal systematically with itself.
2.

Style and Register

The term register was first used in a linguistic context by Thomas Bertram
Reid:
He will on different occasions speak (or write) differently according to what may roughly be
described as different social situations : he will use a number of different registers
(Reid: 1956, p. 32).
To begin with the ways in which register and style (and occasionally
dialect) are being currently used by different writers, the following quotations are
examples of terminology gathered from the general literature :
1.

... stylistic varieties related to levels of formality (e. g. public address vs. casual
conversational usage), etc. (Fishman : 1968, p. vi)

700

JOHN SAMPSON
2.
3.
4.
5.
6a.

6b.
6c.
7.
8.

9.
10.
11.
12.
1 3.
14.
15.

16.
17.
1 8.

19.

... dropping register, i.e. your employer suddenly uses a more sloppy
language to you, may result in your noticing this change in stylistic level and that
you would interpret it as a friendly gesture, even as a sign of respect... this we would
call metaphorical shift . (Andersson and Trudgill : 1992, p. 71)
Register is a specialised vocabulary, such as that used by doctors, sailors and
footballers, (op. cit., p. 76)
It is, like all other dialects, subject to stylistic differentiation... Varieties of this type
are known as styles, and all dialects contain different stylistic variants . (Trudgill :
1975, p. 16)
... of register, illustrating the language of lawyers, detectives, priests and sport
reporters. (Romaine : 1994, p. 20)
Each of us uses many different dialects of English for different occasions (writing to
one's Bank Manager, writing an informal letter, talking to a friend, talking to a
stranger, talking to a child, talking to oneself, talking to the telephone... (Howard :
1980, p. 10)
... Scottish, which was considered a disreputable register (op. cit., p. 7)
... the pronunciation of English is a slippery register. (op. cit., p. 8)
... to the patterns and diacritics of sonnets, sermons, salesmens' pitches and any
other organised routines and styles. (Hymes : 1964, p. 22)
Clearly, however, there are variations even within this register [TV Sports
commentary] according to different kinds of sport (e. g. cricket v. rugby), so that it
is preferable top speak overall of the DOMAIN of sports commentary. (Wales :
1989, p. 398)
... in both casual and emphatic styles. (Labov: 1966, p. 71)
Informal style is normally taken to be more friendly than formal style. (Lodge :
1993, p. 5)
... according to the amount of attention paid to speech, so that we have
stylistic as well as social stratification . (Labov : 1970, p. 66)
This provides invaluable work training, cultural insight and acquisition of the
appropriate language register ; that of business and commerce (from Prospectus,
University of Surrey : 1994).
Firstly, in registers which construct knowledge, such as scientific papers. (Hunston,
in Graddol : 1993, p. 98)
A register is essentially a set of beliefs, attitudes or expectations about what is or is
not likely to seem appropriate and be selected in certain kinds of contexts.
(Halliday : 1978, p. 9)
These grammars are stuffed full of a variety of registers, non-literary and literary ;
examples of good and bad English and the idioms to which they are attached.
(Professor Katie Wales from Conference paper : PALA Annual Conference. Granada,
September 1995)
In these cases, the distribution across social dialects and registers (or styles ) is
parallel, with the variants that are more frequent in less formal situations also being
more frequent among lower-ranked social groups. (Biber and Finnegan : 1994,
p. 317)
Ne me parlez pas de ce registre (in La Haine : Dir. Mathieu Kascovitz)
The most common variety of marked error in register among student translators
tends to be colloquial and intimate ... The other common error, use of
formal or official register (e.g. decease for death also shows signs of
translationese. (Newmark: 1988, p. 13)
La vraie communication ne peut se faire qu'entre interlocuteurs employant le mme
registre verbal. (Belot : 1987, p. 150)

Thus, for Andersson and Trudgill (2), Halliday (14), La Haine (17) and
Newmark (18) in the above, variation in register represents the ways in which

GENRE, STYLE AND REGISTER

701

language is selected to reflect the immediate (and thus highly contextually grounded)
linguistic situation. And yet, examples (3) and (4) appear to deny that position. For
other writers, such as Fishman (1), Labov (9 and 1 1) and Lodge (10) this type of.
language selection is known as a style, whereas for Hymes (7), style is the
specialised language of like-minded groups of people [although examples (3), (4),
(5), (12), (13) and even (8) the definition by the stylist Professor Katie Wales
describe this phenomenon as register]. Nevertheless, in (15) Professor Wales
appears to be arguing that registers pertain in some way to correct and
incorrect English. Example (16) attributes both styles, registers and social
dialects (known elsewhere as sociolects ) with equal status, and it should
finally be noted that Professor Jean Aitchison of Oxford University did not mention
register at all when discussing the choices people make when they engage in
conversation with each other, in the 1996 BBC Reith Lectures, of which the
following is an extract :
Variation in speech is the norm. Our linguistic wardrobe contains a range of speech styles,
which we suit to the occasion. Bus-conductors, bosses and babies need to be addressed in
different ways. Change often happens when one particular variant expands its usage. But
which variants should be used where and when still causes arguments as sharp as barbedwire, especially as nowadays being matey is often more important than being proper ,
resulting in increasing approval of informal styles of speech, including swearing
(Aitchison: 1996).
I will argue in this paper not only that the ways of using language such as
cited in this last quotation should unequivocally be referred to as registers, but also
that all of these registers are to be found within an individual's personal style.
A result of such misapprehension will always be its effect on lay reporting.
This is illustrated by quotes (6a, 6b 6c), from the only non-academic writer cited
(the respected journalist Philip Howard), who can be forgiven for referring to
language selected according to immediate needs as dialect i1).
A major reason for such disparity will be the research areas in which all
academic writers are involved, and there is a tendency for some contributors not to
look too far outside the hermeneutic confines of their own studies. Thus, the
Stylists may argue that register and genre are explainable within the scope of
their own discipline. Wales, again, in her Dictionary of Stylistics, seeks first to
define register itself in stylistic terms :
The codification of the significant linguistic features which determine overall the STYLE of
the register was very much to the fore in the 1960s... (Wales : 1989, p. 398)
(1) Space does not permit me to examine which I view to be the most appropriate and least
confusing application of the term dialect. For the purposes of this paper it can be taken as
representing geographical variations in single languages, such as that recently described by Barbour
and Stevenson (1995). They show how in Germany Mundart is used to describe the dialect of a
village, coexisting fairly peaceably with the Dialekt of a wider area (p. 55). They further
distinguish the literal sense of urbanisation and the derived sense by using Verstdterung
for the former and Urbanisierung for the latter, which is taken to imply the establishment of
cosmopolitan lifestyles and the adoption of a different system of social values.

702

JOHN SAMPSON

While later in the same volume, style itself is interpreted in terms of register and
genre :
In each case, style is seen as distinctive : in essence, the set or sum of linguistic features
that seem to be characteristic : whether of register, genre or period etc. (op. cit., p. 436)
Similarly, those contributors currently working on register may seek to understand
style, dialect and genre better through the application of their own (idiosyncratic)
terminologies, and equally for the Genre theorists, Dialecticians and Sylists.
Even among the recognised workers in register theory there are formidable
differences in the strict interpretation of what register is actually referring to. Most
agree that the semiotic space on which register (as an abstract and therefore
theorisable concept) lies is on the interface between language form and language
function and is therefore a semantic description ; not of form but of meaning.
Brown and Gilman, Kress and Hodge, and Fairclough saw the form / function
paradigm as reflecting power (for discussion of these see Leckie-Tarry : 1995,
p. 31), Hymes specifies the categories of message, form and content, setting,
participants etc. (Hymes : 1974, pp. 54 ff.), and Donald Rubin stipulates such
factors as topic domain, discourse function and audience-communicator role
(Rubin : 1984, p. 215), while most recognised researchers in pure register theory
(Michael Halliday, and co-workers such as Hasan and Martin), prefer to elaborate
on the nature of the triadic formula of field, tenor and mode. Yet even between
these there are important differences in their personal vision of the specific purpose
and function of each category. In Language as Social Semiotic (1978), Halliday
described register itself in a number of distinct ways :
The register is the semantic variety of which a text may be regarded as an instance"
(Halliday: 1978, p. 110).
A register can be defined as the configuration of semantic resources that the member of a
culture typically associates with a situation type (op. cit., p. 111).
[Register is] a particular selection of words and structures (op. cit., p. 35).
[Register] is defined in terms of meanings ; it is not an aggregate of conventional forms of
expression superposed on some underlying content by social factors of one kind or
another. It is the selection of meanings that constitutes the variety to which a text belongs
(op. cit., p. 35).
Similarly, the various rewordings and reworkings of the functional categories of
field, tenor and mode, not only by Halliday, but by subsequent workers, are quite
complex. Mode, for example, is a rather different category from the other two, as
Halliday's own conception of it shows. One version suggests a pragmatic position,
lying very close to actual language :
The mode is the channel or wavelength selected, which is essentially the function that is
assigned to language in total structure of the situation ; it includes the medium (spoken or
written), which is explained as a functional variable (Halliday : 1978, p. 110).
The other permits a more abstract interpretation :

GENRE, STYLE AND REGISTER

703

Even the mode , the rhetorical channel with its associated strategies, though more
immediately reflected in linguistic patterns, has its origin in the social structure ; it is the
social structure that generates the semiotic tensions and the rhetorical styles and genres that
express them (op. cit., p. 113).
Although mode may be viewed, from a simple perspective, as representing purely
the spoken / written distinction, as in the first quote above, one of the difficulties
implicit in its description, as th'e second quotation indicates, is that it tends to actuate
by default, and may contain elements which do not easily fit within the other two
functional variables.
This is not to imply that Halliday categorises any of these situational variables
as either discrete or deterministic, nor should they be seen as complete entities ;
there is continuous overlap and blurring :
The criteria are not absolute or independent ; they are all variable in delicacy, and the more
delicate the classification the more the three overlap (Halliday : 1978, p. 93).
3 .

Concepts of Process and Product

In Batchelor and Offord, register is used, confusingly, to mean both a language variety
(Rl, R2 and R3), and an extralinguistic factor, the relationship of formality or
informality existing between speakers (Sanders : 1993, p. 36)

I have hinted that, in Halliday's terms, the two first metafunctions

Ideational and Interpersonal might be viewed as different phenomena to
his third, the Textual . The quotation above from Professor Carol Saunders
illustrates the dialectic. The work which she was reviewing was Batchelor and
Offord' s (1993) grammar Using French ; a grammar which went to some
lengths to point out to students that there are several ways of translating the same
phrase, depending on a variety of contextual (cultural, situational and textual)
factors. However, being a grammar for the use of students of French, and not a
priori one of Linguistics, it could not seek to explain register as an abstract
concept or as the basis of an academic study. Very much the opposite ; it was one
of the earliest grammars (first published in 1982) which offered up-to-date advice as
to the practice of register application. Thus when those authors wrote of register
they were actually referring to registers, and the various structures that may be
available in a particular practical situation ; an important distinction. By introducing
a rule of thumb for the separation of such registers into a somewhat arbitrary system
(Rl, R2 and R3, or low , middle and high registers), they sought to
instruct students of the appropriate use at the appropriate time. And while they made
it clear that these categories were by no means unblurred (Batchelor and Offord :
1993, p. 6), Professor Saunders1 concerns can easily be allayed by noting that the
grammatical examples given by Batchelor and Offord refers to a tegister, rather
than to register itself. Exactly the same distinction, I believe, can be applied to
genre and a genre, style and a style, text type and a text type ; even language

704

JOHN SAMPSON

and a language. The former, in every case, is the process, an extralinguistic

epistemology which permits abstractions to be created and developed [... the
grammatical system which underlies the material product. (Graddol, Cheshire
and Swann : 1987, p. 178)] and the latter is the product, which is truly
linguistic ; it is language.
And although it can rightly be claimed that in many ways thought is language
and language is thought, it remains undetermined whether certain types of thought
are closer to language than others. Clearly less language is involved in an area such
as art criticism, for example, than in the mental re-enactment of a conversation, and
this brings us to the phenomenon of genre.
4.

Genre
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.

28.

and

Register

Registers, or discourse genres are systems of rules governing the production,

transmission, and reception of appropriate meanings by appropriate users
in appropriate forms in particular social contexts. (Frow : 1986, p. 69)
Quasi in unum fasciculum. The genre of letter collections . (Title of internal
paper. University of Southampton. English Department, May : 1996)
The role of the participants' communicative experience in determining the
characteristics of speech genres is emphasised by Bakhtin. (Leckie-Tarry : 1995,
p. 33)
The genre of prescriptive grammars and handbooks . A narrative genre ;
A descriptive genre ;... the genre of poetry
(all examples were used in papers at ALA Conference : Belfast, 19%)
... the genre of the telephone conversation (Biber and Finegan : 1994, p. 24)
The forms of speech then have been assigned to the domains of the private, and to
the relative absence of power. Genres with very little power difference indicate a more
open interaction... (Leckie-Tarry : 1995, p. 42)
In other words, there are stages well before coordination where sequence within and
between turns is used to express meaning. This phenomenon, whereby in very early
genres the clause may extend across turns... (Leckie-Tarry : 1995, p. 49)
The mode is the function of the text in the event, including therefore both the
channel taken by the language spoken or written, extempore or prepared and all
its genre, or rhetorical mode, as narrative, didactic, persuasive, phatic
communion , and so on. (Halliday and Hasan : 1976, p. 22)
I distinguish genre from text type ; genres characterise texts on the basis
of external criteria, while text types represent groupings of texts that are similar in
their linguistic form, irrespective of genre. For example, an academic article 'on
Asian history represents formal academic exposition in terms of the author's
purpose, but its linguistic form might be more narrative-like and more similar to
some types of fiction than to scientific or engineering academic articles. The genre of
such a text would be academic exposition, but its text type might be academic
narrative . (Biber: 1988, p. 170)

With the exception of the last quote (I unreservedly agree with Douglas
Biber's view of the distinctions between genre and text type), I will argue that
neither speech , narrative , rhetorical mode , descriptive ,
prescriptive grammars nor poetry are genres in themselves, although
genres may feature within them. However, genre is well represented by

GENRE, STYLE AND REGISTER

705

telephone conversations and casual conversations , since both describe a

culturally recognisable situation which has derived from a particular socio-historical
context.
5.

Evidence from music

Further insights into the argument may be obtained by looking outside the
(sometimes) restricted confines of one's own discipline at another, which also uses
these terms ; that of music. A prominent musicologist explained to me that, firstly,
genre in a musical sense indicates known structures ; something recognisable
culturally (so long as you know something about various sorts of music), in just the
same way as I shall propose we should view genre in a linguistic sense. To
consider a Symphony ; it comprises a first movement in sonata form : exposition,
development, recapitulation. The second movement is normally a variation on the
first, but there is no hard rule. The third is a minuet (occasionally a scherzo) in triple
time, and the fourth and final movements re-appear in sonata form again. There is
another recapitulation, and usually a triumphant ending. Notice here, however, the
normally's and usually's and occasionally's . The genres within music
are culturally recognisable, as they are in language and literature, but one can
modify the convention, while still respecting the existence of the genre and its
underlying structure. The same applies to other musical genres ; sonata form,
concerto form, waltz, mass, preludes, tudes etc. Equally, a piano sonata and a
violin sonata area similar genre, but in this case a different medium.
If we now turn to style, this is more complicated because it must be viewed
(musically) in two ways ; as I also propose with language ; that style (as a
process) is generally the reflection of a period of musical history : classical,
renaissance, baroque etc. , whereas style as a product ( a style ) is most
certainly specifically linked to the individual composers themselves.
Register can also be viewed musically in two different ways : firstly as
simply high or low in absolute terms of pitch (although it is much more subtle than
. that ; the absolute pitch coming from different instruments or different voices may
be the same, but the sound is not). The other way is to see it as reflecting the
subtleties of pitch, tone and sound which create the mood of the piece at any
particular moment in it, allowing it to change its character from bar to bar ; moment
to moment. This is quite distinct from the general nature of the piece of music itself,
because that is both a reflection of its genre and its style.
If an old score is found under some floorboards, unsigned, musicologists
will have little difficulty narrowing its period down to within about 50 years,
and its genre can be established immediately. If it musically significant, its
style will indicate that it could have been the work of, say, a handful of canon com
posers (although there are other clues as to the composer beyond the music itself ;
if it is an original manuscript, the composer's handwriting may be recognisable, or
may contain idiosyncrasies about the way that they write down the music, structure
it or lay it out) and in some cases lead to an identification of the composer.

706

JOHN SAMPSON

Thus to summarise, in music, genre represents a musical form that is

culturally recognisable. This will then lead to the chance of an educated guess as to
the identity of the composer, through knowledge of their individual style. The
registers that each may use, however, are far more subtle, and depend not only on
the registers which are permitted (or perhaps better, acceptable within the
genre), but also on the effect to which individual composer's style brings to their
music, and is therefore at highest level of delicacy.
This being the case, we have a hierarchy emerging here. In music, a genre
will contain many examples of composers' styles, which in their turn contain many
examples of the registers used by each ; the finest subtleties of their art. This is not
to suggest that one is superior or inferior to another ; they are simply different. And
I propose exactly the same hierarchical distinction in language : genres in language
are culturally recognisable, but they are not language itself. Style in language may
be recognisable as a result of spotting the genre to which it applies, but only
individual speakers or writers have a style . And each speaker or writer will
constantly vary the most subtle forms of their language ; the finest level of delicacy,
the registers which they choose to use.
The word choose is used here quite deliberately and is pivotal in this
argument. Composers are free to choose the registers they use within a piece of
music, on the spur of the moment, even as a whim, however unexpected. They do
not, however, have the same liberty to tamper with the genre. This has already
been prescribed and remains grounded within the existing culture. The most that an
individual's style could hope to do, if it wished, was to lay the basis of an revision
of the genre, if it were to become subsequently acceptable to the consumers of
music or language ; that is, the culture. On the other hand, an individual speaker or
writer, with his or her own personal style of language, has great liberty to alter or
adjust the registers used within that style.
6.

Conclusions
Based on the above ; both on the use of the terms genre, style and register
by different academics within the literature, and by experts in a discipline other than
Linguistics, I propose the following :
i)
That the term a genre is one that should be restricted to that wide
area which describes a culturally recognisable phenomenon, and which has no
direct connection with the linguistic patterns of any individual or limited group of
individuals. In any spectrum lying between intra-linguistic and extralinguistic it lies at the most extreme end of the latter ; that is, it is poorly
expressed in language, and best expressed as a mental picture.
ii)
That the term a style applies exclusively to the totality, in a holistic
sense, of the language repertoire of the individual (or to a restricted group of
individual who may share particular aspects of style). It is neither heavily intra- or
extra-linguistic, and therefore lies in the middle ofthat spectrum, expressing both a
mental picture and language.

GENRE, STYLE AND REGISTER

707

iii)
That the term a register applies to the most highly intra-linguistic
system within that spectrum. It is a dissection of the linguistic patterns of the
individual the idiolect. It is pure language, reflects the moment rather than the
culture, does not conjure up any sort of mental picture, and represents the most
delicate form of language interpretation, through being the most highly
personalised and changeable. And while registers may at times resemble each other,
be borrowed and shared , particularly within closed communities, register
may only be studied by initial reference to the individual and not groups or
societies, except by generalisation. And any such generalisations should be
approached with the greatest care, knowing that they can never represent better than
a distillation of individual registers, there being no such thing as a group register.
It may be useful to explain it from the other end of the spectrum. An individual's
linguistic repertoire (that is, his or her range of registers) constitutes that
individual's overall style. And when a group of comparable styles converge to the
extent that they become culturally recognisable within the larger community, they
may then be properly referred to as a genre.
To end, I return to my original examples (1-28). I have offered my evidence
for the proposition that, for instance, the specialised vocabularies of doctors,
sailors, footballers (3), those of lawyers, detectives and sports reporters
(5), salesmens' pitches, sonnets, sermons' (7), business and commerce
(12), scientific papers (13), are NOT registers in themselves, although they
will contain them through the language involved. These, I would propose, are better
described as jargons (though the justification for that position could form the
basis of a subsequent paper). Equally, in the case of example (6b), Scottish may be
viewed as a language by some and a dialect by others, and although it contains
registers it is certainly nol a register in itself. On the other hand, the forms in which
the term is used by Andersson and Trudgill (2), by Halliday (14), in the film La
Haine (17), by Newmark (18) and by Belot (19) are entirely consistent with my
position.
Regarding genres, since they describe a culturally recognisable domain,
speech is not a genre, nor are the genres described as prescriptive
or narrative (17) ; they are descriptions. However casual conversation ,
being culturally marked, is a genre, and if the phrase the genres of casual
conversation (21) were modified to the registers contained in the genre of
casual conversation , this would also become consistent with my thesis.
7 .
References
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1990).
Barbour (S.) and STEVENSON (P.), Variation in German : A Critical Approach
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Batchelor (R.) and Offord (M.), Using French : A guide to Contemporary
Usage (Cambridge: CUP, 1993).
BELOT (.), L'Espagnol aujourd'hui (Perpignan : ditions du Castillet, 1987).

708

JOHN SAMPSON

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