3.3.1 Text, Context and Register
In SFL, text and context are embedded with each other in terms of the idea of social functioning of language.This enables a systemic classification and organisation of disciplinary identities construction at both textual and centextual levels in discourse practices for the current study.Although discourse generally has been classified based on genre (cf.Bhatia, 1993; Hasan, 1985; Martin, 1993a; Swales, 1990, 2004), the current discussion is devoted to register because of its relevance.
One unique and innovative characteristic of SFL is that it describes and explains the functional relations of linguistic and social phenomena in terms of the grammar that functions in the variation of text types.As stated in Halliday’s Introduction to Functional Grammar (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014):
When people speak or write, they produce text; and text is what listeners and readers engage with and interpret.The term ‘text’ refers to any instance of language, in any medium, that makes sense to someone who knows the language; we can characterize text as language functioning in context...Language is, in the first instance, a resource for making meaning; so text is a process of making meaning in context.(p.3)
Furthermore,
‘… the account of a text type can be interpreted as a generalized analysis of a sample of texts, and the account of a register can be interpreted as specialized description of the general system, but, in either case, the account will ultimately be grounded in textual data.’ (pp.54-55)
The coverage of linguistic and social phenomena in text is thus organised ‘via grammars with a registerial focus (such as grammars of spoken English) to reference grammars, and relationship to intended users’ (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014, p.56).
Therefore, register in SFL provides an explanatory perspective to classify the coverage of a text type.A register is ‘a functional variety of language’ (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014, p.4) that links the instantiation of the linguistic and interactional patterns to a given situational context.In this sense, a language is ‘an assemblage of register’ (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014, p.xv).According to Halliday (1978), your immediate speaking is ‘determined by what you are doing (nature of social activity being engaged in), and expressing diversity of social process (social division of labour)’ (p.35), because ‘the language we speak or write varies according to the type of situation’ (Halliday, 1978, p.32).Hence, the concept of register assists the understanding of the inter-relation of text and context in discourse.
In this study, discourse in a given community of discipline is characterised as a specialised register in the context.A text of classroom discourse (see Chapter 4) can be viewed as registerially constrained and be analysed by identifying similarities and differences among individuals and groups.This in turn implies the question of how to recognise the compositions of a register in organising such texts.