Comparing Approaches to (Sub-)Register Variation

The guiding idea of this collection is to bring together a number of different perspectives on variation in language according to occasion of use. At present this is a rather ill-defined field of interest sometimes referred to as style variation and sometimes as register variation. This area has not figured as prominently in sociolinguistics as certain and other aspects of variation (social dialect variation in particular). This volume draws attention to the importance of this ubiquitous linguistic phenomenon and points the way to a unified approach. Biber and Finegan have solicited studies presenting a variety of perspectives on registers and register variation, as well as papers that attempt to integrate register and social dialect variation into a coherent theoretical framework.

Registerial cartography is the activity of systematically describing the registers that make up a language — with register in its original sense of a functional variety of a language, i.e. of the adaptation of the meaning-making resources of a language according to context of use. A register map of a language would thus show its composition of registers — of meanings at risk in the various cultural domains that constitute a culture. This variation according to use — register variation — is located along the cline of instantiation between the overall meaning potential of a language operating in the context of culture and the instantiation of this meaning potential unfolding as texts in contexts of situation.In this paper, I will report on a long-term register cartography project concerned with the analysis and description of the registers that collectively constitute the meaning potential of a language. The maps produced as part of the project are based on context in the first instance, since register variation is precisely variation according to context of use. Thus registers can be located within the map according to the “longitude and latitude” of context, i.e. according to the contextual parameters of field, tenor and mode. Here I will focus on a field-based map, more specifically one based on a typology of fields of activity — a characterizations of different goings-on in context. This typology differentiates eight primary types of field of activity, ‘expounding’, ‘reporting’, ‘recreating’, ‘sharing’, ‘doing’, ‘enabling’, ‘recommending’ and ‘exploring’, and their secondary and tertiary subtypes. I will then illustrate how texts operating in contexts characterized by these different fields of activity are organized semantically in terms of logico-semantic (rhetorical) relations (based on a version of RST, Rhetorical Structure Theory), showing that different relations are “at risk” depending on the nature of the field of activity. I will round off the paper by discussing how field-based maps of registers have and can be used in different areas of application.

Explicitation, simplification, normalisation and levelling-out, the four features of translation proposed by Baker (1996), have attracted considerable attention in translation studies. Although the first three have been studied extensively, levelling-out has been the subject of less empirical investigation. Furthermore, there are no studies to date that have investigated the extent to which levelling-out occurs in translations by experienced translators and inexperienced translators. In this study, levelling-out is operationalised in terms of register. It is hypothesised that less register variation will be apparent in translations by inexperienced translators and, in keeping with the features of translation hypothesis, it is predicted that select linguistic features will demonstrate less register variation in translations than in non-translations. A custom-built corpus was compiled to test these hypotheses. While some light is shed on how translation expertise contributes to register sensitivity and the distribution of certain features across different registers, little evidence could be found for levelling-out as register variation is evident in the translation corpora.

Multi-dimensional Analysis (MD) is a quantitative corpus-based approach which describes and interprets patterns of register variations through factor analysis of a set of linguistic fea-tures across text varieties, and reveals their systematic relationships with communicative purposes. The model has been employed to explore language variation in many languages (e.g., English, Somali, Nukulaelae Tuvaluan, Korean, and Spanish), yet insufficient research has been carried out on register variation in Mandarin Chinese on a full scale. In this research, 88 linguistic features are tagged in a balanced corpus composed of 20 Mandarin Chinese spoken and written registers. Through factor analysis, five dimensions which consist of 65 linguistic features are identified and interpreted from linguistic and functional perspectives. The first two dimensions, interactive vs. informational discourse and narrative vs. non-narrative concern, are similar to dimensions that have been claimed to constitute universal parameters of register variation in previous MD studies. The exist-ence of two potential universal dimensions suggests that the basic communicative purposes and functions underlying the different languages are markedly similar, given the existing social, cultural, and linguistic dissimilarities. Dimension 4, casual real-time speech with stance, is identified as a distinctive dimension in Mandarin Chinese. Dimension 3, explicit-ness in cohesion and reasoning, and Dimension 5, abstract information, are found to be as-sociated with foreign influence, and their register variation patterns illustrate how foreign contact affects Chinese register variation in a quantitative manner.

Previous theoretical and empirical research on register variation has argued that linguistic co-occurrence patterns have a highly systematic relationship to register differences, because they both share the same functional underpinnings. The goal of this study is to test this claim through a comparison of two statistical techniques that have been used to describe register variation: factor analysis (as used in Multi-Dimensional analysis, MDA) and canonical discriminant analysis (CDA). MDA and CDA have different statistical bases and thus give priority to different analytical considerations: linguistic co-occurrence in the case of MDA and the prediction of register differences in the case of CDA. Thus, there is no statistical reason to expect that the two techniques, if applied to the same corpus, will produce similar results. We hypothesize that although MDA and CDA approach register variation from opposite sides, they will produce similar results because both types of statistical patterns are motivated by underlying discourse functions. The present paper tests this claim through a case-study analysis of variation among web registers, applying MDA and CDA to analyze register variation in the same corpus of texts.

This paper measures the stability of cross-linguistic register variation. A registeris a variety of a language that is associated with extra-linguistic context. The relationship between a register and its context is functional: the linguistic features that make up a register are motivated by the needs and constraints of the communicative situation. This view hypothesizes that register should be universal, so that we expect a stable relationship between the extra-linguistic context that defines a register and the sets of linguistic features which the register contains. In this paper, the universality and robustness of register variation is tested by comparing variation within versus between register-specific corpora in 60 languages using corpora produced in comparable communicative situations: tweets and Wikipedia articles. Our findings confirm the prediction that register variation is, in fact, universal.

12 - Toward a Description of Register Variation in American Sign Language

<p>The recent development in [critical] genre analysis moved the focus more into the institutionalized and conventionalized practices of the place discourse community; yet, examining the textual artifacts and register variations maintained their vital importance in the analysis. Using a functional multi-dimensional framework, this study examined register variation in more than 350 electronic messages that were exchanged in a professional context to explore register variations in the emails. The study revealed that the corpus of emails, if examined as a single genre, included instances of the seven dimensions of register variation. However, if it is examined as four types of genres based on the intentions of the communication, as in AlAfnan (2015a), it becomes apparent that the four types of email genres belong to different registers. The register of the emails that were parts of long strings discussing work related issues is ‘overtly argumentative’ and ‘narrative discourse’ registers. The register of the emails that intended to request information and/or respond to requests is ‘involved production’ register. The register of the emails that intended to inform recipients about general interest issues is ‘abstract style’ and ‘informational production’ registers. The register of the emails that intended to deliver attachments is ‘non-narrative discourse’ register. This study also revealed that the communicative purposes influenced language use, word choice, grammatical patterns and the syntactical structure of the emails.</p>

Diglossia in Arabic differs from bilingualism in functional differentiation and mode of acquisition of the two registers used by all speakers raised in an Arabic-speaking environment. The ‘low’ (L) regional spoken dialect is acquired naturally and used in daily life, but the ‘high’ (H) variety, Modern Standard Arabic, is learned and used in formal settings. Register variation between the two ends of this H–L continuum is ubiquitous in everyday interaction, such that authors have proposed distinct intermediate register levels, despite evidence of mixing of H and L features, within and between utterances, at all linguistic levels. The role of sentence prosody in register variation in Arabic is uninvestigated to date. The present study examines three variables (F0 variation, intonational choices and post-lexical utterance-final laryngealization) in 400+ turns at talk produced by one speaker of San’ani Arabic in a 20 min sociolinguistic interview, coded for register on three levels: formal (fusħa), ‘middle’ (wusṭaː) and dialect (ʕaːmijja). The results reveal a picture of key shared features across all register levels, alongside distinct properties which serve to differentiate the registers at each end of the continuum, at least some of which appear to be under the speaker’s control.

Douglas Biber, Regents’ Professor of Applied Linguistics at Northern Arizona University, authors this article exploring the connections between register and a text-linguistic approach to language variation. He has spent the last 30 years pursuing a research program that explores the inherent link between register and language use, including at the phraseological, grammatical, and lexico-grammatical levels. His seminal bookVariation across Speech and Writing(1988, Cambridge University Press) launched multi-dimensional (MD) analysis, a comprehensive framework and methodology for the large-scale study of register variation. This approach was innovative in taking a text-linguistic approach to characterize language use across situations of use through the quantitative and functional analysis of linguistic co-occurrence patterns and underlying dimensions of language use. MD analysis is now used widely to study register variation over time, in general and specialized registers, in learner language, and across a range of languages. In 1999, theLongman Grammar of Spoken and Written English(Biber et al.) became the first comprehensive descriptive reference book to systematically consider register variation in describing the grammatical and lexico-grammatical patterns of use in English. Douglas Biber’s quantitative linguistic research has consistently demonstrated the importance of register as a predictor of language variation. In his own words, “register always matters” (Gray 2013: 360, Interview with Douglas Biber,English Language & Linguistics).

The aim of this paper is to identify the effect of register variation in spoken British English on the occurrence of the four principal verb-forming suffixes: ‑ate, ‑en, ‑ifyand ‑ize, by building on the work ofBiber et al. (1999),Plag et al. (1999)andSchmid (2011). Register variation effects were compared between the less formal Demographically-Sampled and the more formal Context-Governed components of the original 1994 version of the British National Corpus. The pattern of ‑izederivatives revealed the most marked register-based differences with respect to frequency counts and the creation of neologisms, whereas ‑enderivatives varied the least compared with the other three suffixes. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of these suffix profiles in the context of spoken language reveal markers of register formality that have not hitherto been explored; derivative usage patterns provide an additional dimension to previous research on register variation which has mainly focused on grammatical and lexical features of language.

As the first collective volume to focus exclusively on corpus-based approaches to register variation, this book provides an exhaustive account of the range and depth of possibilities that the domain of register variation in English has to offer. It illustrates register variation analysis in different theoretical frameworks, such as Probabilistic Grammar, Systemic Functional Linguistics, and Information Theory, and proposes a new framework within the Text Linguistic Approach: the continuous-situational analytical framework. Several of the contributions apply Multi-Dimensional Analysis to corpus data in order to unveil register (dis)similarities, while others rely on logistic regression models and periodization techniques based on Kullback-Leibler divergence. The volume includes both inter-register and intra-register variation analysis of a wide spectrum of varieties, speakers and periods: British and American English, learner varieties, L2 varieties, and also contains diachronic studies covering early and late Modern English. This broad scope should be a source of inspiration for anyone interested in historical and ongoing register variation in a vast range of varieties of English worldwide.

Variation in language on the basis of formality (register variation) is often neglected both in grammatical descriptions and in sociolinguistic analyses. I demonstrate here that in Sinhala, and perhaps in other diglossic languages, register variation in syntax cannot be ignored. In a Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG) analysis based on a corpus of naturally occurring Sinhala texts, I propose an analysis of register variation in which the syntax of all observed registers is accounted for within a single grammar. I further explain how the approach to register variation developed here can be extended to other types of sociolinguistic variation.

Register Variation in Indian English constitutes the first large-scale empirical investigation of an international variety of English. Using a combination of the corpus compiled for this project and relevant sections of ICE-India as its database, this work tests existing descriptions and characterizations of English in India, and provides the first empirical account of register variation in Indian English (or indeed, any international variety of English). Included in this survey are linguistic features that have been examined before and others that have not. From an empirical standpoint, it comments on the process of Indianization of the English used in India. The book will be of interest to readers beyond specialists of Indian English as it is one of very few studies to undertake a large-scale corpus analysis for the purpose of dialect research. The book provides a model on which future studies of international Englishes can be based.

Claims about the productivity of a given affix are generally made without differentiating productivity according to type of discourse, although it is commonly assumed that certain kinds of derivational suffixes are more pertinent in certain kinds of texts than in others. Conversely, studies in register variation have paid very little attention to the role derivational morphology may play in register variation.This paper explores the relation between register variation and derivational morphology through a quantitative investigation of the productivity of a number of English derivational suffixes across three types of discourse in the British National Corpus (written language, context-governed spoken language, and everyday conversations). Three main points emerge from the analysis. First, within a single register, different suffixes may differ enormously in their productivity, even if structurally they are constrained to a similar extent. Second, across the three registers under investigation a given suffix may display vast differences in productivity. Third, the register variation of suffixes is not uniform, i.e. there are suffixes that show differences in productivity across registers while other suffixes do not, or do so to a lesser extent. We offer some tentative explanations for these findings and discuss the implications for morphological theory.