Language Use as a Resource: E-Communication Dimensions of Register Variation in a Professional Context

Abstract

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.