Register

A language variety that is defined in non-linguistic terms by its situational characteristics is called register. Situational differences that influence the choice of a register include the speaker’s purpose, the relationship between speaker and hearer, the topic as well as the production circumstances (cf. Biber and Gray, Chapter 21 and Conrad and Biber 2001: 5). Registers can be described by means of three components: the situational context, the pervasive linguistic features of the register and the functional relationships between these two components (cf. Biber and Conrad 2009: 6). It is important to keep in mind that the relative distribution of single features cannot distinguish reliably among registers. Therefore, it is necessary to consider co-occurrence patterns of multiple features (cf. Conrad and Biber 2001: 5). However, the situational characteristics are more basic to the analysis than the linguistic features because the choice of linguistic features can be derived from the situational differences but not the other way round (cf. Biber and Conrad 2009: 9).

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