Iv - University of Salford Institutional Repository

which is understood in terms of the non-verbal and paraverbal features
it involves. Rather than the mode of talking, discourse is the act of
talking. It materializes at the speech level As such, discourse is
determined by an array of generic considerations. A genre is a
specific.prO of language use which fulfils the pragmatic requirements
of sociocultural interaction in a communicative event. However, a
genre has its own discoursal possibilities, phrasal idiosyncracies and
meaning limitations.
Like genres ) registers are described as varieties of language
associated with specific functions of language in specific contexts.
The Zwickys ('Sublanguage' edited by R Kittredge and J Lehrberger,
1902, pp213-215) distinguish between dialects and registers. Dialects
are varieties of language associated with "broadly defined biological,
social and psychological states of speakers with such variables as age,
sex, ethnic group, social class, regional origin, occupation,
personality, beliefs, and attitudes." Registers, on the other hand,
are language varieties associated with "specific contexts or situations
and the specific functions of language in these contexts."
In 'Investigating English Style' (1969, p16) Crystal and Davy
attack the term 'register' on the basis of its being inconsistently and
indiscriminately used. A fundamental notion in neo-Firthian
stylistics, register is also criticized on the basis of its non-
restrictive applicability to social situations. They claim that:
"There are very great differences in the nature of situational
variables involved in these uses of English, and ... it is inconsistent
60