Use Of The Term 'Register' In Systemic Functional Linguistics

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 29n):

Here the term ‘register’ thus refers to a functional variety of language (see e.g. Halliday, 1978; Hasan, 1973; Matthiessen, 1993b; Ghadessy, 1993; Lukin et al., 2008). It has also been used in a related, but different way, to refer to the contextual values associated with such a functional variety (see Martin, 1992, and other contributions to the ‘genre model’ within systemic functional linguistics; cf. Matthiessen, 1993b).

Blogger Comment:

Here Halliday's reviser, Matthiessen, fails to warn the reader that:

A. Martin's use of 'register' is:

1. inconsistent with the notion of register,
2. inconsistent with the notion of context, and
3. inconsistent with Systemic Functional Linguistic theory;

Evidence here.

B.  Martin's use of 'genre' is:

1. inconsistent with the notion of genre,
2. inconsistent with the notion of context,
3. inconsistent with Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, and
4. not equivalent to Martin's use of 'register'.

Evidence here.