Article published in:
Language, Context and Text
Vol. 2:1 (2020) ► pp. 3–21

Trinocular views of register

Approaching register trinocularly

| The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Michael Halliday’s argument for the value of ‘trinocular vision’ in linguistic research has particular relevance to the observation, exploration and description of register. Taking each semiotic dimension relevant to the characterisation of register by turn, I begin by discussing Halliday’s proposition. I then proceed, using the metaphor of cartography, to examine register variation via the intersection of three semiotic dimensions: stratification, instantiation and metafunction. I discuss how such examinations enable us to create description maps of register variation. From this basis, I discuss a long-term programme of systematically producing descriptive maps of registers, which I and colleagues have begun. Finally, I suggest that by using such maps we can better understand such important phenomena as aggregates of registers and personal register repertoires.

Keywords: register, dialect, code, rank scale, trinocular vision, stratification, instantiation, registerial cartography, metafunction, systemic functional paradigm
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Halliday’s trinocular vision – applied to register
    • 2.1Trinocular vision
    • 2.2Shunting along global and local semiotic dimensions
    • 2.3Beyond semiotic systems: The ordered typology of systems
  • 3.The intersection of stratification and instantiation
  • 4.Registerial cartography
    • 4.1The notion of semiotic cartography
    • 4.2Registerial cartography
    • 4.3Adding another global semiotic dimension: The metafunctional spectrum
    • 4.4Further semiotic dimensions: axis and rank
    • 4.5Aggregates of registers
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 29 January 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/langct.00019.mat
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