Text-linguistic approaches to register variation
Douglas Biber | Northern Arizona University
Douglas Biber, Regents’ Professor of Applied Linguistics at Northern Arizona University, authors this article
exploring the connections between register and a text-linguistic approach to language variation. He has spent the last 30 years
pursuing a research program that explores the inherent link between register and language use, including at the phraseological,
grammatical, and lexico-grammatical levels. His seminal book Variation across Speech and Writing (1988, Cambridge University Press) launched multi-dimensional (MD) analysis, a
comprehensive framework and methodology for the large-scale study of register variation. This approach was innovative in taking a
text-linguistic approach to characterize language use across situations of use through the quantitative and functional analysis of
linguistic co-occurrence patterns and underlying dimensions of language use. MD analysis is now used widely to study register
variation over time, in general and specialized registers, in learner language, and across a range of languages. In 1999, the
Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English (Biber et al.) became the first comprehensive descriptive
reference book to systematically consider register variation in describing the grammatical and lexico-grammatical patterns of use
in English. Douglas Biber’s quantitative linguistic research has consistently demonstrated the importance of register as a
predictor of language variation. In his own words, “register always matters” (Gray
2013: 360, Interview with Douglas Biber, English Language & Linguistics).
Keywords: textual variation, functional variation, lexico-grammar, multi-dimensional analysis, quantitative analysis
This article is currently available as a sample
article.
Published online: 26 April 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/rs.18007.bib
https://doi.org/10.1075/rs.18007.bib
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References
References
Baker, P., & Egbert, J.
Barbieri, F., & Wizner, S.
in press). Appendix A: Annotations of major register and genre studies. In D. Biber & S. Conrad. Register, genre, and style, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bernstein, B.
Biber, D.
Biber, D., Conrad, S., & Reppen, R.
Biber, D., Conrad, S., Reppen, R., Byrd, P., & Helt, M.
Biber, D., Egbert, J., & Davies, M.
Biber, D., Egbert, J., Gray, B., Oppliger, R., & Szmrecsanyi, B.
Biber, D., Egbert, J., & Keller, D.
under review). Reconceptualizing register in a continuous situational space. Ms.
Biber, D., & Gray, B.
Biber, D., & Gray, B. & K. Poonpon
Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., & Finegan, E.
Biber, D., & Jones, J. K.
Biber, D., & Reppen, R.
Brown, P., & Fraser, C.
Carroll, J. B.
Chafe, W. L.
Chafe, W. L., & Danielewicz, J.
Conrad, S., & D. Biber
Eckert, P., & Rickford, J. R.
Egbert, J., & Biber, D.
Ervin-Tripp, S.
Ferguson, C. A.
Finegan, E., & Biber, D.
Halliday, M. A. K.
Irvine, J.
Ochs, E.
Cited by
Cited by 4 other publications
Biber, Douglas, Jesse Egbert & Daniel Keller
Biber, Douglas, Jesse Egbert, Daniel Keller & Stacey Wizner
Goulart, Larissa, Bethany Gray, Shelley Staples, Amanda Black, Aisha Shelton, Douglas Biber, Jesse Egbert & Stacey Wizner
Seoane, Elena & Cristina Suárez-Gómez
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