What term is used to refer to a variety of language used to a particular social setting?

Language is sensitive to its context of situation

1[…] language varies not just according to who we are [the relations between language varieties, groups, affiliation], but also according to the situation in which we find ourselves. This latter type of variation is traditionally approached through the concept of register, sometimes also being referred to as stylistic variation. The basic notion is that any given instance of language is inextricably bound up with its context of situation and that different types of situation require us to handle the language differently. The sensitivity of language to its context of situation is so strong that we can often recover features of the context from very small – almost trivial – examples. For instance, many readers will feel confident that they can reconstruct the different contexts of situation for the following utterances :

2

(1) ‘I’m going to give you a prescription for the pain.’
(2) ‘Cream together butter, sugar and beaten yolks until smooth.’
(3) ‘New Tubifast. The tubular dressing retention bandage. sticking. No
tying. No pinning.’
(4) ‘Beauty of Velvet at truly Budget Prices. In 16 colours. Send now for full
derails and actual fabric samples.’ […] (pp. 105-106)

3The notion of register helps to clarify the interrelationship of language with context by handling it under three basic headings – field, tenor and mode.

Conclusion

14[…] language varies not just according to who we are but also according to the situations in which we find ourselves. We have seen in some detail how closely language is tied to its social context, so that certain linguistic choices - of grammar as well as vocabulary – seem naturally appropriate to certain contexts, while others do not. Contexts have associated with them, we might say, repertoires of linguistic choice. This is not an elaborate way of saying that we have to choose the right word to match the occasion. For what the notion register implies is that context of situation consist of options for meaning. The fact that some wordings are more appropriate than others in particular contexts reflects a deeper underlying difference : that contexts differ fundamentally in the kind of meanings they allow (p. 125).

NDLR : Annexe

15La perspective de Montgomery est à rapprocher des orientations théoriques de l’ethnolinguiste nord américain Dell Hymes, comme on peut le voir dans la citation suivante : « Forms of speech. A major theoretical and empirical problem is to distinguish the verbal resources of a community. […] Three criteria seem to require recognition at the present time : the historical provenience of the language resources ; presence or absence of mutual intelligibility ; and specialization in use. The criteria often do not coincide. Language and dialect are suggested for the first ; codes for the second ; and varieties and register for the third. […] Register has become familiar in English linguistic usage for reference to specific situations ; varieties or "functional varieties", has been used in American linguistics in relation to broad domains (e.g., vernacular vs. standard). […] Genres. By genres are meant categories such as poem, myth, tale, proverb, riddle, curse, prayer, oration, lecture, commercial, form letter, editorial, etc. From one standpoint the analysis of speech into act is an analysis of speech into instances of genres. The notion of genre implies the possibility of identifying formal characteristics traditionally recognized. […] [problem of unmarked casual speech] […] Genres often coincide with speech events, but must be treated as analytically independent of them. » (p. 65) (« Models of the Interaction of Language and Social Life », in J. Gumperz and D. Hymes, 1972, Directions in sociolinguistics, The Ethnography of Communication, pp. 35-71)

16Elle est bien sûr proche de celles du linguiste britannique Michael Halliday, fondateur de l’Ecole de linguistique systémique : « 2.3 Register. The term ‘register’ was first use in this sense, that of text variety, by Reid (1956) ; the concept was taken up and developed by Jean Ure (Ure and Ellis 1972), and interpreted within Hill’s (1958) ‘institutional linguistic’ framework by Halliday et al. (1964). The register is the semantic variety of which a text may be regarded as an instance. […] A register can be defined as the configuration of semantic resources that the member of a culture typically associates with a situation type. It is the meaning potential that is accessible in a given social context. Both the situation and the register associated with it can be described to varying degrees of specificity ; but the existence of registers is a fact of everyday experience – speakers have no difficulty in recognizing the semantic options and combinations of options that are ‘at risk’ under particular environmental conditions. Since these options are realized in the form of grammar and vocabulary, the register is recognizable as a particular selection of words and structures. But it is defined in terms of meanings ; it is not an aggregate of conventional forms of expression superposed on some underlying content by ‘social factors’ of one kind or another. It is the selection of meanings that constitutes the variety to which a text belongs. » (pp. 110-111) (Language as Social Semiotic. The Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning, 1978, University Park Press, London, Baltimore, 256 p.)

17Le point de vue de ces deux auteurs est donc « local », centré sur une situation particulière. Une approche historique des registres (une accumulation de textes par exemple) semble absente. Le registre est un usage de la langue en situation spécifique (Hymes). Halliday insiste pour sa part sur le caractère sémantique du registre : les ressources sémantiques mobilisables par un locuteur d’une culture donnée, qu’il associe à un type de situation, un contexte particulier. Le registre, fait d’expérience quotidienne, se reconnaît par la sélection caractéristique de mots et de structures, mais reste défini en terme de significations.

18Martin Montgomery nous signale que le débat sur le concept de registre et ses relations au concept de genre se poursuit au sein de l’école de linguistique « systémique-fonctionnelle » de Halliday (appelée également « Sydney School »). Jim Martin (linguiste de cette école) et David Rose publient actuellement chez l’éditeur Equinox un ouvrage intitulé : Genre relations : mapping culture. L’un des chapitres de cet ouvrage discute de la relation du genre au registre dans la perspective de Halliday. Par ailleurs, Teun Van Dijk va publier cette année un ouvrage intitulé Context and discourse. A cognitive Approach, à la Cambridge University Press où il traite du concept de registre dans une perspective cognitiviste.