Section 20.1 What Are Genre and Register?
Think about the last several texts you sent, the last email you wrote, and the last academic paper you turned in. The vocabulary was different, the sentence length was different, the tone was different—and yet you navigated all of those shifts without consulting a rulebook. You already know, intuitively, that different situations call for different kinds of language. What you may not yet have is a precise vocabulary for describing why those differences exist and what patterns they follow.
Language use varies systematically depending on context. Two key concepts describe this variation: genre and register.
Genre.
A genre is a category of text characterized by conventions of form, content, and purpose. Genres are socially recognized text types:
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Academic: research articles, essays, dissertations
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Professional: business letters, reports, proposals
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Journalistic: news articles, editorials, features
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Creative: novels, poems, short stories
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Digital: emails, social media posts, text messages
Each genre has expectations that writers must understand and (usually) follow.
Register.
Register refers to the variety of language appropriate to a particular situation, defined by:
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Tenor: The relationship between participants (formal vs. casual)
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Field: The subject matter (technical vs. general)
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Mode: The channel (written vs. spoken; prepared vs. spontaneous)
Register affects vocabulary, sentence structure, and grammatical choices.
