Robots, Register and the Perils of Sameness: Or, How AI Accidentally Rediscovers Halliday

(Alternative conference titles, should the first prove too polite)

1. Saving Register from Genre: How Large Language Models Rediscover Halliday

2. Same-ification and Salvation: AI, Genre Pedagogy and the Return of Register

3. The Beige Apocalypse That Wasn’t: AI, Probability and the Ecology of Register

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Abstract

Recent commentary suggests that artificial intelligence may “same-ify” human expression by encouraging writers to adopt statistically typical linguistic patterns. Curiously, this concern mirrors a long-standing educational practice within systemic functional linguistics: the explicit teaching of genre structures designed to stabilise institutional discourse. This paper playfully explores the irony. While genre pedagogy deliberately standardises schematic staging in order to support equitable access to valued registers, large language models instead approximate probabilistic distributions across lexicogrammatical selections. In doing so, they arguably reproduce a view of linguistic variation closer to the register model associated with M. A. K. Halliday. The result is an unexpected inversion: genre pedagogy promotes structural convergence, while AI quietly reveals the probabilistic landscape of register variation. The paper concludes by suggesting that fears of AI-driven homogenisation may underestimate both the resilience of linguistic systems and the mischievous tendencies of writers.

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Keywords

Same-ification • Genre pedagogy • Register (Hallidayan) • Probability distributions in clause networks • Institutional taupe • Hedging, nominalisation & the art of being beige • AI as accidental linguistic theorist • Stylometric mischief • Deviation vs. centre • Gratuitous parenthetical irony

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1. The New Panic: AI and the Same-ification of Language

A recent article in Nature (here) warns that AI may “same-ify” human expression by encouraging writers to adopt the stylistic centre of institutional discourse. The concern is straightforward: if writers rely on AI suggestions, linguistic diversity might diminish.

The argument is not implausible. Large language models are trained on vast corpora of text and generate outputs that reflect statistical regularities in those corpora. As a result, their responses often resemble a remarkably competent version of mid-range academic prose: balanced, hedged, nominalised, and syntactically well behaved.

Readers recognise the style immediately.

It is the linguistic equivalent of beige.¹

Yet the alarm about homogenisation invites a small question: when exactly did institutional discourse become famous for its exuberant stylistic diversity?

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2. The Long Tradition of Deliberate Same-ification

Within educational linguistics, the stabilisation of discourse is not a bug. It is a feature.

The genre pedagogy associated with J. R. Martin explicitly teaches students to reproduce recognisable schematic structures. Genres are described as staged, goal-oriented social processes, and classroom practice frequently involves modelling and jointly constructing these structures.

Students learn that an exposition typically proceeds through stages such as:

• thesis

• argument

• reiteration.

Similarly, explanations, reports, and discussions each have characteristic rhetorical organisations.

This approach has been enormously successful in addressing inequities of access to institutional discourse. By making the structures of valued genres explicit, students gain the resources required to participate in educational contexts that might otherwise exclude them.

But the pedagogical mechanism is clear:

students are taught to reproduce particular textual shapes.

If the goal were linguistic same-ification, genre pedagogy would already represent a remarkably effective technology.²

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3. Register: A Probabilistic Alternative

The model of variation associated with M. A. K. Halliday operates rather differently.

Register is not defined primarily by schematic structure. Instead, it emerges as a configuration of linguistic probabilities associated with a situation type.

Texts in a given register tend to favour particular selections across the system network:

• certain lexical fields

• certain clause structures

• certain patterns of grammatical metaphor

• certain rhetorical rhythms.

None of these selections are obligatory.

They are simply more likely.

From this perspective, variation is intrinsic to the system. Writers navigate a probabilistic landscape rather than reproducing a fixed template.

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4. Enter the Machines

Large language models do something unexpectedly compatible with this probabilistic view.

Rather than enforcing genre structures, they approximate statistical distributions across linguistic selections. When prompted to produce a piece of writing, they generate sequences that lie near the centre of the probability distribution learned from their training data.

The results often resemble the “average” text within a register.

Importantly, however, the model does not require a specific schematic structure. It simply produces a sequence that is statistically plausible.

From a systemic perspective, this behaviour looks rather like a machine wandering around the central region of a register’s probability landscape.³

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5. The Comic Inversion

This produces a small but entertaining theoretical inversion.

Genre pedagogy says:

“Here is the structure your text should follow.”

AI says:

“Here is a statistically typical example. Do with it what you will.”

The first approach explicitly prescribes textual staging.

The second merely offers a probabilistic suggestion.

From the perspective of structural variation, the machine is arguably the less prescriptive actor.

This does not mean that AI encourages stylistic innovation. Its outputs tend toward the statistical centre of discourse. But the human writer remains free to accept, modify, or reject those suggestions.

In practice, many experienced writers do precisely that.

AI becomes a baseline — the centre against which deviation becomes visible.

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6. Probability, Deviation and the Ecology of Discourse

Linguistic systems evolve through the interaction of stabilisation and deviation.

Institutions favour predictable discourse because it supports coordination and evaluation. Pedagogical programs therefore cultivate reproducible textual forms.

At the same time, individual writers continually push against those forms. They vary clause patterns, introduce unexpected metaphors, disrupt rhetorical staging, and otherwise explore the edges of the system’s potential.

Large language models add an interesting new element to this ecology.

By producing central examples of a register with remarkable efficiency, they make the statistical centre visible.

And once the centre becomes visible, deviation becomes easier to recognise — and sometimes more tempting.

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7. The Unexpected Outcome

The fear that AI will homogenise language assumes that writers passively accept its suggestions.

But writers have historically been rather bad at doing what they are told.⁴

If AI assistance becomes widespread in administrative and academic writing, the likely result may not be uniformity but contrast: a thick plateau of statistically central prose surrounded by distinctive peaks where individual writers deliberately bend the system.

In other words, the machines may end up performing a useful service.

They produce the average paragraph so that humans can enjoy rewriting it.

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8. Conclusion: Register Rescued by Robots

The concern that AI will “same-ify” human expression reveals an interesting assumption about linguistic systems: that uniformity is something newly introduced by machines.

Yet institutional discourse has long relied on explicit mechanisms for stabilising textual form, from style manuals to genre pedagogy.

Large language models do something subtly different. They reproduce probabilistic tendencies without enforcing structural templates.

In doing so, they inadvertently illustrate a central insight of systemic functional linguistics: that language operates as a network of choices organised by probability rather than rigid rule.

The machines, it seems, have rediscovered register.

One suspects that M. A. K. Halliday might have found this rather amusing.

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Footnotes

1. Readers are invited to imagine a colour chart of academic prose. The centre would likely be labelled “institutional taupe.”

2. This observation is not intended as criticism. Stabilisation of discourse is often necessary for equitable participation in institutional contexts. The present argument merely notes that homogenisation, where it occurs, is not an innovation introduced by machines.

3. An image which, if taken too literally, may lead to the alarming idea of robots hiking through the system network carrying probability maps.

4. Indeed, the history of literature might be described as a long series of attempts by writers to avoid sounding like everyone else.

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Imagined Conference Q&A

(The author acknowledges that any resemblance to real conference discussions is entirely coincidental.)

Q1: Are you suggesting that genre pedagogy homogenises writing?

A1: Not at all. Genre pedagogy performs a crucial role in enabling equitable access to institutional discourse. The present argument merely observes that some degree of structural convergence is likely to follow. This should not be confused with homogenisation. It should instead be understood as very successful coordination.

Q2: But surely large language models reinforce dominant discourse patterns?

A2: Indeed they do. They reproduce the statistical centre of the discourse they are trained on. Which is precisely why their outputs often resemble the average paragraph in an academic article. This should not alarm us. It should merely reassure us that the machines have been reading the same journals as the rest of us.

Q3: Does this mean AI will replace writers?

A3: Only if writers wish to produce the most statistically typical paragraph available. Those with stronger stylistic preferences may instead find AI useful as a convenient example of what the centre of the register looks like — thereby clarifying which direction they would prefer to move away from it.

Q4: How does this relate to register theory?

A4: Large language models approximate probability distributions across linguistic selections. This is strikingly compatible with the view of register associated with M. A. K. Halliday, in which linguistic variation emerges from probabilistic tendencies rather than rigid templates. The machines, it seems, have independently rediscovered the importance of probability.

Q5: What would happen if students simply used AI to generate their essays?

A5: In that case they would submit a remarkably competent piece of mid-range institutional prose. This would likely resemble many other remarkably competent pieces of mid-range institutional prose. The resulting situation might therefore provide a valuable opportunity to discuss the difference between reproducing a register and having something interesting to say within it.

Q6 (back of the room): Are you seriously proposing that robots might save register from genre?

A6: Certainly not. But it is occasionally helpful when a machine produces the average paragraph. It reminds us that the system always contains more possibilities than the centre suggests.

When Renaming Replaces Modelling: Stratification, Instantiation, and the Flattening of SFL Architecture

Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) is not just a collection of analytic tools. It is a theory with a very specific architectural commitment: meaning is organised across different levels of symbolic abstraction, related by principled relations such as stratification, realisation, and instantiation. These relations are not optional metaphors; they are what give the theory its explanatory power.

In what follows, we want to examine a prominent reconstrual of SFL—associated most clearly with the work of J. R. Martin—not in order to dispute its descriptive utility, but to show that it rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of this architecture. The issue is not disagreement over details. It is a systematic flattening of relations that Halliday treated as categorically distinct.

This flattening has consequences: theoretical, methodological, and disciplinary.

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1. Levels of symbolic abstraction are not modules

At the core of Halliday’s model is the idea that language is organised across strata that differ in level of symbolic abstraction. Semantics, lexicogrammar, and phonology are not parallel components that “interact”; they are asymmetrically related.

Lower strata realise higher strata.

Higher strata are realised by lower strata.

This is not a claim about where meaning “is”. It is a claim about how symbolic systems are organised so that meaning can be made at all.

A crucial distinction follows from this:

semogenesis (the fact that meaning is made across the system) is not the same thing as stratification (the organisation of symbolic abstraction).

When stratification is misunderstood as “all strata make meaning”, the architectural distinction collapses. Once that collapse occurs, all strata are treated as strata of meaning, rather than as differently abstract symbolic resources.

This is precisely where the reconstrual begins.

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2. From stratification to interaction

In Martin’s work, strata and metafunctions are consistently treated as modules that relate by interaction rather than by asymmetrical realisation. This is visible in the claim that all strata “make meaning”, and more starkly in the treatment of phonology as a stratum of meaning.

From a Hallidayan perspective, this is a category error.

Phonology does not mean in the same sense that semantics does. It stabilises and transmits distinctions that are already semiotically differentiated at a higher level of abstraction. Treating phonology as a meaning stratum erases the very notion of symbolic abstraction that stratification was introduced to explain.

Once this move is made, the theory no longer has the resources to explain why different symbolic levels exist at all.

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3. Instantiation is not descent

A parallel misunderstanding occurs with instantiation.

In Halliday’s model, instantiation is a perspectival relation between potential and instance. A system can be viewed from the pole of potential (as a system) or from the pole of instance (as a text or event). Nothing “moves” down a ladder. No stratum instantiates another stratum.

Instantiation is not a process. It is a way of seeing the same semiotic organisation from different perspectives.

In Martin’s reconstrual, however, instantiation is characterised as all strata instantiate, as if instantiation were a kind of downward movement of meaning. This confusion becomes decisive in his treatment of context.

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4. How context became language

Halliday distinguishes context from language. Context is not a higher stratum of language; it is a different order of abstraction altogether. Field, tenor, and mode are contextual variables that are realised by semantic patterns in language, not systems within language.

Martin reconstructs this architecture by:

• redefining context potential (context of culture) as a stratum of genre

• redefining context instance (context of situation) as a stratum of register

• treating field, tenor, and mode as systems of register

This move converts a relation of instantiation into a relation of interstratal realisation, collapsing context into language. The result is a model in which register and genre are systems of context rather than ways of relating semiotic potential to situation and culture.

The cost of this move is high: the theory loses the ability to distinguish contextual organisation from linguistic organisation in principle.

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5. Renaming as a method of theorising

These architectural confusions would be serious enough on their own. But they are compounded by a distinctive method of theorising.

Rather than modelling new phenomena from data, Martin repeatedly takes existing Hallidayan analyses and renames them, presenting the renamed constructs as novel theoretical advances.

The most striking example is the stratum of discourse semantics.

Halliday’s stratum is simply semantics. In Cohesion in English (Halliday & Hasan 1976), cohesion is analysed as a set of lexicogrammatical resources.

Martin elevates cohesion to a new stratum and relabels its systems:

• reference becomes identification

• lexical cohesion becomes ideation

• conjunction becomes connexion

• Halliday’s semantic system of speech function becomes negotiation

These renamings are not accompanied by a new theory of symbolic abstraction. On the contrary, they are enabled by misunderstandings—such as confusing reference with deixis—which create apparent novelty by differentiation.

Misunderstanding becomes a generative resource.

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6. Why this matters

This is not a dispute about terminology, nor about whose framework is “better”. It is about what happens when a theory built on differentiated relations is reconstructed as a flat landscape of interacting modules.

When stratification, instantiation, realisation, and variation are all treated as the same kind of relation:

• explanatory power is replaced by descriptive proliferation

• architectural constraints disappear

• theoretical novelty becomes indistinguishable from relabelling

The result may be productive in the short term, but it is unstable. It cannot explain its own foundations.

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7. A broader lesson

The deeper issue here is not confined to SFL.

This case illustrates how a theoretical architecture can be hollowed out while its vocabulary is preserved. Once the relations that give concepts their force are flattened, the theory may continue to circulate—but it no longer does the work it once did.

Recovering Halliday’s model is not a matter of loyalty or orthodoxy. It is a matter of taking symbolic abstraction seriously.

Without that commitment, we are no longer doing systemic functional theory at all—we are simply rearranging its names.

From Potential to Readiness: Clarifying Systemic Disposition in SFL Theory

The notion of potential occupies a central role in systemic functional linguistics, but its conceptual status has long been prone to imprecision. Often, potential is metaphorically treated as a reservoir or storehouse of forms, as if instances are drawn from a static inventory. Halliday himself warned against this reading. In fact, he explicitly characterises potential as a subtype of readiness within the system of modulation—that is, in constructions expressing ability, willingness, or inclination (e.g., ready to, able to, willing to). Crucially, Halliday does not extend this characterisation to the broader theory of language; he does not describe meaning potential in general as readiness.

Nonetheless, exploring the implications of treating potential analogically as a structured readiness throughout the SFL system illuminates persistent conceptual ambiguities. This post develops a disciplined, SFL-internal perspective on what follows if we interpret meaning potential in readiness terms.

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1. Readiness in Modulation: The Historical Anchor

Within modulation, Halliday’s use of readiness is precise. Modality expresses the speaker’s disposition to act or to construe events: ready, willing, or able. Here, potential is not a state or a store, but a dispositional configuration: a structured readiness that combines inclination (the directional tendency) and capacity (the structural ability to realise the meaning). This historical anchor legitimates extending the concept analogically to broader meaning potential.

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2. Extending Readiness to Meaning Potential

Interpreting meaning potential as readiness involves conceptualising the system as a dispositional field:

• Inclination: tendencies within the system toward particular construals or semiotic configurations.

• Capacity: structural resources that permit certain actualisations while precluding others.

Readiness thus reframes potential from a metaphorical reservoir into a systematic orientation toward instantiation. This does not claim Halliday explicitly extended readiness to meaning potential; it simply uses the logic of modulation as a productive lens for clarifying systemic potential.

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3. Implications for the Cline of Instantiation

The cline of instantiation, central to SFL, can be reconceived as a gradient of dispositional specificity.

• At the system end, readiness is broad, generalised, and unspecialised.

• At the instance end, readiness is contracted and aligned with particular situational conditions.

This reading clarifies why the system cannot be treated as a set of actual examples. It reinforces Halliday’s point that instantiation is not abstraction but the actualisation of systemic potential in context.

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4. Contextual Potential: Field, Tenor, and Mode

Extending the readiness lens to context illuminates SFL’s semiotic stratification:

• Field: readiness to enact specific types of activity.

• Tenor: readiness to enact particular interpersonal relations.

• Mode: readiness to organise discourse in particular ways.

This perspective corrects a common pedagogical confusion: context is not an environment to be represented; it is semiotic potential realised through readiness across the strata.

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5. Linguistic Potential: Lexicogrammar

Lexicogrammar can similarly be seen as a dispositional system:

• Its inclinations direct the system toward particular semantic construals.

• Its capacities constrain which meanings can be realised in which configurations.

System networks are not inventories of forms; they are metastable patterns of readiness, explaining why delicacy reflects precision of readiness, not mere addition of options.

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6. Readiness and the Cline of Individuation

Variation in SFL presupposes individuation—the distribution of potential across members of a community.

• Collective potential represents the total semiotic readiness of the community.

• Individual potential represents the subset of readiness accessible to a particular user.

• Variation arises from differential access and stability of individual readiness configurations across different contexts.

Viewing meaning potential as readiness clarifies individuation: individuals are not repositories of forms; they are sites where portions of collective readiness are stabilised and selectively actualised. This interpretation remains fully canonical, fully SFL-internal, and avoids metaphysical or relational assumptions.

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7. Implications for Variation

With readiness understood as distributed potential, register and dialectal variation become intelligible as systematic differences in semiotic readiness:

• Register variation: differing distributions of readiness across situation types.

• Idiolectal variation: relative stability of an individual’s readiness configurations.

The reading avoids the mistaken notion that individuals “store” forms; rather, their usage reflects the configuration of distributed readiness in context.

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8. Consequences for Metafunctions

Metafunctions can also be read through readiness:

• Experiential: readiness to construe processes and relations.

• Interpersonal: readiness to enact alignment and negotiation.

• Textual: readiness to organise discourse and maintain coherence.

This perspective clarifies why metafunctions are inseparable yet analytically distinct domains of system potential.

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9. The Payoff: A Coherent Internal Model

Viewing potential as readiness, even analogically, strengthens SFL theory internally:

• Clarifies the cline of instantiation.

• Sharpens understanding of context-system relationships.

• Explains variation and register coherently.

• Aligns closely with Halliday’s pedagogical and theoretical intentions.

Importantly, this remains fully canonical and non-revisionist.

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10. Conclusion: Readiness as a Productive Clarification

Halliday did not claim that meaning potential equals readiness. However, interpreting potential analogically as structured readiness provides a clearer, internally coherent framework for understanding instantiation, variation, and individuation within SFL. It shows how the system, the context, and the individual user are all dispositional actors in the realisation of meaning, without departing from canonical SFL principles.

This clarification strengthens the conceptual integrity of SFL while remaining historically accurate, pedagogically clear, and theoretically tight.

Geoff Thompson On Genre

Thompson (2014: 42-3):

If we now turn, more briefly, to genre, this can be seen in very simple terms as register plus communicative purpose: that is, it includes the more general idea of what the interactants are doing through language, and how they organise the language event, typically in recognisable stages, in order to achieve that purpose. An image that may help you to grasp the difference between register and genre is to see register as cloth and genre as garment: the garment is made of an appropriate type of cloth or cloths, cut and shaped in conventional ways to suit particular purposes. Similarly, a genre deploys the resources of a register (or more than one register) in particular patterns to achieve certain communicative goals.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, in SFL Theory, 'communicative purpose/goal' is rhetorical mode, a textual system of context. Every register realises the mode as well as the field and tenor of a situation type. The notion of 'genre' here is thus redundant.

Thompson's aim here was to include Hasan's notion of genre in his coverage of SFL, but Hasan herself identified her 'genre' as Halliday's 'register'.

What Is A Connotative Semiotic?

For Hjelmslev, connotation is a second-order of signification which uses the denotative sign (signifier and signified) as its signifier and attaches to it an additional signified.

Applied to SFL theory, the expression plane (signifier) of language and the content plane (signified) of language together constitute a denotative semiotic.  And language as a denotative semiotic is the expression plane (signifier) of the culture as semiotic system (signified).  It is this relation between language and culture that constitutes a connotative semiotic.

connotative semiotic (culture ↘ language)

signified	culture as content
signifier	language as expression

denotative semiotic (language)

signified	content plane of language
signifier	expression plane of language

Note that Martin, while claiming to be 'following Hjelmslev' (1992: 493), misinterprets varieties of the content of a denotative semiotic — genre, register — as (the content of) a connotative semiotic.

The Distinct Theoretical Locations Of Context And Register

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 384):

Martin's 'Move' & 'Field' And Hao's 'Figure'

Exploring field in 'social science' (?): Oral examinations in a tertiary Spanish Law course

The presentation starts by setting the general context of the project, followed by a general description of the key analytical tools for this examination – in interpersonal terms, the notion of move from the NEGOTIATION system (Martin, 1992), and in ideational terms, the concept of figure as proposed by Hao (2015). Discourse semantic patterns of ideational and interpersonal meaning are described and then examined in the light of recent theoretical developments in relation to field (Doran & Martin, forthcoming).

Doran, Y.J. & J.R. Martin to appear Field relations: understanding scientific explanations. In K. Maton, J.R. Martin & Y.J. Doran (eds.), Studying science: Knowledge, language, pedagogy. London: Routledge. 

Hao, J. (2015). Construing biology: An Ideational perspective. (Doctor of Philosophy), University of Sydney, Sydney. 

Martin, J.R. (1992). English text. System and structure. Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the SFL notion of a 'move' in an exchange derives from Halliday's semantic system of SPEECH FUNCTION, which Martin (1992) relabels as his own discourse semantic system of NEGOTIATION.

[2] To be clear, the SFL notion of 'figure' derives from Halliday's ideational semantics, as set out in Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 128-76).

[3] To be clear, Martin misunderstands the SFL notion of 'field', as demonstrated  in great detail here.  Essentially,

• In SFL theory, 'field' refers to the ideational dimension of context (the instantiation cline from culture to subculture/situation type to situation);
• Martin misconstrues context as register, which in SFL theory is language, not context, and subpotential, not potential, and thus misunderstands field as the ideational dimension of register;
• In terms of SFL theory, in confusing context potential (culture) with language subpotential (register), Martin's discussions of field confuse field (context) with the ideational meaning (semantics) of a text (of a register).  For example, in terms of SFL theory, Martin's notion of 'building a field' corresponds to the instantiation of ideational semantics during the unfolding of a text (logogenesis).

Matthiessen On Register (abstract for the 3rd Halliday-Hasan International Forum on Language)

Approaching register trinocularly

Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Like many other linguistic phenomena, or indeed more generally semiotic ones, register — or more helpfully, register variation — has proved to be “slippery”. This is partly because semiotic phenomena are inherently hard to pin down: they exist (or unfold) as semiotic phenomena, of course, but at the same time are also (enacted) as social phenomena, (embodied) as biological phenomena, and (ultimately manifested) as physical phenomena. And within their own order of phenomena, while they are located stratally, they derive their value from their stratal neighbourhood, and (crucially) they are extended somewhere along the cline of instantiation. The slippery nature of register is reflected in the history of the term in Systemic Functional Linguistics. Taken from Reid (1956) by Halliday and his colleagues in the 1960s (e.g. Halliday, McIntosh & Strevens 1964; Gregory 1967), the term register meant registerial variation — functional variation in language according to context of use; it reflected the nature of language as an adaptive system. However, in J.R. Martin’s work, the term slipped stratally from language into context, and it came to stand for the contextual variables implicated in functional variation, i.e. field, tenor and mode. Martin has documented this terminological slippage very clearly and carefully (e.g. 1992). So terminologically, we now have two distinct (but related) uses of the term register— its original and still current sense of functional variation, and its later sense as (roughly) situation type. But the phenomenon of functional variation — register variation — is still recognized, regardless of the terminology (cf. Martin 2010). In what follows I use register in its original sense of functional variation.

The slippery nature of the phenomenon of register variation makes me think of one of M.A.K. Halliday’s technical terms, viz. “semantic slime”. He had in mind, in the first instance, the semantic slime that accompanies terms as they slide from everyday use to technical-scientific use; but perhaps we need to recognize such slime also when terms such as register slither from one theoretical area to another. (And of course, “register” is also used with other senses in linguistics, as in phonetics.)

   

Fortunately, SFL comes with a theoretical principle, and method, that enables us to deal with slippery phenomena like register. This is Halliday’s trinocular vision (spelled out by him and others in many places, e.g. Halliday 1978, 1979, 1996; Halliday & Matthiessen 2004). The principle is simple but very powerful: since the systemic functional theory of the “architecture” of language is relational in nature (rather than modular), and is based on intersecting semiotic dimensions like the hierarchy of stratification (cf. Matthiessen 2007), the cline of instantiation and the spectrum of metafunctions, we can shunt along these dimensions (cf. Halliday 1961, on shunting — borrowed from the railways) and adopt different observer points, viewing phenomena trinocularly. Halliday (e.g. 1978) worked this out for the hierarchy of stratification: any phenomenon can be viewed “from above” (from a higher stratum), “from below” (from a lower stratum) and “from roundabout” (from its own stratum, its own primary location). Register variation is semantic variation in the first instance, so its primary location is the stratum of semantics. Consequently, when we view it “from above”, we look at it from the point of view of context, when we view it “from below”, we look at it from the point of view of lexicogrammar (and by further steps, phonology, and then phonetics, or graphology, and then graphetics).

Now, I think that Halliday’s trinocular vision can be applied to all semiotic dimensions, not only to the hierarchy of stratification, where it was first applied. For instance, locally within a stratum, we can use it to move up and down the rank scale as we adopt different views on some particular phenomenon. While I think this is by now a well-known extension of the use of trinocular vision, I believe it is still helpful to view register trinocularly in terms of all the relevant semiotic dimensions, and this is what I propose to focus on in my talk:

·      global semiotic dimensions: 

o   the hierarchy of stratification: register viewed from above — contextual variables and values; register viewed from below — lexicogrammatical realizations (and lower-stratal ones as well); register viewed from roundabout — registers as “meanings at risk”;

o   the cline of instantiation: register viewed from above — from the point of view of the overall meaning potential: registers as subpotentials [with potentially distinct probabilities of instantiation]; register viewed from below — from the point of view of instances of this potential, i.e. texts as flow of meaning: registers as particular patterns (in context of situation), possibly emergent as new adaptations detectable at first as text types [with new relative frequencies]; register viewed from roundabout — the point of view of the mid-region of the cline of instantiation, between potential and instance: registers as systems of semantic strategies adapted to institutional settings (as in Halliday 1973, and Patten 1988).

o   the spectrum of metafunction: all metafunctions (and their contextual correlates) are equally involved in the characterization of register, but we still benefit from viewing registers horizontally as it were — ideationally (logically, experientially), interpersonally and textually.

·      local semiotic dimensions:

o   the hierarchy of rank: any given register will extend across all of the relevant ranks of the semantic rank scale, but we still need to shunt along this hierarchy, viewing texts as instantiating particular registers (and so the registers themselves) both from the highest rank and the lowest rank, making sure that they meet in the middle. (The question whether there is one general semantic rank scale, comparable to the general rank scales in lexicogrammar and phonology is a very interesting one, but a tough one to answer since it depends on extremely extensive analysis of texts from a vast number of different registers, and nobody has even come close in any framework. I suspect it will turn out that the semantic rank scale needs to be differentiated both metafunctionally and registerially. And it is also important to note that rank is as it were experientially biased; the other metafunctional modes have complementary models for dealing with “composition” — including the logical one of complexing, which is what Bill Mann, Sandy Thompson and I focussed on when the developer RST [Rhetorical Structure Theory].)

o   the hierarchy of axis: this hierarchy has only two “values”; but any given register can be viewed from above in terms of systemic organization [paradigmatic axis] and from below in terms of structural organization [syntagmatic axis].

  

If we re-view register trinocularly along the lines that I have suggested, have we covered everything there that needs to be said about register? The short answer is obviously no.

On the one hand, phenomenologically, we also need to consider the ordered typology of systems operating in different phenomenal domains into account, viewing register not only semiotically, but also social, biologically and physically. For example, we need to take account of the role of register in the complex relationship between social hierarchies and the division of labour, noting the way that register variation and dialect variation intersect. (Many of the semiotic upheavals that we witness today can be related to the physical technology of the Internet — i.e. in the first instance (but not only!) to the rapid changes in the channel of the mode variable of context. The ramifications are extensive, just as when the printing press was introduced as another new channel technology.)

On the other hand, to address and take account of all the insightful observations that have been made about register (and also  the potentially misguided ones), we need to go meta — we need to find or create a framework of observations that transcends SFL since a great deal of very valuable work on register has been done and is being done outside SFL, as will be easy to see once the new pioneering journal Register Studies has been launched in 2019).

On the third hand (semiotically, we are not at all limited to our two biological hands — and even this may change Frankenstenially within the biological order of systems if Yuval Noah Harari is on the right track with his vision of Homo Deus, his “history” of tomorrow — which I would call a forecast), there are quite a few phenomena that have yet to be interpreted consensually — like ideology (see Lukin 2019) and individuation (discussed by various contributors to Bednarek & Martin 2010). Ideology and individuation are two of the issues in the exploration of language in context that I pointed to in a talk at ALSFAL XIV hosted by BUAP in Puebla (8-12 October, 2018): “Issues: ideology, individuation, institutions; intervention; impact; implementation”. Time permitting, I will try to touch on these issues since I think they are all central to the theme of this Halliday-Hasan Forum, “Register: New Questions and Possibilities”. One central area of impact is education, and fortunately Kazuhiro Teruya will deal with this area in his talk.

This talk is part of my attempt over the years to contribute to our understanding and investigation of register — e.g. Matthiessen (1993, 2015). The focus on register in this third Forum is very timely, also in view of the launch next year of the new journal Register Studies that I mentioned above. The first issue will include interviews with scholars dealing with register in different traditions and from different point of departure, and my contribution represents SFL; a later issue will include an interview of me about register, conducted by Wang Bo and Helen Ma.