<html><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN lang=EN-GB style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">I am disconcerted to read that “/field, mode /and /tenor/ (also <BR><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>mentioned by Federico) have no precise meaning at all”<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN lang=EN-GB style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">, <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN lang=EN-GB style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I have here before me a 300 page book entitled <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Register Analysis</I> by SFL linguists (including Jim Martin), -- just the wheeze for whoever ‘wants to know what "register" means exactly in the different schools of<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>SFL” -- where one can read (quoted in my piece, BTW)<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN lang=EN-GB style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN lang=EN-GB style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">“field refers to institutional setting” and hence to “the type of social action”; “tenor refers to the relationship between participants; and mode refers to the channel of communication” (pp. <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:metricconverter w:st="on" ProductID="12f">12f</st1:metricconverter>). I go on to remark that the three terms may have been proposed as categories for describing situations rather than language per se”, (which remands me a bit of Malinowski, had he not been originally affected by the folk psychology of Wilhelm Wundt.)<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN lang=EN-GB style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN lang=EN-GB style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">My problem with these three terms is that each has several other less technucal meanings which can invite confusion, as we see. <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN lang=EN-GB style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN lang=EN-GB style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial">PS I see SFL as a tool for CDA, not a competitor, but in my <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">New Introduction</I> of 2004 I have extensively revised the terminology for just this reason.</SPAN><SPAN lang=EN-GB style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana"><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P><BR>PPS I wonder how far this purported anti-cognitivism of SFL is a heritage of J.R. Firth, who wrote:</P>
<P><SPAN lang=EN-GB style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">We incur a ‘great handicap’ by ‘depending’ on ‘prior disciplines’, such as ‘logic, philosophy’, ‘psychology', ‘metaphysics’...</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN lang=EN-GB style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><SPAN lang=EN-GB style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">‘our studies of speech and language’, as well as our ‘educational methodology, have been dominated far too much by psychology and logic’; ‘individual psychology’ ‘emphasizes’ ‘incommunicable’ ‘experience’...</SPAN></SPAN></P>
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