The Three Components of Register Analysis: Examples of an Article and a Short Story 
Chapter I
INTRODUCTION
The development of the concept of register reflects a need to explain variation according to use, and arises from a concern with the importance of language in action. The term register was first used by the linguist Thomas Bertram Reid in 1956, and brought into general currency in the 1960’s by a group of linguist who wanted to distinguish among variation in language according to the user and variations according to use, in the sense that each speaker has a range of varieties and choices between them at different times (Halliday et al., 1964).
M.A.K Halliday and R. Hasan (1976) interpret register as the linguistic features which are typically associated with a configuration of situational features- with particular values field, mode, and tenor.
According to Biber and Conrad, a register is a variety associated with a particular situation of use including particular communicative purposes. The description of a register covers three major components which are the situational context, the linguistic features and the functional relationships between the first two components.
In analyzing registers, Biber and Conrad emphasize that the three main components should be taken into account when studying registers. The first is represented by the situational characteristics influencing the choice of a register. Since registers are generally defined by their situational context, the investigation of this aspect seems most important. Secondly, registers can be differentiated by the distribution of their pervasive linguistic and grammatical features. It is assumed that each register feature represents a certain function to match the situational context. The third component is the identification of the functions that link the features to the purpose of the situation. One of the corpora that used in this research was a news article. It discusses the current or recent news of either general interest (such as daily newspaper) or of a specific topic (such as
INTRODUCTION
The development of the concept of register reflects a need to explain variation according to use, and arises from a concern with the importance of language in action. The term register was first used by the linguist Thomas Bertram Reid in 1956, and brought into general currency in the 1960’s by a group of linguist who wanted to distinguish among variation in language according to the user and variations according to use, in the sense that each speaker has a range of varieties and choices between them at different times (Halliday et al., 1964).
M.A.K Halliday and R. Hasan (1976) interpret register as the linguistic features which are typically associated with a configuration of situational features- with particular values field, mode, and tenor.
According to Biber and Conrad, a register is a variety associated with a particular situation of use including particular communicative purposes. The description of a register covers three major components which are the situational context, the linguistic features and the functional relationships between the first two components.
In analyzing registers, Biber and Conrad emphasize that the three main components should be taken into account when studying registers. The first is represented by the situational characteristics influencing the choice of a register. Since registers are generally defined by their situational context, the investigation of this aspect seems most important. Secondly, registers can be differentiated by the distribution of their pervasive linguistic and grammatical features. It is assumed that each register feature represents a certain function to match the situational context. The third component is the identification of the functions that link the features to the purpose of the situation. One of the corpora that used in this research was a news article. It discusses the current or recent news of either general interest (such as daily newspaper) or of a specific topic (such as