Stylistics routledge English Language Introductions

Accent
Dialect
(varieties of pronunciation)
(varieties of grammar 
and vocabulary)
Standard:
Received pronunciation (RP)
Standard English
Non-standard:
Regional Accents
Regional Dialects
(‘Scouse’, ‘Cockney’;
(‘Scouse’; ‘Cockney’;
‘Belfast’; ‘Glaswegian’ and so on)
‘Belfast’; ‘Glaswegian’ and so on)

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Register
Whereas a dialect is a linguistic variety that is defined according to the user of
language – it tells you things about their social and regional background – a 
register
,
on the other hand, is defined according to the 
use
to which language is being put.
In other words, a register shows, through a regular, fixed pattern of vocabulary and
grammar, what a speaker or writer is doing with language at a given moment.
Registers are often discussed in terms of three features of context known as 
field
,
tenor
and 
mode
. Field of discourse refers to the setting and purpose of the interaction,
tenor to the relationship between the participants in interaction and mode to the
medium of communication (that is, whether it is spoken or written). For example,
if we take a particular field of discourse like 
chemistry
, and specify that the language
event take the form of written interaction between a student and lecturer, then 
these parameters will strongly constrain the sort of text-type that is anticipated. 
Only the first of the following two sequences is appropriate to the demands of this
discourse context:
(1)
A quantity of copper sulphate crystals was dissolved in a beaker containing
200ml of H
2
O. The aqueous solution was then heated.
(2)
I was just sayin’, Jimmy, that me and my mate Will were putting some 
copper sulphate stuff into a jug of water the other day. It was bloody great
fun.
The vocabulary and grammar of (1) confirm its field of discourse as science and its
mode as written discourse. Moreover, the use of the 
passive voice
(see A6) without
any explicit interpersonal markers and terms of address, suggests a relatively formal
tenor of discourse. By contrast, it is the very presence of first person pronouns, along
with evaluative adjective phrases (‘bloody great’), that makes the second example
inappropriate to the context of formal scientific prose but appropriate to the context
of a spoken narrative of personal experience. Notice also how tenor of discourse is
made more informal in (2) through both the 
vocative
(the term of direct address,
‘Jimmy’) and the swear word (‘bloody’). In that they can occur in all social and
regional dialects, swear words and taboo language generally are important features
of register, and not, as is commonly assumed, of dialect.