(The) Writer's Mind: Register
One important quality of writing we are working to distinguish is the varieties of register in writing and/or reading. Register is a term used in musicology to mean a range of notes an instrument can play, except that here we are looking at register within language use, and especially within performances of writing and reading. For instance, the spectrum from the concrete to the abstract and all steps in between would constitute an "octave," and so would other registers that constantly are at play.
I suggest that the practice of distinguishing register at work in a given text would also allow us to distinguish how we project and perform with a particular register whenever we read or listen, and of course, write. I have adapted the following four registers (ranges) of language use from Tzvetan Todorov's Introduction to Poetics, pages 21-26: |
The first register is “concrete versus/and abstract” language. At one end of the spectrum of this register, concrete language use calls for very precise particularities. At the other end of the spectrum we find wide generalities that often lack any real content.
The second register is “figural versus/and transparent” language. This is where we begin to shift from purely concrete language, which is transparent to the "things-themselves," and pivot to figural language, which draws attention to itself. On one end of this spectrum of this register, the transparent, we "look through" both concrete and abstract language to "see" what the language refers to, whether things or ideas. On the other end of the spectrum of this register is figural language, which draws attention to itself, so that we "look at" the words (what are called "tropes") and sentences ("schemes"), which together are called "rhetorical figures." These are elements that draw attention to themselves and so draw audiences more interested in the "art" at work in the synthetic, artificial, and hence constructed text.
The third register is “monovalency versus/and polyvalency” in language use.
The fourth and last register (for Todorov) is the "degree of subjectivity" (or to keep things parallel, subjectivity versus/and objectivity) present within the language.
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A fifth register could be called "fragmentary versus/and integral" writing, or the different versus/and the similar.
Keep in mind that when you write or evaluate writing, any position along the range of a given register has its value while at the same time poses a problem. It is important to examine both aspects of each register in a given piece of writing.
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