Registering the Difference

The concept of register is a wonderful tool for readers of all kinds of texts, especially literary ones. This book explains how register can be used without resorting to the full panoply of linguistic jargon. Readers at all levels often shy away from trying to "do stylistics" with their literary and other texts because of the apparently impenetrable terminology in which the discipline of linguistics wraps them. Here is a book that will help you to read for style without forcing you first to become conversant with transformational grammar or functional systemic linguistics.

The concept of register is a wonderful tool for readers of all kinds of texts, especially literary ones. This book explains how register can be used without resorting to the full panoply of linguistic jargon. Readers at all levels often shy away from trying to "do stylistics" with their literary and other texts because of the apparently impenetrable terminology in which the discipline of linguistics wraps them. Here is a book that will help you to read for style without forcing you first to become conversant with transformational grammar or functional systemic linguistics.

Lance St. John Butler is Senior Lecturer in the Department of English Studies at the University of Stirling.