Table 3 Register typology based on socio-semiotic processes (field of activity)

• expounding: contexts where natural phenomena such as cold fronts are explicated to help readers or listeners as part of the construction of “knowledge” about general classes of phenomena – either by categorizing (or “documenting”) these phenomena or by explaining them.

• reporting: contexts where the flow of particular human events are recounted to help readers or listeners keep up with or review events — chronicling the flow of particular events (as in historical recounts or news reports), surveying particular places (as in guide books) or inventorying particular entities (as in catalogues).

• recreating: contexts where the flow of particular human imaginary events are constructed to achieve some kind of aesthetic effect — recreating the world imaginatively through narration and/or through dramatization.

• sharing: contexts where personal values and experiences are exchanged to help interactants relate to one another for example by calibrating their sense of moral values in a work place — sharing our personal experiences and/or sharing our personal values.

• doing: contexts where people are engaged in a joint social activity, using language to facilitate the performance of this activity — either by members of one group collaborating with one another or by one person directing the other members of a group.

• enabling: contexts where a course of action is modelled semiotically and made possible through guidance — either by instructing people on how to undertake an activity or by regulating their behavior.

• recommending: contexts where a course of action is recommended for the benefit of the addressee — either by advising them (recommendation for the benefit of the addressee, as in consultations) or inducing them (promotion: recommendation for the benefit of the speaker, as in advertisements).

• exploring: contexts where public values and ideas are put forward and debated — either by reviewing a commodity (goods-&-services) or by arguing about positions and ideas.