Text analysis for the Course of Stylistics Topic 1: Register Analysis and relevant features

This essay is due to analyze the text “What does it mean to be a digital native?”. (http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/04/business/digital-native-prensky/index.html)

Firstly, author will analyze the register of the text, and then discuss three significant features of the text in different aspects which related to the register.

1. Register To analyze the register, it is necessary to know the definition of register. Here is the description from Wiki-pedia:

In linguistics, a register is a variety of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting. For example, when speaking in a formal setting, an English speaker may be more likely to adhere more closely to prescribed grammar, pronounce words ending in -ing with a velar nasal instead of analveolar nasal (e.g. "walking", not "walkin'"), choose more formal words (e.g. father vs. dad, child vs. kid, etc.), and refrain from using contractions such as ain't, than when speaking in an informal setting.

We can get the register’s definition clearly from above sentences. To say it popularly, it is different types of texts.

Back to the text “What does it mean to be a digital native?”, without stylistic feature, it is better to consider in three aspects: the text’s publication site, text’s content and its purpose. (1) Publication site This text is published at CNN’s website in December 8, 2012, by a journalist of CNN. Usually, there are three registers of essays will be put in a public website: News Report, Conversations and Speeches, Science and Technology. It is obvious that the register is not belong to Conversations and Speeches.

(2) Content Reading the whole text through, we could get the main idea of this text: It introduces the situation about people adapting to digital age in nowadays and gives the prospect in the future. The content does not have the timeliness, while it is a summarize of recent situation. What’s more, the text introduces situations of many places around the world. Therefore, the register of it must not be News Report. As a result, it belongs to Science and Technology part.

(3) Purpose The purpose of this text is simple: To let readers know the situation of people within digital age nowadays. To a large extent, it is like popular science readings. The purpose of it is conveying knowledge to its readers. So the register is Science and Technology without question.

From analysis of these three aspects, it is obvious that the register of this text is Science and Technology. Specifically, in terms of field of Science and Technology, it is a typical scientific reading concerned with social science and digital science. In terms of tenor, it is concerned with communication between specialist and layman. In terms of mode, it is a monograph.

2. Significant features The language of Science and Technology includes texts of a large variety of registers. And the texts of each register of Science and Technology have developed their own stylistic characteristics. Thus we should aim at the specific features, in order to precisely analysis the text and its register. According to the text book on English Stylistics>, it is better to analysis in three aspects: Semantic features, grammatical features and lexical features.

(1) Relationalization The development of Science and Technology mainly refers to the development of the semantic system of language. The most distinct semantic feature we could see from the text is relationalization.

As the major aim of scientific language is to convey information and tell the truth to the other experts or the masses, it will not focus on the actions and events concerned with the scientific investigation, but the relations between these actions and events. So the actions and events will be relationalized into things and concepts, while the relations become the verbal links between them. It is a prominent feature of the English of science and technology.

E.g. …any slowdown in the digital age is a "myth," as innovation will only press forward…

…as the globe's dominant demographic, while the "digital immigrant," becomes a relic…

Here “as” and “while” is used for precise modification and clear logical relations. They make the relationship explicit.

E.g. Prensky defines digital natives as those born into an innate "new culture" while