Genre

Texts also belong to different 'genres'.  In contrast to 'register'. what captures the genre of a text is not its lexicogrammatical features but the context itself in which the text is produced (van Dijk 2008, 2009).  This context can be defined according to the three aspects of situation that determine register - field, tenor and mode.   So for example, newspaper reports and political speeches are two distinct text genres.  Producing a newspaper report and a political speech are two different social activities (field).  In each case, there are different social and power relations held between the text-producer and text-consumers (tenor).  And both are delivered via different mediums: written versus spoken respectively (mode).  Genre (or type of 'speech event') has also been modelled by Dell Hymes (1972) using the following mnemonic:

• S.  Setting
• P.  Participants
• E.  Ends
• A.  Act
• K.  Key
• I.   Instrumentalities
• N.  Norms
• G.  Genre