Genres in systemic-functional theory

ABSTRACT The aim of this study is to present the theoretical perspective on genre and register of the so-called ‘Sydney School’; (Martin 1992, Martin and Eggins 2000, Martin and Rose 2008, Rose and Martin 2012), because it is a powerful theoretical and methodological tool for analysis of texts. This approach is based on Systemic-Functional Linguistics (LSF), whose origin dates back to the concepts of context and register defined by Halliday, Macintosh and Strevens (1964), who influenced Martin (1992) in conceiving another perspective for the study of context, interpreting register differently from the notion established by Halliday. I then present the different interpretations of the terms ‘context’, ‘register’ and ‘genre’ within the systemic-functional paradigm, based on the multifunctional language theory developed by Halliday (1978, 1985, 1991, 2002, 2005) and in the studies on context, text, register and genre developed by Hasan (1973, 1995, 2004, 2009), Matthiessen (1993, 2013) e Martin (1992). Genres and registers are terms used by systemicists to refer to the meaning and function of variation between texts in the contextual dimension, as well as how texts resemble each other and are distinguished by expressing linguistic and discursively traces of the social context in which they are used.