Thanks for your very helpful comments. I agree that what you call the
Martin/Rothery SFL perspective tries to generalise genres across
institutions with respect to their linguistic realisations - leaving the
field, tenor and mode account of context to deal with differences and
specificities. I was curious if you could say a little more about
differences with respect to change. I've been interested in developing a
model in which genre explains the way in which a culture goes about
phasing field (ideational meaning) with tenor (interpersonal meaning)
through various modes (textures) into linguistic activities. In this kind
of model, genre represents the past - the combinations and phasing that
have taken place and are thus immanent; whereas register (field, tenor and
mode) represent the future, since a culture changes by combining and
phasing these variables in new ways. What does activity theory have to
say about genesis?
Jim Martin