As I've seen it used, register seems to apply to ways of using language
that can cross different genres. Thus, Lyn Cherney discusses the register
used in MUDs, which can also be found in other, very different, sorts of
computer-mediated discourse such as mailing lists, IRC, etc. (In this
particular case, register is used to signal insider, net-literate status).
In contrast, I see genre as a more specific construct which is shaped more
strongly by particular situations and communicative goals. Thus, MUDs,
mailing lists, and bulletin boards are all different genres, but you would
be likely to find a similar register used in many of their instances,
though it is also perfectly conceivable that one might find instances of
each of those genre which used very different registers. IMHO.
I do know that what I think of as "genre theory" is called North American
genre theory by those who are more scholarly than I, so perhaps what I see
as a fairly clear distinction is subsumed into one entity in other flavors
of genre theory, and perhaps that is at the root of the disagreements
between Martin and Hasan?
--Tom
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Tom Erickson
IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
Email: snowfall who-is-at acm.org (preferred); snowfall@us.ibm.com(IBM confidential)
http://www.pliant.org/personal/Tom_Erickson