We have been speaking of register as subpotential.
That formulation is accurate — but incomplete.
It still risks suggesting that register is a region that exists independently, waiting to be entered.
To avoid that implication, we need to shift the emphasis again.
1. From Region to Activation
From the pole of system, we described register as:
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A patterned region of semantic probability.
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A subpotential along the cline of instantiation.
But potential is never static.
It only exists to be actualised.
And actualisation is not the selection of a pre-packaged bundle.
It is the dynamic construal of context realised through semantic choice.
What we call “a register” is the patterned activation of potential in a particular event.
2. Context Is Not a Container
Field, tenor, and mode are not boxes surrounding a text.
They are dimensions of contextual construal.
They are themselves semiotic — construed and realised through meaning.
When a situation unfolds:
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Activity is construed.
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Roles are negotiated.
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The role of language is shaped.
These construals co-articulate with semantic and lexicogrammatical selections.
Register is the emergent alignment of these selections.
It is not a pre-existing object.
It is an event of co-patterning.
3. Actualisation as Alignment
A text does not instantiate “a register” the way a key fits a lock.
Rather:
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Contextual variables are construed.
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Semantic resources are probabilistically favoured.
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Lexicogrammatical patterns align.
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Recurrent staging tendencies emerge.
The alignment is dynamic and gradient.
Each text is a unique configuration of probabilities.
But in every case, register is the event of alignment itself.
4. Why This Matters for “Text Types”
If register is an event of alignment, then:
There are:
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Recurrent contextual construals,
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Habitual semantic alignments,
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Institutionalised probability distributions.
What we call a “type” is the retrospective abstraction from repeated events of alignment.
The type does not precede the event.
The event precedes the type.
5. Register at the Edge of Instance
We are now fully at the edge of instance.
Here, potential is narrowing.
Here, probabilities are becoming selections.
Here, contextual construal and semantic choice are co-articulating.
Register lives at this edge.
It is the patterned trajectory of actualisation.
And trajectories cannot be boxed.
6. The Consequence for Theory
If register is event:
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Classification becomes secondary.
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Description must foreground probability.
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Hybridity becomes expected.
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Innovation becomes reconfiguration of potential.
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Teaching must distinguish heuristic category from ontological claim.
Most importantly:
We stop asking whether a text is a type.
We begin asking how potential is being actualised.
The difference is subtle.
But it restores coherence to the architecture of system and instance.
7. A Small Reversal
Instead of saying:
“This text belongs to the genre of explanation.”
We might say:
“This text strongly aligns with a recurrent explanatory configuration of potential.”
The second sounds cumbersome.
But it preserves the ontology.
And precision matters.
In the final post, we will gather the threads and make the claim explicit:
“Text types” are perspectival artefacts — useful shadows cast by repeated actualisations across the cline.
They were never ontological units.
Only potential.
And its patterned event of becoming.
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