Field, tenor and mode

[Guild of English Students]

Halliday classifies the semiotic structure of situation as ‘field’,
‘tenor’ and ‘mode’, which, he suggests, tends to determine the
selection of options in a corresponding component of the semantics.
The linguist David Crystalpoints out that Halliday’s ‘tenor’ stands as
a roughly equivalent term for ‘style’, which is a more specific
alternative used by linguists to avoid ambiguity.

For an example on which to comment, here is a familiar sentence:

I swear by almighty God that the evidence I will give shall be the
truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

For Halliday, the field is the activity associated with the language
used, in this case a religious oath tailored to the environment of a
legal proceeding. Fowler comments that different fields produce
different language, most obviously at the level of vocabulary.

The words ‘swear’ and ‘almighty’ are used instead of perhaps ‘pledge’
or ‘supreme’. In addition, there is the repetition of the word
‘truth’, which evidently triples and thereby emphasises the
seriousness of the vow taken.

The tenor of this sentence would refer to the specific role of the
participants between whom the statement is made, in this case the
person in the witness box proclaiming their intention to be honest
before the court and those in attendance, but most importantly God.

Fowler also comments that within the category of tenor there is a
power relationship, which is determined by the tenor and the intention
of the speaker to persuade, inform, etc. In this case, the tenor is an
affirmation to speak the truth before the court by recognizing the
court’s legal supremacy and at the risk of retribution for not doing
so from this secular court and a spiritual higher authority. This, of
course, is not directly stated within the sentence but only implied.
Halliday’s third category, mode, is what he refers to as the symbolic
organisation of the situation.

Downes recognizes two distinct aspects within the category of mode and
suggests that not only does it describe the relation to the medium:
written, spoken, and so on, but also describes the genre of the text.
Halliday refers to genre as pre-coded language, language that has not
simply been used before, but that predetermines the selection of
textural meanings. For instance, in the sentence above the phrase ‘the
evidence I shall give’ is preferable to the possible alternatives ‘the
testimony I will offer’ or even ‘the facts that I am going to talk
about.’

As well as recognizing different registers of language that appear to
be suitable for a particular situation, stylistics also examines
language that is specifically modified for its setting, an example
being the alteration in tenor from informal to formal, or vice versa.

Consider the quotation below:

‘I was proceeding on my beat when I accosted the suspect whom I had
reason to believe might wish to come down to the station and help with
enquiries in hand.’

This language only belongs in a UK policeman’s notebook and may be
read out in a court of law. The sentence is not only formal but highly
conventional for the location in which it is found. In addition, it is
also extremely ambiguous (a common feature of so-called conventional
language). Why ‘accosted’, for example, and not ‘arrested,’
‘collared,’ ‘nabbed,’ ‘nicked’ or even ‘pinched’? Any of these words
would express more accurately what occurred in language more suitable
for the typical British ‘bobby,’ rather than the pre-scripted text
that is simply being recited parrot fashion. This is in fact
considered to be the most key element in Stylistics.