Every text is shaped by its context. Edexcel focuses on four contextual factors — mode, field, function and audience — that explain why a text makes the choices it does.
You will learn each factor, how they interact as register, and how to use them to analyse and compare texts. Press Start.
Context · mode
Mode: the speech-writing continuum
Mode is the channel — spoken, written or electronic — seen as a continuum.
Writing-like features: planning, permanence, standard spelling and punctuation.
Blended mode: messaging and social media are written but strongly speech-like.
Key idea: place a text on the continuum by counting its speech-like and writing-like features, rather than labelling it one or the other.
Quick check
Where on the continuum?
?A group chat is typed but full of ellipsis, contractions and rapid turn-taking. On the mode continuum it is best described as:
Context · field
Field: subject matter
Field is the subject matter of a text and the language it demands.
Field shapes the lexis: a legal text uses legal terms, a recipe uses cooking terms.
It drives jargon and specialist semantic fields.
Field can signal expertise and construct an in-group of knowledgeable readers.
Link: field is one of Halliday's register variables, alongside tenor and mode.
Context · function
Function: purpose
Function is the purpose of a text — what it is trying to do:
To inform, instruct, persuade, entertain, or a blend.
Function drives grammatical choices: imperatives to instruct, emotive lexis and rhetorical questions to persuade.
Many real texts are multi-functional (an advert informs and persuades and entertains).
Tip: identify the dominant function, then note how secondary functions support it.
Quick check
Identify the function
?A leaflet uses imperatives such as Whisk the eggs and Fold in the flour, in numbered steps. Its dominant function is to:
Context · audience
Audience
Audience is who the text is aimed at. Texts often construct and address a specific reader.
Direct address and second-person you build a relationship.
Lexis and complexity are tailored to the audience's age and knowledge.
Synthetic personalisation (Fairclough): addressing a mass audience as if each reader were an individual.
Tenor: the writer-reader relationship (formal or informal, equal or unequal) is Halliday's tenor variable.
Sort it
Sort each feature to the factor it reveals
Tap a feature, then tap the contextual factor it most reveals.
📡 Mode
📚 Field
🧭 Function
Register
Register: how the factors combine
The four factors combine to produce a text's register — its overall variety and level of formality.
Halliday's variables: field (subject), tenor (relationship), mode (channel).
A shift in any factor shifts the register (formal report vs friendly email on the same topic).
Comparison skill: when comparing texts, explain how differences in mode, field, function and audience produce differences in register.
Match it
Match factor to what it concerns
Tap a factor on the left, then what it concerns on the right.
Factor
Concerns
Quick check
Synthetic personalisation
?A supermarket email begins Hi Sam, we picked these deals just for you, though it was sent to millions. Addressing a mass audience as an individual is Fairclough's: