Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 296):
The other factor interacting with mode is genre staging, since one of the story's early stages is more abstract than the rest of the text. To explore this, we'll have to move from register (field, tenor and mode) to genre. Martin & Rose (2008) treat genre as a recurrent configuration of meanings, which phases field, mode and tenor variables together into stages which enact its social purpose.
6.1.3 Modularity and interactionEach of the presentations of linguistic text forming resources considered above adopted a modular perspective. As far as English Text is concerned this has two main dimensions: stratification, and within strata, metafunction. …The problem addressed is a fund[a]mental concern of modular models of semiosis — namely, once modules are distinguished, how do they interface? What is the nature of the conversation among components?
[3] To be clear, this is a non-sequitur, deriving from the previously noted confusion of mode, the role played by language in a situation, with the ideational abstraction in the text that realises a situation.
[4] To be clear, to put it most simply, Martin (1992) distinguishes functional varieties of language (register/text type) from language. This is analogous to distinguishing functional varieties of cattle (dairy vs beef) from cattle.
More technically, from the perspective of SFL Theory, Martin (1992) mistakes the two perspectives (register vs text type) on the midpoint of the cline of instantiation of language for two strata of the context that is realised by language. This also entails treating subpotentials (diatypic varieties) of language for full potentials (stratal systems).
In the case of register, Martin (1992) confused register with the configuration of field tenor and mode features of the situation type that the register realises. In the case of genre, Martin (1992) confused text type with the rhetorical mode of the situation type that the text type realises, and mistakes the semantic structure of such variants as genre structure (at the higher stratum of context).
If these theoretical confusions weren't enough, Martin (1992: 495) also identifies the instantial relation between culture and situation with the realisation relation between his strata of genre and register:
The tension between these two perspectives will be resolved in this chapter by including in the interp[r]etation of context two communication planes, genre (context of culture) and register (context of situation), with register functioning as the expression form of genre, at the same time as language functions as the expression form of register.
[5] To be clear, by stratifying context as genre and register, Martin (1992) incongruously models systems of genre (text type conflated with rhetorical mode) as a higher level of symbolic abstraction that is realised by his systems of register, which, in SFL Theory, are the contextual systems of (i) what the text is about (field), (ii) who is taking part (tenor), and (iii) the role played by language (mode).
On the other hand, the formulation by Martin & Rose (2008)
genre as a recurrent configuration of meanings, which phases field, mode and tenor variables together into stages which enact its social purpose
does not distinguish genre and register as different levels of symbolic abstraction. Instead, they present genre, field, mode, tenor, semantic structure and social purpose (rhetorical mode) as being of the same level of symbolic abstraction, wherein genre "phases" register into semantic structures which "enact" social purpose (rhetorical mode).
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