Systemic functional linguists have long been arguing that speakers, though unconsciously, do make choices in language use, corresponding to the particular contexts, to construct different meanings; and thus, the social and cultural context can mostly be revealed through looking into these language selections. (Martin 2010) This paper hopes to justify the above ideas based on the analysis of linguistic features and the context of the text.
The text being analyzed is a transcription of "Hell's Kitchen", a British cookery reality TV show hosted by the head chef Gordon Ramsay. Every episode challenging tasks are given to the contestants who strive for a place for next round of competition, until only one of them survive and win the prize – being a head chef of some exclusive restaurant. The transcribed conversation exchange between Gordon Ramsay and the contestants happens when the teams are serving appetizers. .
Register variables.
With respect to the relationship between language and context, this study closely bears on three register's features – field, mode and tenor. Field stands for the "social actions" in which the interactants are taking part; mode stands for the "symbolic organization" in which language engage; and tenor stands for the "role structure" which displays the status and contact of interactants (Martin, 1992, p. 499-500). The three meta-functions, ideational, textual and interpersonal meaning, of text are considerably shaped by these register variables. In the case of the transcription, therefore, field is concerned with a cooking task in the show "Hell's Kitchen", and brings about the corresponding lexical items such as cakes, cook, oven and appetizer etc. The mode is, certainly, classified as face-to-face interaction which is rather context-dependent, and so allows immediate response, especially feedback tokens.
