Voice, footing, enregisterment

The article argues that a fuller consideration of voicing phenomena clarifies the nature of processes whereby registers of language expand, change, or remain constant in the socialized competence of language users. The first half of the article describes the semiotic processes whereby voicing effects are recognized or identified by interactants. The second half discusses the role of discursive voices and figures in large-scale sociohistorical practices involving registers. The overall goal is to show that the social existence of registers depends on the semiotic activities of language users, particularly those characterized in this article as matters of “alignment.”