It is probably fair to say that Netdynam has it own set of registers, but that these are impossible to define on the basis of products or texts alone, even though these form the only ongoing interaction of the community as a whole. It might be useful to consider the interaction on this mailing list as typical of a genre of mailing list community defined by the type of list it is: Public, Open, Unmoderated, Free, Many to Many, and Process based (cf McElhearn 1996), and that within this 'genre' Netdynam has evolved its own very loose set of registers which can be observed through analysis of lexicogrammatical features, depending on the type of message or response being made within the narrow context of the thread of the discussion at the time, as well as possibly parallel threads. Therefore, although it may not be possible for a rank newcomer to contextualise one post from a thread with any reliabilIty or delicacy in the matter of field, tenor and mode as indicators of the list context in a wider sense, it should not take such an observer very many posts before s/he can contextualise the speech event in terms of metafunctions, especially that of the interpersonal. On the other hand, knowledge of that wider context does seem essential if a participant hopes to make valued contributions to the ongoing discussions, especially if the field of discussion is dependant on a knowledge of list specific history and valued texts; that is, the cycle of context 'intertextuality' has a significant bearing on all other aspects of how the discussion proceeds. In other words, much discussion depends on the experience of having actively participated for some time, and a knowledge of the social orientations that specific contributors have brought to the discussion in the past. Would be participants are more likely to understand what is going on, if they bring frames of 'identity kits' with them, which supply knowledge about each person's background and Discourse orientations as evidenced over a period of time. It seems more salient to discuss notions of personal or individual style or typical role orientations when discussing textual activity on this list. As was pointed out in the Glossary of Terms (Appendix 1: 1), knowledge of argot, for example, is not necessary for participation, but does help to alleviate some of the feelings of interpenetrability and exclusiveness that many newcomers report feeling when first joining this list. It might be that the context of the speech community might better be characterised in terms of Bakhtin's heteroglossia. (cf Lemke 1995). That being said, it is also obvious that certain norms of behaviour have evolved, and that patterns of initiation, response and follow-up type moves within exchanges may be discerned, and that within these, certain structures may be tentatively identified. Whether these are specific to the community Netdynam is another matter, and because the context of situation of all mailing lists is such that matters pertaining to the mode of interaction make process sharing difficult, many of the strategies employed are meant to effect communication approximating that of conversation. I have attempted to show some of these strategies, looked at from the perspective of lexicogrammatical cues in the texts, and related to the context of the immediate 'speech event' embedded within a 'speech community', which in turn forms the context within which such speech events need to be ultimately understood. I have attempted to characterise this speech community using the five cycles of context in a Hallidayan framework, and relate these to what appear to be the pertinent lexical signalling cues evident in text which results in reader response in what seems to be at least superficially predictable ways. These cues I believe are strongly modal in nature, due especially to the characteristics of the mode of interaction outlined above. Further analysis of this relationship between context, and the actual lexicogrammatical features evident in longer sequences of speech events would show whether such notions of predictability can be validated or not, and whether the notion of 'frames of coherence' can be usefully expanded and defined.
notes
1. Indeed this is exactly what happens, and as mentioned previously, it becomes a source of friction and further discussion under two discernible reader positions: 1) the friction at the brink of what is normative, acceptable and 'within bounds' and what is not, must be continually highlighted, tested and exploited in order to bring issues of power and control to the surface, and 2) whenever contentious or potentially face threatening acts are made in the interests of discussion, then it is unacceptable (childish, immature, adolescent, acting out, counter productive) to make these issues public without using mitigating language of deference and mutual respect. (see Brown and Levinson's politeness strategies cf 9.5.1)