David Rose On "Register"

At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.

[see grammatical analysis here.]

David Rose wrote to sys-func and Sysfling on 18 March 2015 at 09:15, analysing the above clause complex from Barack Obama's Inauguration Speech:

Now from register (axiologised field)… 

'America has carried on’ is the outcome of 2 factors ‘leading’ and ‘following’  

You may simply think leading is the main factor, but following may be more significant  

What is faithfully followed are the principles of the US constitution… ‘We the People’ implies principle of democracy  

But 'vision of those in high office’ and 'ideals of our forbears’ are co-classified, (vision for future, ideals from history) implying legitimate leadership 

All massively, tightly conspiring to legitimate the tangle of contradictions that is America in crisis

Blogger Comments:

[1] Given that registers are functional varieties of language, Rose says nothing here about this register differs from other registers.

[2] Even though field refers to the ideational dimension of context, 'what is going on' contextually, Rose in this section focuses on the language that realises the context, instead of focusing on the context itself.

[3] Here Rose totally misinterprets the context in which the language was spoken, mistaking the inauguration of a U.S. president for what he terms 'America in crisis'.