In sociolinguistics, the term social register refers to specific lexical and grammatical choices as made by speakers depending on the social situational context like formality level , the participants relation and distance of a conversation and the function of the language in the discourse.
Context of situation has a great bearing on the way language is used in various social encounters. Register variables like field, tenor , and mode play a dominant role in the quality of communications in different social settings and sociolects. In sociolinguistic research, however, social register refers to an index characterizing the use of language governing communicative practices upper classes.
In sociolinguistics, the term social register refers to specific lexical and grammatical choices as made by speakers depending on the social situational context like formality level , the participants relation and distance of a conversation and the function of the language in the discourse.
(Social) register pertains one of the dimensions of linguistic variation, namely the diaphasic one. Dealing with this dimension means acquiring consciousness about the variability of the formality levels in different communication contexts.
The act of choosing the register of a given speech situation or written text involves three factors: field, tenor, and mode (Halliday 1978).
Substantially, the use of a certain register is the product of choices concerning the topic of the communicative act (field), the social distance between the participants to the spoken or written exchange (tenor), and the means of communication used - spoken or written (mode).
The fact that you have as term "social register" and not more neutral labels like "register" or "linguistic register", makes me hypothesize that your accent could be on the factor tenor, i.e. "social distance" of the diaphasic variation.
Social register deals with context of situation in interaction but not without context of culture. No language is without culture that is culture of the native speakers. The use of language varies according to these contexts. Language varies for example according to the type of topic called field register. The use of language to say the topic also varies according to whom you are speaking to called register tenor, for example, the way you speak to your father is different from that to your teacher. But this all is also dependent on, for example, speaking face to face or via telephone called mode register. To close, whatever topic your saying, and to whoever interlocutor you are saying, and whatever way you are saying to, are dependent on the culture to rich to your point. Culture deals with values and behaves of how you speak.
In linguistics, a register is a variety of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting. ... These various approaches with their own "register", or set of terms and meanings, fall under disciplines including sociolinguistics, stylistics, pragmatics or systemic functional grammar.