Genre

GENRE
Diasna Marta Siwi 16202241003
Satika Hajar Rimayanti 16202241005
Puspita Pertiwi 16202241016
Ridha Alfia N 16202241019

Introduction
• The interpretation of social context includes two levels of
communication: genre (context of culture) and register (context of
situation) (Martin,1992, p. 495).

Genre
a definition
According to John Flowerdew at Discourse at English Language Education
(2013) Genre refers to different communicative events which are associated
with particular settings and which have recognized structures and
communicative functions.
Genres are the culturally evolved ways of achieving goals that involve
language. They are "staged, goal oriented social processes" (Martin, 1992, p.
505) in which people engage as members of their culture. They are "social
because we participate in genres with other people; goal-oriented because we
use genres to get things done; staged because it usually takes us a few steps to
reach our goals" (Martin & Rose, 2003, pp. 7-8). Each genre is therefore
characterised by a distinctive schematic structure with a clear beginning,
middle and end through which the function of the genre is realised.

Genre
Examples:
Genres as routines
• purchase of goods (food,
clothing etc),
• medical consultation,
• eating in a restaurant
• church services,
• TV interviews,
• getting arrested etc.
Genre in Education
• Lectures
• Seminars
• Tutorials
• Written genres: narratives,
reports, explanations,
procedures, and expositions.
These genres have their own distinctive structures (or well-established stages)
because of the social purposes they fulfil in the culture in which they are used.
They occur in particular situation types and it is the characteristics of this
situation type that influence the forms of language that realise the genre.

Register
a definition
Within the business or educational
culture in which the language is used,
there are many different situations.
Within any context of situation, there
are three main variables that largely
determine the language choices that
are made. These variables function
together and are responsible for the
configuration of language features in
the text. This configuration of
language features is the Register. This
context of situation of a text has been
described by Halliday (Halliday and
Hasan, 1985, p. 12) in terms of the
variables of Field, Tenor and Mode.

• The FIELD OF DISCOURSE refers to what is happening, to the nature
of the social action that is taking place: what is it that the participants are
engaged in, in which the language is an essential component?
• The TENOR OF DISCOURSE
refers to who is taking part, to
the nature of the participants, their
statuses and roles: what kinds of
role relationships obtain among
the participants, including
permanent and temporary
relationships of one kind or
another, both the types of speech
role that they are taking on in the
dialogue and the whole cluster of
socially significant relationships
in which they are involved?
• The MODE OF DISCOURSE
refers to what part the language
is playing, what it is that the
participants are expecting the
language to do for them in that
situation, the symbolic organisation
of the text, the status that it has, and
its function in the context, including
the channel (is it spoken or written
or some combination of the two)
and also the rhetorical mode, what
is being achieved by the text in
terms of such categories as
persuasive, expository, didactic and
the like.

According to Martin (1992), text structure is produced at the level of genre
and, as part of the realisation process, generic choices select Field, Mode and
Tenor options associated with particular elements of text structure.
The interpretation of context then includes two levels of communication, genre
(context of culture) and register (context of situation), with register functioning
as the expression form of genre, at the same time as language functions as the
expression form of register. Martin (1992, p. 495) schematises this three plane
model as shown below:

Genre and Register
differences
Genre
• Genres is associated with
particular field of activity or
professions and they are
specific communicative
events.
• One difference between genre
and register is that genre
tends to be associated, more
with the organization of
culture and social purposes
around language and is tied
more closely to considerations
of ideology and power.
(Bhatia, 1993; Swales, 1990)
Register
• Register is a type of language
associated with a particular
field or profession, but this
language may be used for
various purposes.
Communicative purpose is a
distinctive feature of genres.
• Register is associated with the
organization of situation or
immediate context.

Other Characteristics Of Genre

1. Staging
• By staged, we mean that a genre has a specific
sequential structure (which it follows more or less
strictly).
2. Communities of practise
• They belong to particular communities of users.
• People who do not belong to such discourse
communities or communities of practice may find
it more or less difficult to participate in the
relevant genres.
• members of a given professional community are
likely to have a much better understanding of a
genre than apprentices or outsiders.

3. Conventionalised lexicogrammatical
features
• Some gens are quite formulaic. For example
by the use of parallel grammatical structure
and the use of material process verbs (for
example, make a mess, clean up, use, wash,
wet, dry) is easily recognized as a feature of
this particular genre.

4. Recurrent nature of genres
• Conventionality is an important feature when we
come toconsider how genre knowledge is
acquired.
• Genre knowledge develops through repeated
exposure and practice.
• Knowledge acquired through repeated exposure is
stored in the form of what psychologists refer to
as schemata (singular, schema), which are mental
representations used to store information.
• This is how genre knowledge is built up over time
and through repeated exposure. We can thus say
that its recurrent nature is another important
feature of genre.

5. Genre as a flexible concept
• a ‘flexible’ rather than a ‘static’ view is
required (Paltridge, 2005/2006: 89).
• a number of scholars have argued that genre
is beyond definition.
• Swales (2004) said that definitions of genre
are not ‘true in all possible worlds and all
possible times’ (cited in Paltridge, 2006: 86)

7. Intertextuality
How there are references in one text to other
texts.
Intertextuality has various form:
From fairclough viewpoint (1992)
From Devitt viewpoint (1991)

Various form of
intertextuality
(Fairclough)
1) Manifest intertextuality
(quotation, citation, paraphrase)
2) Constitutive intertextuality
(generic features which do not
leave an obvious trace from the
source)

Various form of
intertextuality
(Devitt)
Referential: When one text refers
directly to another one
Generic: When a text draws on
similar texts created in a similar
situation.
Functional: When a text is part of
a larger system of texts, dealing
with a particular issue.

8. Intercultural nature of genres
Genres are likely to be subject to intercultural variation.
Various writers prefer to see the differences among cultures in
terms of “ the differences or preferences in the pragmatic and
strategic choices that writers make in response to external
demands and cultural histories. A number of differences were
noted both at the level of assessment by members of the two
communities of practice & at the level of rhetorical structure.

In North America, Great Britain, and Australia,
genre theory has been applied in pedagogic
practice.
Hyon (1996) categorized genre study according
to three approaches:
The ESP
school
The Sydney
school
The New
Rhetoric
school

The ESP School
This work was started by Swales (1990) and Bhatia (1993).
The focus of this work was pedagogic, the idea being that
good
genre descriptions could feed into ESP materials
development and pedagogy more generally.
The basic idea is to establish systematic links between
communicative purposes and properties of texts.
Communicative purposes are expressed in stages or
sequences manner. A text being built up systematically
through a series of what are called moves and steps

Genre Analysis: the CARS Model by Swales
CARS = Create a Research Space
Step 1 Step 1 Step 1
Step 2 or or
Step 3 or Step 2
or
Step 3
Move 1
Establishing a
territory
Move 2
Establishing a
niche
Move 3
Occupying the
niche
Claiming
centrality
Making topic
generelizaton
Reviewing items
of previous
research
Counterclaimi
ng
Indicating
a gap
Question
Raising
Counting a
tradition
Outliniing
Purposes
Announcing Present
Research
Announcing Principal
findings
Indicating research

Another example of schematic structure: Bhata (1993) offers the
following model of seven typical moves for the genre of sales letters:
1. establishing credentials;
2. introducing the offer;
3. offering incentives:
a. offering the product/service;
b. essential detailing of the offer;
c. indicating value of the offer;
4. referring to enclosed documents;
5. inviting further communication;
6. using pressure tactics;
7. ending politely.

Bhatia (1993) recommends the
stages for Genre Analysis
1. placing the given genre-text in a situational
context;
2. surveying the existing literature;
3. refining the situational/contextual analysis;
4. selecting a corpus;
5. studying the institutional context;
6. levels of linguistic analysis;
7. consulting with specialist informants.

Application to Pedagogy
Application of ESP genre theory has focused on tertiary-
level context, helping students to prepare for both
undergraduate and postgraduate study.
One of the most applications of the results of ESP genre is
Swales CARS model and adaptations in various contexts.
Since Swales’s (1990) initial work on ESP genre, ESP
researchers and practitioners have been mindful of
accusations of overgeneralisation and prescriptivism in
the application of genre descriptions to pedagogy

Tardy (2009) conducted a study of the development of genre
knowledge on the part of a group of graduate students in a
North American university. Tardy concluded that six main
resources
and strategies are drawn upon in this enterprise:
1. Prior experience and repeated practice
2. Textual interactions
3. Oral interactions
4. Mentoring and disciplinary participation
5. Shifting roles within a genre network
6. Resource availability

The Sydney School
it developed out of work conducted at the University
of Sydney, among followers of the systemic
functional linguist (SFL) Halliday, under the
leadership of Martin
Halliday posits three parameters of context:
 the subject matter and activity type
of the text
corresponds to the relation between the
participants in the text
 the rhetorical channel and function of the
discourse
Field
Tenor
Mode

These three contextual parameters are associated
with their respective
macrofunctions, or purposes:
• ideational (conveying factual information)
• interpersonal (expressing the speaker’s attitude
and indicating and maintaining social relations)
• textual (creating texts which are coherent and
cohesive within themselves and which fit the
situation in which they are created)

Sydney School, like ESP School, share the notion
of staging. In SFL, this notion was referred to as
schematic structure or structural formula

This methodology can be incorporated into a
model of course design, as developed by Burns and
Joyce (cited in Hyland, 2004: 92), as follows:
1. Identify the overall contexts in which the language will be
used.
2. Develop course goals based on this context of use.
3. Note the sequence of language events within the context.
4. List the genres used in this sequence.
5. Outline the sociocognitive knowledge students need to
participate in this context.
6. Gather and analyze samples of texts.
7. Develop units of work related to these genres and develop
learning objectives to be achieved.

The Rhetorical Genre Studies school

RGS has been mainly confined to North
America and has primarily focused on genres in
academic and professional contexts. Genre
tends to focuse on action. It mut be related to
the cognition and action. It is focused on how
the students are acquiring, critiquing and using
genre. The genre shoul be in real context in
their life.

The approach to pedagogy by
Freedman
1. The learners approach the task with a ‘dimly felt sense’
of the new genre they are attempting.
2. They begin composing by focusing on the specific
content to be embodied in this genre.
3. In the course of the composing, this ‘dimly felt sense’
of the genre is both formulated and modified as (a) this
‘sense’, (b) the composing processes, and (c) the
unfolding text are interrelated and modify each other.
4. On the basis of external feedback (the grade assigned),
the learners either confirm or modify their map of the
genre.

Bawarshi and Reiff (2010: 193–194)
adopting the following stages:
1. Collect samples of the genre.
2. Identify the scene and describe the situation in which
the genre is used:
a. setting;
b. subject;
c. participants;
d. purposes.
3. Identify and describe patterns in the genre’s features.
4. Analyse what these patterns reveal about the situation
and scene.

Application to pedagogy: General
Principles

Paltridge (2001) propose the
advantages of genre-based teaching
1. Develop acquisition of generic competence—
the ability to respond to new genre
2. Give studentschance for full participaton in
social life
3. Allow for the inclusion of the best aspect of
other syllabus, situation types and content
area

GENRE ANALYSIS IN THE FRAME OF SYSTEMIC
FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS
By: Najih Imtihani
Lecturer, Japanese Department, Faculty of
Cultural Science, Universitas Gadjah Mada,
Yogyakarta
2010
ARTICLE

Background
This article aims to investigate the concept of
genre analysis in Systemic Functional Linguistics
(SFL) tradition. The discussion were presented as:
1. Explanation of SFL theory in general.
2. Explanation of Genre analysis concept in general.
3. Discussion about genre analysis in the SFL’ views.
4. Conclusion.

Systemic Functional Linguistics
(SFL)
Is a linguistics approach in studying language, which
considers how language accomplishes its tasks
through various choices. It is considering the
linguistics structures and also the context within
which language takes place. The features that
makes SFL unique are:
1. The view of language as social semiotic
2. Context in SFL
3. Language as a tri-stratal system
4. Metafunctions

The features
The view of language as social
semiotic
• Semiotic is the study of
meaning in its most general
sense. Language is viewed
as the one among a number
of systems of meaning that
constitute human culture
(Halliday, 1985:4)
Context in SFL
• SFL recognizes two models
of social context: Halliday’s
and Martins.
• Halliday’s model is related
to situation stratum. This
context of situation is
represented by register.
• Martin’s model is related to
culture stratum. This
context of culture then
represented by genre.

The features
Language as a tri-stratal system
SFL
Content
Lexico-
grammar
Discourse-
semantic
Expression
Sounding
(Phonology)
Wording
(LG)
Meaning
(DS)
The three strata are presented in figure below:

The features
Metafunctions
• SFL recognizes three general
social functions
(metafunctions) that we use
language for:
– Ideational: provides resources
for construing and reflecting on
our experience of the world
around and inside us.
– Interpersonal: about our
participation, the roles we take
on ourselves and impose on
others, our wish, feelings,
attitudes, and judgments.
– Textual: responsible for
creating cohesion in texts and
establishing continuity in time
and space.
• Parallel to this configuration, one
basic assumption of SFL is also
that each of the contextual
factors (field, tenor, mode)
primarily determines choices in
the ideational, textual, and
interpersonal metafunctions
respectively (Halliday, 1978)
– The field determines the range of
meaning as content, language in
the observer function (ideational)
– The tenor determines the range of
meaning as participation, language
in the intruder function
(interpersonal)
– The mode determines the range of
meaning as texture, language in its
relevance to the environment
(textual).

Genre Analysis
• Genres are associated with categorization of texts as either ideal types or
actual forms (Swales, 1990:34).
• Genres are identified according to their functions and each disciplinary
approach highlights different functions.
• Genre is the role of context in the construction and interpretation of genre,
the description of which varies from one approach to another.
• Genres are the generic structure.
In SFL, Genre is seen as a goal-oriented social activity. The SFL
approach emphasizes the hierarchical relation between language
and culture and considers genre to be representation of the context
culture, which is the most abstract in the hierarchy. This context of
culture determines the context of situation, which is represented y
register.

Generic Structure Potential
(GSP)
• Genre in SFL is defined as “a staged, goal-oriented purposeful
activity”. Genre describes the influence of the context of culture on
language because it relates to culturally-specific purposes. The
purposes affected the stages of the activities employed to fulfil that
purpose.
• Genre is an abstract and general concept and cannot be directly
identified in the language. It can be realized by schematic structure
and register.
• In describing the schematic structure, two concepts are
fundamental: constituency and labelling. Constituents are identified
using functional labelling according to the function of different
constituents. Constituents of a schematic structure are said to be
either obligatory, optional, or recursive.
• A genre is defined according to the obligatory elements of
schematic structure.

Generic Structure Potential (GSP)
Hasan (1985) proposes a model of GSP to encapsulate the commonality and
variation of schematic structures between texts of the same genre.
The stages of a genre of buying and selling:
Greeting (G), Sale Initiation (SI), Sale Enquiry (SE)/Request (SR), Sale Compliance
(SC), Sale (S), Purchase (P), and Purchase Closure (PC) and Finish (F).
Therefore, the GSP of the genre “Service Encounter” of a “Shop Transaction” is
formulated as:
[(G).)SI)^] [(SE.){SR^SC^}^S^] P^PC(^F)
• (..)= indicates optionally of enclosed elements.
• The dot between elements = more than one option in sequence.
• Arrows = iteraction
• Braces with a curved arrows = the degree of iteration for elements in the square
brackets is equal.
• ^ = sequence

Conclusion
In SFL tradition, the concept of genre is used to describe the
impact of the context of culture on language, by exploring the
stages, step-by-step structure cultures institutionalized as ways
of achieving goals. Therefore, SFL has stressed the importance of
the social purposes of genres and describing the rhetorical
structures that have evolved to serve these purposes.

References
• Flowerdew, John (2013). Discourse in English Language
Education (p153-154). Routledge:USA, Canada
• https://jurnal.ugm.ac.id/jurnal-humaniora/article/view/988
• http://www.uefap.com/speaking/genre/genre.htm
• GENRE ANALYSIS IN THE FRAME OF SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL
LINGUISTICS By: Najih Imtihani Lecturer, Japanese
Department, Faculty of Cultural Science, Universitas Gadjah
Mada, Yogyakarta 2010

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