Academic genres

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Academic genres

• English for Academic Purposes
• Sirbu Iulia Maria

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Definition

• A term for grouping texts together, representing
  how writers typically use language to respond to
  recurring situations (Hyland 200645)
• Stabilized for now, forms of action which are
  open to change and subject to negotiation (New
  Rhetoric School)
• A distinctive category of discourses of any
  type, spoken or written, with or without literary
  aspirations (Swales 199013)

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• Researchers working with Halliday define genres
  by internal linguistic criteria, grouping texts
  that have similar formal features
• Spoken genres and written genres are seen as
• Narratives
• Recounts
• Arguments
• Expositions

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Narrative

• A narrative is a story an interpretation of some
  aspect of the world that is historically and
  culturally grounded and shaped by human
  personality
• E.g. novel

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Recount

• The purpose of a recount is to list and describe
  past experiences by retelling events in the order
  in which they happened (chronological order).
• The basic structure of a recount consists of
  three parts
• The setting or orientation
• Events are identified and described in
  chronological order.
• Concluding comments

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• E.g. A visit to a sheep property
• Last holidays I visited a sheep property. I
  helped in the shearing sheds and in the yards. On
  the first day the Merino withers were crutched. I
  helped by sweeping up after the rouse about
  picked up the wool pieces. Shearers start early
  (at 7.30 am). After lunch, we started shearing
  the lambs. There were more than 400 so we didn't
  finish until the next day. Once again I was
  sweeping . I was tired by the end of the day in
  the shed but our work wasn't finished. We all had
  to help to get the withers and lambs back into
  the paddocks. As well, we had to get a mob of
  ewes and their lambs into the yards for shearing
  the next day. Then it was time for tea (that's
  what my nana calls dinner). This was a very long
  day but I enjoyed it a lot.

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Arguments

• An argument is a statement (premise) or group of
  statements (premises) offered in support of
  another statement (conclusion).
• Argument may refer to
• General types of arguments
• Specific arguments
• Mathematics, science and linguistics
• other

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Expositions

• Expository writing is a mode of writing in which
  the purpose of the author is to inform, explain,
  describe, or define his or her subject to the
  reader.
• E.g. essays, reports or biographies

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Identifying genres

• It has always been a problematic issue
• Sorting text types into sub-types on the basis of
  their purpose poses special problems because each
  text can contain elements of more than one
  purpose.
• E.g. a conversational text can also be a
  description, a narration and/or an argument, or a
  poetic text may also have a didactic and/or a
  narrative purpose.

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• Genres may also be identified on the basis of
  some characteristic of division other than
  communicative purpose.
• E.g. some genres may be called "form" genres
  while others may be called "content" genres.
• A further problem for identifying genres is that
  even the most familiar ones are unstable,
  changeable and can divide, fuse and/or mutate to
  form different kinds of hybrid texts

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Implications of definitions

• Defining genres the way Halliday shows how
  frequently recurring patterns, or elemental
  genres combine to create more specific
  macro-genres
• E.g. a research article might comprise several
  elemental genres such as an exposition and a
  discussion
• This classification also provides a means of
  understanding how genres differ in the demand
  they make on students
• E.g. the demands of a procedure are different
  from those of an explanation

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• In the New Rhetoric approach genre is seen as a
  form of social action which is centered not on
  the substance or the form of the discourse but on
  the action it is used to accomplish
• Genres evolve to meet the changing needs of
  communities, technologies and situations

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Genre in EAP

• Some EAP theorists see genre as communicative
  events used by specific discourse communities
• The idea that people acquire, use and modify
  genres while acting in social groups offers
  teachers a powerful way of understanding and
  addressing the communicative needs of their
  students

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Disciplinary differences

• The writing tasks that students have to do at the
  university are specific to discipline and level
• Therefore three genres can be identified as
  being pivotal to each of the three main domains
  of knowledge
• project proposals in the sciences
• essays in the humanities
• reports and case studies in the social sciences

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Constellations of genres

• The genres of the academy represent an enormous
  range, which Swales refers to as constellation
• All of these genres help create an hierarchy of
  texts which vary in their importance to different
  practitioners in different disciplines

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Genre sets

• In such constellations we almost never find
  genres in isolation
• The concept of genre sets refer to the part of
  the entire genre constellation that a particular
  individual or group engages in.

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Genre chains

• The concept refers to how spoken and written
  texts cluster together in a given social context.
• Sometimes genres follow each other in a
  chronological order
• E.g. writing an application letter

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Genre networks

• Genre networks are the totality of genres
  employed in a particular domain at any one time
• It links texts users to a network of prior texts
  according to their group membership, and provides
  a system of coding options for making meanings

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Conclusion

• Genre systems offer potentially useful methods of
  analysis in information contexts because
  recognition of genres creates a starting point
  and a framework of analysis for a domain and
  helps structure and interpret texts, events,
  ideas, decisions, explanations and every other
  human activity in that domain.

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• Are genres really 'out there' in the world, or
  are they merely the constructions of analysts?
• Is there a finite classification of genres or are
  they in principle infinite?
• Are genres culture-bound or transcultural?

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Bibliography

• Hyland, Ken English for academic purposes(2006,
  Taylor Francis Ltd, England)
• Swales, John Genre analysis English in academic
  and research settings. (1991, Cambridge
  University Press)
• www.wikipedia.com
• http//www.uefap.com