GENRE ANALYSIS AND PHRASEOLOGICAL PATTERNS
2.1 Overview
This chapter reviews the past literature on two major topics relevant to the present study. The first part of the chapter introduces the central theoretical framework of the current study, namely genre analysis. The conceptual background of genre from three distinct approaches is discussed: New Rhetoric School, the Australian Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and the English for Specific Purposes (ESP) approach, in order to determine the most appropriate method for the present study. Previous studies on textual organisation, using Swales’ move analysis are reviewed. The chapter then discusses the concept of phraseological patterns, with reference to the characteristics and functional classification of formulaic sequences. The chapter ends with a review of research on phraseological patterns on academic discourse.
2.2 Genre Analysis
During the past decade, genre has become one of the most popular areas of Applied Linguistics research. Its applications have had considerable influence on language pedagogy in educational contexts across the world. In this chapter, the concept of genre will be discussed initially, and subsequently the three principal traditions of genre studies, and how they relate to the present study.
2.2.1 Concept of genre: A philosophical concept
Several different and/or overlapping definitions of genre are offered by researchers from a wide range of perspectives (Bhatia, 1993; Biber & Conrad, 2009; Coe, 2002; Hyland, 2002b, 2003; Martin, 2005; Martin & Rose, 2008; Swales, 1990, 2004; Widdowson, 2007). These scholars generally attribute genre to language use as social action, representing the relationship between text and context. Martin (1984), for example, describes genre as “a staged, goal-oriented, purposeful activity in which
speakers engage as members of our culture” (p. 25). For Coe (2002), genre is the relationship between the function and meaning of language in a particular context, specifically referring to “functional relationship between a type of text and a type of rhetorical situation” (p. 197). Similar to Coe (2002), Johns et al. (2006) consider genre as grouping texts together and representing how writers use language to respond to and construct texts for recurring situations. It involves the relationship between language and the expectations of the context in which the language is being produced. This is because genres are “ways in which people get things done through their use of language in particular contexts” (Johns et al., 2006, p. 235).
Focusing on the significance of social context and language use, Hyland (2002b) states that “genres are abstract, socially recognized ways of using language” (p. 114), whereas Bhatia (1993) sees genre as “an instance of a successful achievement of specific communicative purpose using conventionalized knowledge of linguistic and discoursal resources” (p. 13). According to Hyland (2002b), genre not only embeds social realities, but also constructs them as texts that will display the writer’s awareness of their context and the readers who form an audience in that context (Hyland, 2003). With the notion that there are norms and conventional expectations for the rhetorical structures of different text types, Widdowson (2007) states that genre is “a use of language which conforms to certain schematic and textual conventions, as agreed by a particular discourse community” (p. 129).
Concerning a theoretical distinction between the terms register, genre, and style, Biber and Conrad (2009) argue that genre is “similar to the register perspective in that it includes a description of the purposes and situational context of a text variety, but its linguistic analysis contrasts with the register perspective by focusing on the conventional structures used to construct a complete text within the variety” (p. 2). This definition clearly includes the notion of the conventional discourse structure of texts and the way language is typically used in particular contexts.
Another very influential and comprehensive definition of genre in the literature is proposed by Swales (1990, p. 58). His definition includes notions of “structure, style, content, and intended audience” which members of a particular discourse community share.
A genre comprises a class of communicative events, the members of which share some set of communicative purposes. These purposes are recognised by the expert members of the parent discourse community, and thereby constitute the rationale for the genre. This rationale shapes the schematic structure of the discourse and influences and constraints choice of content and style. Communicative purpose is both a privileged criterion and one that operates to keep the scope of a genre as here conceived narrowly focused on comparable rhetorical action. In addition to purpose, exemplars of a genre exhibit various patterns of similarity in terms of structure, style, content and intended audience…. The genre names inherited and produced by discourse communities and imported by others constitute valuable ethnographic communication, but typically need further validation.
(Swales, 1990, p. 58)
Subsequently, inspired by the notion of communicative activity and the significance of discourse community, Bhatia (1993) condenses and extends Swales’ definition of genre, as follows:
It is a recognizable communicative event characterized by a set of communicative purpose(s) identified and understood by the members of the professional or academic community in which it regularly occurs. Most often it is highly structured and conventionalized with constraints on allowable contributions in terms of their intent, positioning, form and functional value. These constraints, however, are often exploited by the expert members of the discourse community to achieve private intentions within the framework of socially recognized purpose(s).
(Bhatia, 1993, p. 13)
According to Swales (1990) and Bhatia (1993), the importance of genre is primarily characterised by the writers’ communicative purposes. From the perspective of community participation, a shared set of communicative purposes in a discourse community shapes and creates an internal structure of the genre, and in turn, differences in communicative purposes result in different genres. Genre is, thus, regarded as a linguistic product of the members of any discourse community and as one of the major mechanisms through which the members may communicate with their respective community. Bhatia suggests that community members, as experts of the community, are more knowledgeable about the construction and the use of particular genres and their intended communicative purposes than those outside.
Taking into consideration all these different, but overlapping definitions of the concept of genre, I would argue that they share common ground in the sense that genre involves the interaction of a social purpose with a performed social activity, leading to creating and producing a particular text and, as such, it is a highly context-sensitive construct. I will discuss the three main traditions of genre theory in the following section.
2.2.2 Genre studies in three schools
According to Hyon (1996), genre scholarship can be classified into three traditions, namely the New Rhetoric School, the Australian Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and the English for Specific Purposes (ESP) approach. These three traditions of genre analysis have conceptual overlaps as well as differences in terms of the research and pedagogies they encourage. These differences and overlaps were alluded to in the section above, and will now be discussed in detail.
2.2.2.1 New Rhetoric Approach
Freedman and Medway (2003), from the perspective of the New Rhetoric Approach, view genre as dynamic texts shaped and influenced by other related texts and utterances of the sociocultural context. Genres are used to fulfil actions in different situations. The objective of New Rhetoric studies is primarily to serve the needs of university students and novice professionals to help them understand the complex relations between text and context (Hyon, 1996). Johns (2002), however, argued that the context not only consists of the traditional rhetorical situation, such as audience, purposes, and occasion, but also involves who and what texts are in power. With the aim of uncovering the attitudes, values, and beliefs of the communities of text users that genres imply and construct, Artemeva (2008) and Coe (2002) explained that this approach is concerned with the sociocultural context of different text types, including ethnographic descriptions of a particular community and knowledge of and writing styles within genres in a given community. Studies in the New Rhetoric School, therefore, principally focus on the role of social, cultural, and institutional
contexts and the way they interact with text and affect the manifestation of a particular genre (Freedman & Medway, 2003).
New Rhetoric researchers argue that ESP and SFL approaches over-emphasise the conventional nature of the text. Such linguistic approaches also fail to take account of the multiple purposes of genres; of the different purposes of reader and writer or speaker and hearer; and of how purposes develop as a genre progresses (Johns, 2003). As opposed to the ESP approach, genre studies in the New Rhetoric focus more on situational context than linguistic forms, and emphasise “social purposes and the actions resulting from these purposes within specific situations” (J. Flowerdew, 2011, p. 132).
With regard to the pedagogic dimension, most researchers in this tradition disagree with the possibility of teaching written genres in classroom settings as they suggest that genres are constantly evolving through the dynamic process of interaction in a context or social interaction. Hyland (2004a) argues that a classroom appears to be an inauthentic environment that cannot fully provide the quality of the complex nature of negotiations and audiences that an actual situation has. This genre theory generally lacks an explicit instructional application for teaching students the language features and functions of academic and professional genres (Hyon, 1996). Adam and Artemeva (2002) contend that, without explicit instruction, genre can be learned and taught as people learn to use genres at home, at work, or in a community.
Nevertheless, a New Rhetoric approach to teaching and learning of English in EAP classes was applied in Adam and Artemeva’s (2002) study at a Canadian university. They argued that teachers have to be experts in the academic field, in both content and language use to be able to teach EAP. After findings obtained from a study on the conversational mode on the course newsgroup, they concluded that the use of electronic discussion groups could allow students to learn both content and create appropriate response to the rhetorical situations they will meet in disciplinary classrooms. At the end of the course, the students had learned how to participate in the discussion, to listen to others’ opinions, and to consider their ideas in light of new information. The study concludes that content is important, but teachers and curriculum developers need to be experts in academic fields to evaluate how they teach and what they require students to do and learn in EAP classes.
2.2.2.2 Systemic Functional Linguistics Approach
Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) theory is associated with the University of Sydney in Australia. SFL approaches to genre have been centred on primary and secondary schools as well as adult migrant English education and workplace training programmes (Macken-Horarik, 2002). The approach focuses on the close correlations between language and its social function which are a characteristic of specific genres (J. Flowerdew, 2011). Using systemic functional grammar as an analysis tool, this approach aims to explain how language is systematically linked with context through patterns of lexico-grammatical and rhetorical features, and how language is structured for its different usages (Eggins, 2004).
Martin (1984) views genre in the SFL approach as “a staged goal oriented and purposeful activity in which speakers engage as members of our culture” (p. 25), while Eggins (2004) sees genre as “the staged, structured way in which people go about achieving goals using language we are describing genre” (p. 10). Focusing on social contexts and how texts are constructed, Kress (1989) stresses that the context and social occasions which shape the use of language should be prioritised in defining genres. For Kress, genre refers to texts with “specific forms and meaning which are derived from the functions, purposes and meaning of the social occasions … some examples of genre are interview, essay, conversation, tutorials, sports commentary, seduction, office memo, novel, political speech, editorial, sermon, joke and instruction” (p. 19).
Eggins (2004) makes a link between genre and the earlier Hallidayan idea of Register (Michael A Halliday & Hasan, 1989). She supports the explanation of the relationship between text and context provided by Michael A Halliday and Hasan (1989), indicating that “it is possible to identify parts of the language system that are concerned with realising each type of the register variable” (Eggins, 2004, p. 76). She argues that a genre develops when particular values for field, tenor and mode which are identified by register tend to linguistically co-occur and eventually become stabilised in the speech community.
Similar to Halliday and Eggins, Macken-Horarik (2002) suggests critical aspects of context. Macken-Horarik explains that the context of situation can be realised in the following domains: 1) genre describing the goals or purposes of the
users, affecting the schematic structure and type of text; 2) field referring to the subject matter or the social activities of the texts; 3) tenor pertaining to the relationship of the participants engaged in the communicative events, including the status, familiarity, and degree of feeling assumed in the interaction; and 4) mode denoting how language is being used with respect to the channel or medium selected for the communication. Martin (1993) viewed genre as a combination of “language and its semiotic environment” (p. 132), and suggested a conception of language as social semiotic system. Again, with reference to Michael A Halliday and Hasan (1989), Martin (1993) added three more communication planes to the genre concept, including register, genre, and ideology. To illustrate, register here refers to the context of a situation, while genre refers to the context of culture and social purposes. Ideology deals with the whole ensemble of language in social context. Martin’s (1993) ideas regarding the relationship between genre, register, and ideology is presented in the following figure. Figure 2-1 Language and context in the SFL perspective (Martin, 1993, p. 132)
Subsequently, in 1997, Eggins and Martin (1997) represented genre as an aspect of a comprehensive social semiotic theory of language and context. The 1997 model demonstrates the differences and relationship between register (as mode, field, and tenor), and genre. This new model indicates that language is made up of knowledge of sound systems of phonology, clausal systems of lexico-grammar, and textual systems of semantics and discourse semantics. Furthermore, since a language variety functionally associates with particular contextual or situational parameters of variation, characterised by its linguistic features, the patterns of discourse for
ideology genre register semantics grammar phonology
expressing meanings in context, and the basic components of meaning, or macro- functions, are controlled by meta-functions of language, comprising ideational, interpersonal, and textual. The following diagram demonstrates how language is related to the situational parameters of variation.
Figure 2-2 Genre as an additional stratum of analysis beyond tenor, field and mode (Martin & Rose, 2008, p. 17)
With respect to pedagogic implications, the SFL approach has been applied to classroom settings most consistently in the Australian school system (Feez, 2002). Hyon (1996) suggests that, in class, teachers first present model texts from a genre and discuss text features with students, then assist them to explore the genre’s social purposes. When the students become comfortable with particular text types, they are given an increasing amount of independence and encouraged to negotiate text structure and content.
The SFL approach has also been greatly influential in L2 English language teaching, learning and pedagogical practices, particularly the process of teaching students to engage with and create texts (Hyland, 2007). Many teaching and learning cycles have been created as descriptive models suggesting classroom activities and input in order to increase students’ ability to use their existing linguistic and cultural resources in the writing process (Burns & de Silva Joyce, 2005; Butt, Fahey, Spinks, & Yallop, 2000; Feez & Joyce, 1998). Please refer to Section 8.4 in Chapter 8 for a more detailed discussion.
At the curriculum level, to address the literacy needs of primary school students in Australia, Martin and Rose (2008), for example, conducted the “Writing Project” which involved a study of student writing. They categorised primary school text types or genres, resulting in five major genres of stories, histories, reports, explanations, and procedures. Each genre proposed in this project was characterised by distinctive schematic structures, which were in turn identified by typical lexico- grammatical and cohesive patterning. The results of this project have been adopted and applied to curriculum development in several schools in Australia.
2.2.2.3 English for Specific Purposes Approach
The English for Specific Purposes (ESP) approach to genre was initially developed in the UK and then in North America. This approach is based on Swales’ pioneering work (1990) on the discourse pattern and linguistic features of written language in academic and research settings, and then Bhatia’s (1993) work in professional discourse. To Swales (1990, 2004), genre represents a class of structured communicative events associated with particular discourse communities who regularly participate in a given genre and who share a set of communicative purposes.
Hyland (2004a) pointed out that the ESP approach is more interested in linguistic analysis than the New Rhetoric approach, and more oriented to the role of social discourse communities than the SFL approach. Inspired by Swales, most ESP research aims to investigate the relationship between the communicative purposes of genres, the structures, and meanings of text as it is believed that the text is expressed in the staged or sequenced manner (J. Flowerdew, 2011). In this manner, both the functions and forms of the text can be analysed to see how they are used to achieve communicative goals of the text.
In order to address the needs of non-native speakers of English learning to read and write RAs proficiently, Swales proposed the model of RA Introductions called the Create a Research Space (CARS) model in 1990 and went on to fully develop it in 2004 (see Section 2.3.1 for further information). The model represents the organisational structure of texts and the conventional linguistic features associated with a particular genre. It argues that a text is built up systematically through a series
of what are called moves and steps (Swales, 1990), or strategies (Bhatia, 1993). These moves and steps may be considered “obligatory or optional, may vary in their sequencing, may be repeated, and may be embedded one within another” (Swales, 1990, p. 58). From this perspective, I would argue that knowing the schematic structures and the specific form-function correlations of each stage is vital for those who participate in a genre, but do not feel themselves to have a command of these specific patterns. Because these structural patterns are part of the socio-cognitive domain of discourse shaped by the communities, this knowledge is needed where non- native speakers try to compete with native speakers in academic and professional contexts (J. Flowerdew, 2011).
With regard to the application to pedagogy, the ESP approach has been extensively applied to teaching, especially ESP or EAP writing instruction (Hyon, 1996). According to Paltridge (2001), the ESP approach is mostly used to teach international students in English-medium universities in English-speaking countries and elsewhere to improve their writing performance.
Swales and Feak (2004, 2012) put genre knowledge into practice by providing models of academic genres as well as tasks to help non-native speaking graduate students and researchers to master the discourse conventions of a variety of genres in their own writing. All tasks and activities presented in their book emphasise the