Intertextuality

“Every text is in some sense like other texts” (Halliday and Hasan, 1985, p. 42) and texts, in general, share certain characteristics that help them to be recognized and accepted as texts. Nonetheless, research has also shown that “texts vary according to

the nature of the contexts they are used in” (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004, p. 27).

Therefore, it may be concluded that some texts share more features than others based on the purposes they serve and the contexts in which they are used.

“The production and reception of a given text depends upon the participants’

knowledge of other texts” (Beaugrande and Dressler, 1981, p. 182). Intertextuality, according to Beaugrande and Dressler, plays such a central role in the science of texts that “the whole notion of textuality may depend upon exploring the influence of intertextuality as a procedural control upon communicative activities at large”

(Beaugrande and Dressler, 1981, p. 206). The role of intertextuality in text creation is also emphasized by Swales who states that creating texts should not be considered an “individually-oriented, inner directed cognitive process … but an acquired response to the discourse conventions which arise from preferred ways of creating and communicating knowledge within particular communities” (1990, p. 4). These preferred ways make texts recognizable in their discourse communities. Discourse communities “tend to separate people into occupational or speciality-interest groups” (Swales, 1990, p. 24) and have “common goals, participatory mechanisms, information exchange, community specific genres, a highly specialized terminology and a high general level of expertise” (1990, p. 29). Swales (1990) suggests that discourse communities use some specific lexis and also community-specific abbreviations and acronyms (p. 26).

Beaugrande and Dressler (1981) consider the notion of discourse community to be very important. They focus on the importance of what some scholars call ‘text types’

and state that “the scientists themselves cannot belong to a scientific community until they have acquired its conventions of discourse and argumentation. Instruction,

description, explanation, examination, interviews, questionnaires, research reports- all these commonplace uses of texts are as indispensable to science as the most elaborate technological instruments” (1981, p. 212).

2.1.3.1 Genre and Text Type

In the literature, two different terms are used to refer to texts which share particular characteristics. These terms are ‘genre’ and ‘text type’. Although some linguists and researchers do not make a distinction between these two concepts and use them interchangeably, others consider them as having distinct meanings. Beaugrande and Dressler use the term ‘text type’ to mean “classes of texts expected to have certain traits for certain purposes” (1981, p. 182). They say that texts can be assigned to a text type according to their function in communication (Beaugrande and Dressler, 1981, p. 185), and give ‘descriptive’, ‘narrative’ and ‘argumentative’ texts as examples of text types, and emphasize that many texts may include all these three functions (1981, pp. 182-184). However, they also refer to telegrams and road signs as text types (1981, p. 142), which could be considered genres by other scholars.

Nunan holds that “different types of communicative events result in different types of discourse, and each of these will have its own distinctive characteristics” (1993, p. 49), emphasizing ‘purpose’ of different genres. In fact, he stresses the fact that

“the overall structure, appearance and grammatical elements reflect the purposes for which the texts were created” (Nunan, 1993, p. 53). Nunan refers to the structure of a text as its ‘generic structure’ and argues that this structure is determined by the communicative purposes of the text (1993, p. 58).

Biber makes a clear distinction between ‘genre’ and ‘text type’. He believes that

“genre categories are determined on the basis of external criteria relating to the speaker’s purpose and topic; they are assigned on the basis of use rather than on the basis of form”, whereas “text types represent groupings of texts that are similar in their linguistic form, irrespective of genre” (1988, p. 170). Therefore, for example,

“particular texts from press reportage, biographies, and academic prose might be very similar in having a narrative linguistic form, and they would thus be grouped together as a single text type, even though they represent three different genres”

(Biber, 1988, p. 206). According to Widdowson, genre is “a type of discourse in written or spoken mode with particular characteristics established by convention”

(1996, p. 127). That he refers to ‘a formal meeting’ (Widdowson, 1996, p. 67) as a genre seems to indicate that his understanding of genre is similar to that of Biber’s.

Stubbs acknowledges that “some authors distinguish between text type and genre”

(1996, p. 11), but he does not. Therefore, he uses the two terms interchangeably and cites Kress (1989) to define these terms as “conventional ways of expressing meanings: purposeful, goal-directed language activities, socially recognized text types, which form patterns of meaning in the social world” (Stubbs, 1996, p. 11). He refers to jokes, sermons, chats, committee meetings, debates, signs, etc. as genres (or text types) (1996, p. 11), and claims that we can gain an understanding of them through identifying and comparing different genres (1996, p. 12).

In his seminal study “Genre Analysis’, Swales provides a comprehensive definition of ‘genre’: “A genre comprises a class of communicative events, the members of which share some set of communicative purposes” (1990, p. 58). He notes that these communicative purposes form the rationale of the genre which “shapes the

schematic structure of the discourse and influences and constrains choice of content and style” (Swales, 1990, p. 58). From the definition, we can infer that genres share purposes, schematic structures, content and style.

2.1.3.2 Genre and Register

A discussion on genre necessitates some clarification as to what differentiates it from the ‘well-established and central concept in linguistics’ (Swales, 1990, p. 41), register. A register involves “the linguistic features which are typically associated with a configuration of situational features” (Halliday and Hasan, 1976, p. 22), and it refers to a language variety defined according to the characteristics of the situation (McArthur, 1992, p. 839). Halliday and Matthiessen define register as “a functional variety of language” (2004, p. 27). Halliday and Hasan hold that when a text is coherent with respect to the situation, it is consistent in register (1976, p. 23).

Registers are sub-classified into field, tenor, and mode of discourse. “Field is associated with the management of the ideas, tenor with the management of personal relations, and mode with the management of discourse itself” (Swales, 1990, p. 40).

Couture (cited in Swales, 1990, p. 41) holds that registers enforce limitations on syntax and vocabulary, whereas genres enforce them on discourse structures.

Additionally, unlike register, a genre can be realized in completed texts and specifies conditions for beginning, continuing and ending a text. The two concepts are distinct in that a genre (research report, business report) is a text with a structure, whereas a register (language of newspaper reporting, bureaucratic language) represents more generalizable stylistic choices. According to Swales, the study of genre is evolving,

it is essential to disconnect genres from registers or styles, and to recognize that genres have schematic structures (1990, p. 42).

2.1.3.3 Genres, Generic Structure, and Moves

Paltridge defines genres as “ways in which people ‘get things done’ through their use of language in particular contexts” (Johns et al., 2006, p. 2). According to Hyland, genres are the socially recognized ways that writers use language “to respond to and construct texts for recurring situations” (Johns et al., 2006, p. 3).

Tardy admits that genres are complex and provides an interesting definition for genre, that it is “a kind of nexuses among the textual, social, and political dimensions of writing” (Johns et al., 2006, p. 4). According to Coe, a genre is a

“culturally typical structure that embodies a socially appropriate strategy for responding to varied situations” (Johns et al, 2006, p. 8). The common theme emerging in all definitions of the concept of ‘genre’ is that a genre involves the socially acceptable use of language in a situation or context to achieve a purpose.

Another common view involving genres is that they should not be seen as

‘permanent’ formulas, as they are living texts and they change according to the needs of their users (Crossley, 2007, p. 15). Swales (2004) also admits that his 1990 definition of genre was ‘long and bold’, and that such definitions may not be relevant to “all possible worlds and all possible times” (p. 61).

The overall structure of a genre represents its purpose. Nunan agrees that the communicative purpose of a text determines its ‘generic structure’ (1993, p. 58). In the literature, this overall structure of a text is referred to as ‘generic structure’

(Flowerdew, 2000; Halliday & Hasan, 1985; Henry, 2007; Nunan, 1993),

‘organizational structure’ (Flowerdew, 2000), ‘discourse structure’ (Swales, 1990),

‘generic move structure’ (Flowerdew, 2000), and ‘schematic structure’ (Swales, 1990). Genres are composed of units of purpose, called ‘moves’ (Swales, 1990) or

‘move structures’ (Flowerdew, 2000), some of which are compulsory and some optional (Flowerdew, 2000; Hasan, 1985;). These constituent parts, or moves, represent the writer’s communicative purpose (Flowerdew, 2000) and perform specific functions (Bhatia, 1993 cited in Henry, 2007, p. 2).

Swales holds that a move is “a discoursal or rhetorical unit that performs a coherent communicative function in a written or spoken discourse” (2004, p. 228). He emphasizes that a move should be “seen as flexible in terms of its linguistic realization”, although “it has sometimes been aligned with a grammatical unit such as a sentence, utterance, or paragraph” (Swales, 2004, pp. 228-229). He emphasizes that a move is a ‘functional, not a formal unit’, and can be fulfilled by a clause, or by several sentences (2004, p. 229).

In addition to the discourse structure represented by the moves, the language used to realize the moves is also extremely important. Henry emphasizes the significance of the lexico-grammatical features commonly employed to fulfill moves (2007, p. 1-2), Flowerdew draws attention to key lexical phrases ‘representative of the move structures’ (2000, p. 374), and Tardy also emphasizes the lexico-grammatical features in generic moves (Johns et al., 2006, p. 5). Moves can be realized in a number of ways, each of which is called a ‘strategy’ (Henry, 2007, p. 3) or a ‘tactic’

(2007, p. 7). Bhatia defines ‘strategies’ as the tactical choices made by the writer to fulfill his or her intention. He states that these strategies are generally used to make the “writing more effective, keeping in mind any special reader requirements,

considerations arising from a different use of medium or prerequisites or constraints imposed by organizational and other factors of this kind”. He emphasizes that strategies do not generally change the fundamental communicative purpose of the genre (1993, pp. 19-20). Henry highlights the fact that each strategy has its own lexico-grammatical features that need to be identified (2007, p. 3).

These strategies are clearly identified by Bhatia. After emphasizing that a writer may use different rhetorical strategies to realize a communicative intention at the level of a move, he exemplifies this with the first move of research article introductions:

‘establishing the research territory’. According to Bhatia, this first move can be realized through three strategies. These are a) asserting centrality of the topic, or b) stating current knowledge, or c) ascribing key characteristics, and the choice depends upon “the constraints like the nature of the topic / field, the background knowledge of the intended readership, reader-writer relationship etc.” (1993, pp. 30-31). It is obvious that the discourse structure of a genre fulfilled by moves, as well as the lexico-grammatical patterns representative of the relevant moves, play significant roles in genre studies, and specifically in academic discourse.