INSTRUCTIONAL GENRE (School Genres)
Dr. Rudi Hartono, S.S., M.Pd.
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS SEMARANG STATE UNIVERSITY
✹ Dr. Rudi Hartono, S.S., M.Pd.
✹ Tasikmalaya, September 7, 1969
✹ S-1 (English Linguistics-UNPAD Bandung)
✹ S-2 (English Education-UPI Bandung)
✹ S-3 (Translation Studies of UNS Surakarta)
✹ Mobile Phone: 082137054727
✹ E-mail: thehartonos@gmail.com
✹ Office: State University of Semarang
What is meant by the term
‘genre’?
✹ Genre is a style, especially in the
arts, that involves a particular set of characteristics. (CALD, 2008)
✹ Genres are goal-oriented social
processes that have evolved over time in our culture to enable us to achieve our purposes.
(Derewianka, 2012)
Genre-Based Writing
✹ Genres of Writing
✹ Functions of Text
✹ Schematic
Structures of Text
✹ Linguistic Features of Text
Genres of Writing
✹ Spoofs
✹ Anecdotes
✹ Recounts
✹ Narratives
✹ Reports
✹ Descriptive
✹ Procedures
✹ Explanations
✹ News Items
✹ Analytical Expositions
✹ Hortatory Expositions
✹ Discussions
✹ Reviews
Functions of Texts
Texts Functions
Spoofs To retell a humorous twist
Recounts To retell events for the purpose of informing or entertaining
Reports To classify and describe the phenomena of our world.
Analytical Expositions
To persuade the reader or listener that something is in the case
News Items
To inform readers, listeners or viewers about events of the day which are considered newsworthy or important
Functions of Texts
Texts Functions
Anecdotes To share with others an account of an unusual or amusing incident
Narratives
To amuse, entertain and to deal with
actual experience in different ways, I.e. to gain and hold the reader’s interest in a story.
Procedures
To describe how something is
accomplished through a sequence of actions or steps
Descriptions To describe a particular person, place or thing
Hortatory Expositions
To persuade the reader or listener that something should or should not be the case
Functions of Texts
Texts Functions
Explanations
To explain the processes involved in the formation or workings of
natural or socio-cultural phenomena
Discussions To present (at least) two points of view about an issue
Reviews To critique an art work or event for a public audience
Commentary
To explain the processes involved in the formation (evolution) of a socio-cultural phenomenon, as though a natural phenomenon
Schematic Structures of Recounts
❖ Orientation
❖ Event 1
❖ Event 2
❖ Event 3
❖ Re-orientation
Linguistic Features of a Recount Text
✔ Focus on specific participant
✔ Use of material processes
✔ Circumstances of time and place
✔ Use of past tense
✔ Focus on temporal sequences
Schematic Structures of Reports
✹ General Classification: tells what the phenomenon under discussion is.
✹ Description: tells what the
phenomenon under discussion is like in terms of parts (and their
functions), qualities, habits or behaviors, if living; uses, if
non-natural
Linguistic Features of a Report Text
❖ Focus on Generic Participants
❖ Use Relational Processes
❖ Use of simple present tense
❖ No temporal sequence
Schematic Structures of Narratives
Orientation Evaluation
Complication Resolution
Re-orientation
Linguistic Features of a Narrative Text
✹ Focus on specific and usually individualized participants
✹ Use of material processes
✹ Use of relational processes
✹ Use of temporal conjunction
✹ Use of past tense
Schematic Structures of Procedures
1) Goal
2) Materials 3) Step 1
4) Step 2 5) Step 3 6) Step 4 7) Step 5
Linguistic Features of an Procedure Text
❖ Focus on generalized human agents
❖ Use of simple present tense, often imperative
❖ Use mainly of temporal
conjunction (or numbering to indicate sequence
❖ Use mainly of material processes
Schematic Structures of Descriptions
✹ Identification:
Identifies
phenomenon to be described
✹ Description:
describes parts, qualities,
characteristics
Linguistic Features of a Description Text
✹ Focus on specific participants
✹ Use of attributive and identifying processes
✹ Frequent use of epithets and classifiers in nominal groups
✹ Use of simple present tense
Schematic Structures of News Item
✹ Newsworthy
Event(s): recounts the event in
summary form
✹ Background Events:
elaborate what
happened, to whom, in what
circumstances
✹ Sources: comments by participants in, witnesses to and
authorities expert on the event.
Linguistic Features of a News Item
✹ Short, telegraphic information about story captured in headline
✹ Use of Material processes to retell the event
✹ Use of projecting verbal processes in sources stage
✹ Focus on circumstances
Schematic Structures of Anecdote
1) Abstract: signals the retelling of an usual incident
2) Orientation: sets the scene
3) Crisis: provides details of the unusual incident
4) Reaction: reaction to crisis
5) Coda: Optional—reflection on or evaluation of the incident
Linguistic Features of an Anecdote
❖ Use of exclamations, rhetorical
questions and intensifiers (really, very, quite, etc.) to point up the
significance of the events
❖ Use of materials processes to tell what happened
❖ Use temporal conjunctions
Schematic Structures of Analytical Exposition
❖ Thesis
Position: introduces topic and indicates writer’s
position
Preview: outlines the main
❖ Arguments
Point: restates main argument outlined in preview
Elaboration: develops and supports each
point/argument
❖ Reiteration: restates writer’s position
Linguistic Features of a Analytical Exposition
✔ Focus on generic human and non- human participants
✔ Use of simple present tense
✔ Use of relational processes
✔ Use of internal conjunction to stage argument
✔ Reasoning through causal
conjunction or nominalization
Schematic Structures of Hortatory Exposition
❖ Thesis:
announcement of issue of concern
❖ Arguments: reasons for concern, leading to recommendation
❖ Recommendation:
statement of what
ought or ought not to happen
Linguistic Features of a Hortatory Exposition
✔ Focus on generic human and non- human participants
✔ Use of simple present tense
✔ Use of mental processes: to state what writer thinks or feels about issue e.g. realize, feel, appreciate.
✔ Use of material processes: to state what happens e.g. drive, travel, spend, etc.
✔ Use of relational processes: to state what is or should be e.g. doesn’t seem, is, are, etc.
Schematic Structures of Explanation
❖ A general
statement to position the reader
❖ A sequenced explanation of why or how
something occurs
Linguistic Features of a Explanation Text
✔ Focus on generic, non-human participants
✔ Use mainly of material and relational processes
✔ Use mainly of temporal and causal circumstances and conjunctions
✔ Use of simple present tense
✔ Some use of passive voice to get theme right
Schematic Structures of Discussion
❖ Issue:
- Statement - Preview
❖ Arguments for and
against or statements of differing points of view:
- Point
- Elaboration
❖ Conclusion or
recommendations
Linguistic Features of a Discussion
✔ Focus on generic human and generic non-human participants
✔ Use of mental processes: to state what writer thinks or feels about issue e.g.
realize, feel, appreciate, etc.
✔ Use of material processes: to state what happens e.g. has produced, have
developed, to feed, etc.
✔ Use of relational processes: to state what is or should be e.g. is, could have, cause, are.
Schematic Structures of Reviews
1) Orientation
2) Interpretative recount
3) Evaluation 4) Evaluative
summation
Linguistic Features of an Review Text
❖ Focus on particular participants (on movies, TV shows, plays, operas,
recordings, exhibitions, concerts and ballets
❖ Direct expression of opinions through use of attitudinal lexis
❖ Use of elaborating and extending clause and group complexes to package information
❖ Use metaphorical language
Academic Genres
✹ Academic genres or university genres are types of academic writing products introduced to university students to
learn and to practice for their academic purposes, such as different types of
texts: textbooks, reference books, scholarly and popular articles and
essays, as well as conference papers, official reports and theses.
Some academic genres
✹ Textbook. The aim of a textbook is to communicate established
knowledge.
✹ Scholarly article. The purpose of a scholarly article is to present new knowledge or to provide new
perspectives on an academic or scientific problem or object.
--- continued
✹ Thesis. A thesis is a major piece of scholarly work.
✹ Popular (non-scholarly) work. Popular
texts, in the form of either books or articles, aim to communicate established knowledge to the “general reader”.
✹ Encyclopedia article. The purpose of an encyclopedia article is to present
established knowledge neutrally, concisely and clearly.
What genres do:
✹ texts in different genres do:
communicate, explain, present, argue, inform, describe, narrate etc.
✹ four “modes of discourse”: Exposition, Description, Narration, Argumentation ( EDNA); explain, describe, narrate,
argue (debate, discuss)
Other terms of text types
✹ In some cases, the term genre
coincides with the term text type.
However, the former could be seen as a kind of umbrella term for a
communicative event, for which one or several more specific text types can be employed as the preferred vehicle of
communication.
---continued
✹ Research Articles (RAs)
✹ Textbooks
✹ Abstracts
✹ Reviews (review articles and book reviews)
✹ Undergraduate text types
✹ PhD Theses
✹ Popular science writing
✹ Posters
✹ Grant proposals
✹ The essay format
Research Articles (RAs)
✹ Swales (1990) introduces the genre called research article or research paper. The research article is a written text reporting on an investigation made by a researcher.
Textbooks
✹ "Textbooks [...] disseminate
discipline-based knowledge and, at the same time, display a somewhat unequal writer-reader relationship, with the writer as the specialist and the reader as the non-initiated
apprentice in the discipline, or the writer as the transmitter and the
reader as the recipient of established knowledge." (Bhatia, 2004: 33)
Abstracts
✹ Many research publications require an abstract, which is a brief synopsis of the text outlining its major points.
As Samuel Johnson (1755) defined the term, an abstract is "a smaller quantity containing the virtue or
power of a greater" (quoted in Oxford English Dictionary).
Reviews (book reviews)
✹ A book review is a research genre where scholars evaluate other
scholars' published work. As such, it is an editorially commissioned, public evaluation, which is
commonly published in journals in most disciplines (Hyland 2009).
Reviews (review articles)
✹ The review article can be seen as a special case of the research article.
Its purpose can vary and its format is generally less rigid than the proper research article. Furthermore, it is not uncommon to find alternative genre names used, such as review, review essay, report article, survey article and state-of-the-art survey.
Undergraduate text types
✹ specific text types for different
kinds of assignments commonly employed in a university setting, such as
1. Research Articles (RA)
2. The essay format
3. Reviews
PhD Thesis/PhD dissertation
✹ It has a special function in the academic community. This written piece of text,
typically amounting to 150-300 pages
(Swales 2004, p. 102), functions as a kind of scholarly qualifying piece of work,
through which the author is admitted into the society of academics seen as sharing some sort of common ground in terms of expert knowledge, skills, critical thinking, rigor, and scientific values.
Popular science writing
✹ As an academic, there will be times when you need to explain your subject matter to a non-specialist audience. If you are
working in industry, you may have to keep the company board and the investors
informed about your research results.
Working in the public sector means that you are likely to communicate to the
general public. And, as a scientist, you are sometimes expected to write about your research in the lay press.
Posters
✹ One kind of academic writing that involves far more visual consideration than traditional articles is the poster display.
Along with the orally delivered conference paper, the poster display is a common way of
presenting research results at conferences.
Grant proposals
✹ Grant proposals, i.e. texts written by researchers requesting
funding for research projects, can be seen as a genre of its own.
✹ The prototypical parts of a grant proposal (Swales, 1990: 186):
✹ 1. Front Matter
a) Title or cover page b) Abstract
c) Table of contents
✹ 2. Introduction
✹ 3. Background (typically a literature survey)
✹ 4. Description of proposed research (including methods, approaches, and evaluation instruments)
✹ 5. Back Matter
a) Description of relevant institutional resources b) References
c) Personnel d) Budget
The essay format
✹ The term 'essay' is used in a wide sense and can
refer to anything from a brief paper to a long degree essay.
✹ The structure of an essay usually consists of three elements: Introduction – Body – Conclusion.
✹ In the Introduction, the reader is introduced to the topic that will be discussed and to the argument that will be presented.
✹ After the Introduction comes the main part of the text, the Body, where the discussion is carried out and the results are presented. In the last part of the essay, the Conclusion, the argument will be
summed up and conclusions will be drawn from what has been discussed.
