Genre and cultural purpose

We recognize a genre when a text does something with language that we’re familiar with. Very often we are able state what kind of text a text is, because we have recognised what purpose it fulfils, or what kind of job it does in its culture of origin.

Definitions of genre

• ‘A genre is a staged, goal-oriented, purposeful activity in which speakers engage as members of our culture’. (Martin, 1984)

• In other words: ‘Genres are how things get done, when language is used to accomplish them’(Martin, 1985)

• There are, therefore, as many genres as there are recognizable social activities

Generic identity

• Negotiating texts depends in part on identifying ways in which a particular text is similar to or reminiscent of other texts circulating in a culture.

• This means that if a text is not easily attributable to a genre it can be a problematic text.

Habitualization

‘Any action that is repeated frequently becomes cast into a pattern, which can then be reproduced with economy of effort and which, ipso facto, is apprehended by its performer as that pattern[…] Habitualization further implies that the action in question may be performed again in the future in the same manner and with the same economical effort’.

Purpose of habitualization

Doing something in pretty much the same way saves time and energy.

• Bakhtin claims that genres are not just ‘economic’ but that they are essential:‘If speech genres did not exist and we had not mastered them, if we had to originate them during the speech process and construct each utterance at will for the first time, speech communication would be almost impossible.’ (1994)

What is habitualized when developing genres?

• As Situations or Contexts recur, we develop recurrent ways of using language.

• For systemic linguists a genre comes about as paricular values of:

1. Field (topic or domain of the situation )2. Tenor (social roles ‘played’by interactants) 3. Mode (typical situations of language use)These regularly co-occur and eventually become

stabilized in the culture as ‘typical’ situations.

The genre of horoscopes

• The field: predicting romantic, material and career events;

• Tenor: advice and warning (asymmetrical) • Mode: direct address from text producer to

(generic) reader/text interpreter (not impersonal)

How language realises situational values

• In horospcopes the situational values are realised in predictable language choices:

• Nouns about love, physical appearance and acquisition of wealth;

• The text producer’s use of imperatives• The use of spoken language features (the

pronoun ‘you’, elliptical structures) combined with written language techniques of nominalisation.

Schematic structure: the most overt expression of a genre

• Bakhtin claims that ‘from the very beginning we have a sense of the speech as a whole’.

• In other words, genres develop linguistic expression through a limited number of functional stages, occurring in a particular sequence.

Typical functional stages of the horoscope genre: stage 1

• You’re on the threshold of a magnificent chapter in your private life, with substantial opportunities emerging after the new moon on the 5th.

• General outlook: general statement about period covered by the horoscope;

Stage 2

• A man who is resourceful, good looking or born around November could be very helpful with your quest for promotion, and you could be celebrating a minor victory on the 9th or 2nd. A trip, reunion or important talk that you could not fit in last month will be more straightforward or enjoyable if you wait until November.

• Uncontingent predictions: stage comprising general predictions about reader’s immediate future;

Stage 3

• If single, you may start dating a charming man whom you met briefly a few weeks ago. Others may be startled by your apologetic actions as you seek reconciliation.

• Contingent predictions: stage in which specific advice is offered contingent on the category the reader belongs to (single, with a partner etc);

• Long-range ventures or people you have not met before should be avoided between the 12th and 17th, especially if your birthday is after the 12th. The pieces of the puzzle will fall into place in the last 10 days of the month or by early November.

• Advice: stage in which the text producer offers advice and warnings.

Stage 4

Schematic structure of a genre

• As we habitualize our joint negotiation of communicative tasks, we establish a series of stages or steps. Together these are known as the schematic structure of a genre.

• ‘Schematic Structure’ represents the positive contribution genre makes to a text: a way of getting from A to B in the way a given culture accomplishes whatever the genre in question is functioning to do in that culture’

• (Martin, 1985)

Constituency and labelling

• Constituency and labelling are important concepts for understanding how genres are structured.

• Constituency: is concerned with identifying the parts (constituents) that make up (constitute) the whole. At its simplest, it involves defining the Beginning, Middle, and End.

Functional labelling

• To divide a text into its constituents it is necessary to establish the basis on which different parts of a text constitute different stages.

• functional criteria: dividing the genre into different stages according to the function of the different constituents.

• All genres have a beginning a middle and an end. So to find more useful labels we should ask what exactly is being done in this beginning or middle or end of the text. Or what exactly is being done in the body of one genre that is different from the body of another?

Realization patterns• 1. If genres are different ways of using language,

then we should find that the speakers make different lexico-grammatical choices according to the different purposes they want to achieve.

• Realization patterns will differ across genres.• 2. If each genre is made up of a number of

different functionally related stages, then the different elements of schematic structure will reveal different lexico-grammatical choices.

• Realization patterns will differ across schematic stages.

Realization patterns: grammatical patterns

• Each stage of schematic structure is associated clearly with a number of grammatical and lexical features. By specifying in as much detail as possible the grammatical patterns of each part of a text, we can determine both how many stages we need to recognize and where to place the boundaries between stages.

Realization patterns of horoscopes

• The language of the General Outlook stage is very different from the language of the Contingent Predictions stage: You’re on the threshold of a magnificent chapter in your private life, with substantial opportunities emerging after the new moon on the 5th.The first involves a relational process (the verb to be) with ‘you’ as subject and general abstract nouns, expressing the overall situation or quality.

Stage 2 and 3

A man who is resourceful, good looking or born around November could be very helpful with your quest for promotion, and you could be celebrating a minor victory on the 9th or 12th.The second (and third) involves conditional clauses, specific time references and process types and modality (epistemic/expressive).

Final stage

• Long-range ventures or people you have not met before should be avoided between the 12th and 17th, especially if your birthday is after the 12th. The pieces of the puzzle will fall into place in the last 10 days of the month or by early November.

• the final stage involves modality (mainly deontic/relational) and conditions and forms of the future.

Men’s Health LettersI’m all for improving my diet and finding ways of cutting out fat. Your shepherd’s pie

recipe (Fat Burner’s Bible, April ‘98) was a good one, but to cook mince only to let it go cold and then scrape of the fat takes too long. So try this instead:

1. Heat the mince in a Frying pan (cook it in it’s own fat) until it’s brown.2. Meanwhile, boil a kettle. Once the mince is cooked, transfer it to a sieve and put

the kettle of boiling water over the mince. The fat should drain away, leaving lean mince without the wait.

3. Make sure that you run the hot tap in your sink to avoid clogging the drain.

Tim Whitmarsh, Chesterfield, Derbyshire.

Thank you for your tip, Tim. Have a pen to write your recipes down.

Short Changed

Thanks for the article on ways to survive that weekly curse, the dreaded Monday morning (June, ’98). It was really helpful, except for one piece of advice, which left me more frazzled than ever when I tried to act on it. Professor Howard Weiss suggested looking for money dropped on the pavement which, when found, would put me in a good mood before I reached the office. I doesn’t work. Believe me, when you try to look for lost money, you never find it – if you’d given away a free metal detector with the last issue, things might have been different. My suggestion – giving money away. Spending a couple of quid on the Big Issue is much better for the soul.

• J Last Birmingham.

Analysis of constituent parts of the readers’ tips genre.

1. Recognition of or assumption of relevance of topic (raised or advanced in previous edition(s) of magazine): 52: ‘I’m all for improving my diet and finding ways of cutting out fat’2 Thanks for /recognition of usefulness of previous suggestion or advice in magazine52 : Your shepherd’s pie recipe … was a good one52: Thanks for the article on the weekly curse…

•

3 Limitation or inadequacy of part of the previous suggestion: 52: ‘But to cook mince only to let it go cold and then scrape of the fat takes to long. Try this instead:52: ‘It was really helpful except for one piece of advice… It doesn’t work, believe me.

4 Refinement to defective element, or alternative to it:52 ‘So try this instead’, followed by instructions (imperative)52 ‘If you’d given away a free metal detector with the last issue, it might have been different’, followed by recommendation (imperative)

•

• 5 Name of correspondent

• 6 Recognition/ thanks from text producer- especially if the text is deemed to add to rather than detract from the original tip/advice)

Realizational patterns in reader’s tips

1a. relational process (usually based on verb ‘to be’: I’m all for (describing attitude to a topic or issue)

1b. Thanks for previous article) –conventional phrase

2. identification of limitation: adversative conjunction: but, except, instead.

• Alternative advice (witty and impossible) - past conditional

• Alternative advice (concrete) - instruction-giving imperatives.

• Thank you from magazine (optional)