genre: ‘verbal tailoring from ready-made cloth’?

Language Sciences, Volume 12, Number 2/3. pp. 221-242. 1990 0388-0001/90 $3.00+.00 Pruned in Great Brttain Pergamon Press plc

Genre: ‘Verbal Tailoring from Ready-made Cloth’?’

Joseph Foley

The National University of Singapore

ABSTRACT

In recent years the notion of Genre and genre-based approaches to teaching in the classroom

have become a stgntficant topic of discussion in applied linguistics. Theoretically the basis IS

that of a systematic-functional model of language which explains how language works within

different contexts. The focus on the relationship between language and the context means that

the theory can account for language variation across dtfferent registers and across the different

genres that students need to speak, listen to, read or write. It treats language at the level of text

rather than simply at the level of sentence, as do many other approaches. It will be argued here

that the concept of genre IS not only useful in the first language but also in the second and foreign

language classroom.

In recent years the notion of Genre and genre-based approaches to teaching in the

classroom have become a significant topic of discussion in applied linguistics.

It (Genre) is based on a functional model of language, which systematically describes the

relation\htp between the context in whtch language occurs and the actual language used. This

model through its theory of register and descrtption of grammar and discourse, relates context

of culture and context of situation to actual language use It is based on the belief that grammar

Itself is functional, that ts, language is organized in the way it IS because of the meanings it

realizes (Hammond 1987: 164).

Hammond (1987) has already given an overview of the genre-based approach to the

teaching of writing in the Australian context. I would like to broaden the discus-

sion and outline the theoretical basis for this concept of genre and show why it is

so important for teaching both in first language and second language (ESL/EFL)

classrooms.

222 Language Sciences, Volume 12, Number 2/3 (1990)

THE THEORETICAL BASIS

The Systemic-Functional model as developed by Halliday and other systemicists

provides us with a framework for language as a ‘social semiotic’. ;hat is to say,

language is seen as it relates to social structure and as it is used in social contexts.

By knowing the variables of the context of situation we can predict how the meanings

approprtate to the context can be realized linguistically.

So within the systemic framework ‘grammar’, for example. is seen as a resource

which is modeled as a network of interdependent choices. Choices are viewed for the

most part as choices in meaning. These grammatical systems are organized in two

ways. The first is by rank, with clause, group and word acting as the points of origin

of a distinct network of choices. Rank then organizes system networks with respect

to constttuency. The second major organizing principle is metafunction. Clause-rank

systems (and some group-rank systems) tend to fall into distinct groupings. At clause

rank these are referred to as transitivity, mood and theme. Looking across ranks and

searching for a semantic interpretation of this patterning, the systemic-functional

framework proposes a grammar organized with respect to three types of meaning.

Functional components in the grammar in other words reflect the more general meta-

functions: ideational, interpersonal and textual.

The ideationaljknction is present in all language uses; no matter what a person is

doing with language (apart from a few exceptions such as phatic utterances), there will

be exploitation of the ideational resources. It is the potential for expressing a content

in terms of the speaker’s/writer’s experience and that of the speech community. The

whole of the transitivity system in language - the interpretation and expression in

language of the different types of process of the external world, including material,

mental, abstract processes and the processes of our own consciousness (seeing, liking,

thinking etc.) - is part of the ideational component of the grammar. Transitivity,

then, is simply the grammar of the clause in its ideational aspect, e.g. “I like the dress

that you bought for the wedding.”

The interpersonal finction embodies all use of language to express social and

personal relations. In the clause, the interpersonal element is represented by mood and

modality: the selection of the speaker/writer of a particular role in the speech situation,

and the determination of the choice of roles for the addressee (mood), and the expres-

sion of judgements and predictions (modality). The speaker/writer is not only doing

something him/herself but also requires something of the listener/reader, e.g. “Have

you finished your homework?.”

The textual function is necessary because language has to have a texture in real

contexts of situation that distinguish a living message from a mere entry in a textbook

cr a dictionary. The character of a message in English has the form theme-rheme

within Halliday’s model. The theme is the element which serves as the point of

Genre in Teaching Language 223

departure for the message, the remainder is the rheme. By moving the circumstantial

element from rheme to theme, the speaker/writer can, for example, change the whole

emphasis of the message:

7Iteme Rheme

Human voices float on the edge of the cold wind

On the edge of the cold wind float human voices

What we know as grammar then is the linguistic device for gathering together the

selections in meaning which are derived from the various functions of language, and

realising them in a unified structural form. A clause is the simultaneous realization

of the ideational, interpersonal and textual meanings. However, the learner, learning

a language, has to learn to use that language in a way that is related to the con-

texts of situation: the interpersonal choices the learner makes reflect the tenor ofthe

discourse (how the interactants view their relationship, e.g. one of equality or superior

to inferior etc.); the ideational reflect the field variables (the nature of the social

activity the interactants are engaged in, e.g. teaching or learning); and the textual

reflect the medium by which they are conveyed or the mode (how the sayings/writings

of one interactant become accessible to the other (e.g. face-to-face, by letter etc.).

If we apply this linguistic realization to the specific context of classroom discourse

we might present this diagrammatically as shown overleaf.

It is important to realize that this diagram is at the macro-level of representation.

The more we enter into the system, or into the micro-level, the greater the degree of

delicacy of analysis.

The situational variables ofjeld, mode and tenor predict a particular text variety

or register. Halliday defines register as

the contiguratton of semantic resources that the member of a culture typically associates with

a sttuatton type (Halliday 1978: 1 I I).

However, the concept of genre, as used by some systemic linguists, is another level

not found in Halliday’s own work.

The term “genre” as it is used here bears a relationship to its traditional usage, particularly in

literary discussions. A text may be said to have “generic structure” because it has an overall

characteristtc pattern of shape, making it identifiably different from some other genre, whose

functions will of course be of a different kind. What marks the present use of “genre” as

different. however, from its traditional usages, is the fact that it refers as much to spoken as to

written texts. It is suggested that it is in the nature of the social construction of experience that

human beings generate texts which have distinctive overall patterns or shapes, through which

meanings pertaining to the given context or situation are created (Christie 1989: 168).

224 Language Sciences, Volume 12, Number 213 (1990)

Figure

Note: [ #= determined by; A A = realised by1

(*Martin et al. would not include this infield)

(adapted from Ventola 1988:57; and Hasan personal communication).


As Christie further points out, this definition owes much to the work of Kress

(1982), Martin (1984) and Hasan (1985b), although there are some differences in

the usage. The following is a summary of how genre is seen to fit into an overall

systemic -functional framework.

1 (adopted MarUn 1986’17)

Figure 2.

Its mam peculiartty is that unltke Halliday (1978) or Halliday and Hasan (1985). it includes a

fourth variable beyond the more tradittonal field, mode and tenor; and that unlike Gregory and

Carroll (1978) it makes thts fourth variable, referred to as genre. dominate the other three. Field,

mode and tenor are then referred to as register, which is treated as a semiotic system realized

through language, whtle genre in turn is treated as a semiotic system realized through register

and language (Martin 1986: 17).

Martin defines genre in the following terms:

Genre will be taken here as a staged goal-oriented social process (Martin 1986:33).

Genres are social processes because members of a culture interact with each other

to achieve them; they are goal-oriented because they have evolved in order to get

things done and they are staged because a number of steps are necessary to achieve

the goals. Martin’s notion of genre is based on the distinction made by Hjelmslev

(1961) of denotative and connotative semiotics. For Hjelmslev, language, which has

a phonology for making meaning is denotative (having its own expression form)

while the connotative finds expression through language and this is regisrer and

genre. (Martin 1985:249). Genre was added by Martin as a distinct stratum to better

cope with the semantic aspect of Halliday’s model. Hasan sees no need for this


additional stratum (Hasan 1985a). According to her, as texts of a certain type are

produced in situations of a particular kind, a configuration of linguistic features

(specifically semantic features with their realizations in grammar) becomes associated

with a particular situational configuration. This contextual configuration is made up

of a set of values that realize Field, Mode and Tenor. The specific features of the

contextual configuration then permit statements about the structure of texts. These

statements taken together constitute what Hasan calls the generic structure potential

of that genre. The generic structure potential of a genre involves distinct linguistic

patterning. Texts belonging to one genre are characterized by a set of discourse

elements. These discourse elements correspond to the stages of the activity. The

obligatory and optional elements, together with the order of these elements and

their recursive possibilities, form the schematic structure of the genre. The semantic

attributes of the structural elements can also be specified for texts belonging to one

genre as can the patterns in the lexico-grammatical realization of each discourse

element.

Martin et al. (1987) point out that genre theory differs from register theory in the

amount of emphasis it places on social purpose as a determining variable in language

use. Though Martin does not explicitly say so, it is implied that the purpose of a social

activity underlies the genre plane and it is purpose that determines the staging structure

of the text-type (see Martin 1986:34). Rothery in an early paper in 1980 put it more

directly when she said that the speaker’s

purpose derermlnes the type of discourse and hence IS responsible for the schematIc structure

of rhe text (ManIn and Rothery 1980:9).

To briefly sum up then, Martin and others see texts as categorized according to

the purposes or goals of the social activities they verbalize. This contextual feature

has more importance than the other variables as it determines the stages of the

activity and the schematic structure of the text-type, while simultaneously regulating

the field, mode and tenor combination of each discourse element or state in the

activity. Contrastively, Hasan does not give special attention to functional tenor;

she includes the goal orientation of an activity within the contextual feature of field

of discourse (see Fig. 1). The difference in these two approaches is not major enough

to affect the application of the genre based approach in the classroom. The most

important fact to keep in mind about genres is that they are evolved systems, in

that they arose as the members of our culture negotiated meaning in the process of

living. Genres are part of the evolutionary system in that they introduce stability

into the culture at the same time as being flexible enough to enable participation in

social change.


THE APPLICATION IN THE CLASSROOM

The First Language

The genre approach to language in the classroom has had a number of precursors;

Britton et al. (1975) with the tripartite distinction of expressive, transactional and

poetic texts; the Crediton Project of Wilkinson et al. (1979), and (stemming from the

earlier Sinclair and Coulthard (1975) patterns of discourse in the classroom) Sinclair’s

(n.d.) three-part structure for both oral and written discourse. Here Sinclair proposes

a very general structure of Posit (P) : proposing, imposing or opposing, React (R) :

the reaction to P and Determining (0) which makes an evaluation of the preceding

pair. Conformity, to the underlying P-R-D structure Sinclair suggests, is the basis

of well-formedness in texts. This particular model has been applied in some detail

in the classroom by Morgan (n.d.). (For an overview of a number of linguistic

approaches to children’s writing in the classroom see Harris and Wilkinson 1986.)

However, it is the work of Martin and Rothery (1980, 1981) that brought to the fore

the significance of genres in the classroom. The fact that much of the thinking on genre

was taking place in Australia in the early 80’s is not surprising as Halliday and Hasan,

Kress, Martin and Rothery were all teaching in tertiary institutions in Sydney, while

Ventola and Christie were doing research there. Since then, a growing body of

scholars has added to the corpus of writing on genre such that we are now seeing the

praxis which is so essential to the systemic model of language.

A still very prevalent view of language in the classroom is the duality between

meaning and form. This allows genre to be seen as an arbitrary set of conventions

employed in the transference of ideas. However, the genre bused approach is based

on the fact that language makes meaning. Grammatical structures serve to make

meaning, and a child will develop them to do just this. Also language is a functional

resource in that the language system as a whole can be viewed as having the form it

does because of what it is called upon to do; in other words the needs of language users

have shaped the linguistic system itself (Painter 1989:20-l). Therefore, the useful-

ness of the concept of genre in the classroom is precisely that it focuses on how the

student’s oral and written language is related to the contexts of culture and the situation

in which they are produced. One of the main concerns of the genre approach is to

make explicit, to teachers and students alike, knowledge about how the type of text

will vary according to purpose, topic, audience and the channel of communication.

Therefore, in order to provide access for all students to the genres used in society,

knowledge about language and the role of pedagogic discourse (Bernstein 1986) has

to be made explicit (Hammond 1987).

Language is not how we know something else, it is whar we know; knowledge is not something

that is encoded in language - knowledge is made of language (Halliday 1988:9).

‘SC 12-*,3-G


This leads to a broader question of the nature of knowledge within the school system,

that is to say, what schools value as knowledge.

EducatIonal knowledge IS knowledge freed from the particular. the local. through the various

languages of the sciences, of forms of reflexweness of the arts which makes powble either the

creation or the discovery of new realities (Bernstem 1971a:58).

It is not surprising that we have to turn to Bernstein in order to see how the trans-

mission of knowledge in the classroom and language are one and the same. The

obstruction in the articulation and exploration of the theory of codes, as originally

proposed by Bernstein (1971, 1973, 1975), has not been the responsibility of

Bernstein’s theory of education; the obstruction has been in linguistics. The pre-

occupation of much of linguistics during the 60’s and 70’s was with formalizing

statements concerning syntax. What is crucial to the understanding of codes is a

pattern in meanings. The systemic-functional theory provides the tool to search out

the contrasts and consistencies of semantic orientation in different contexts (Butt

1989). Applying this to the classroom we see that pedagogic discourse is made up,

on the one hand of insrructional discourse, transmitting specialised competencies and

their relation to one another and on the other of regulative discourse, the discourse

creating specialised order, relation and identity. Pedagogic discourse is a re-

contexrualising of discourse (Bernstein 1986:211), that is to say, the learning of the

content of history, geography or physics in school will necessitate a ‘re-contextualising’.

The re-contextualising principles select and de-locate the discourse of history, geo-

graphy and physics from their primary fields (universities, research institutions etc.)

and relocate, refocus them within the context of the school, through text-books,

written/spoken work of both teacher and students. The students then have to be given

access to these forms of discourse, for example, technicality and abstraction, because

knowledge of these specialised genres is a powerful means of entry into society and

needs to be taught directly (see Eggins er al. 1987; Wignall et al. 1987).

Oral Genres

The processes of school learning are mainly encoded in language. All the discourse,

produced by the children and their teacher in any one class, may be thought of as text.

However, because the situations are different they produce different texts. In fact,

examination of the school routine demonstrates that it involves many different learning

activities spread over the day, Furthermore, a major indicator of the differing learning

activities is the language used. That is to say, the very shifts in learning activities ate

themselves encoded in shifts of behavioutal patterns. This also involves a shift in

linguistic pattern which represents a response to the changing nature of elements of


the context of situation, so that the overall shape of the text alters, creating a number

of curriculum genres (Christie 1984).

Curriculum genre refers to the genres produced orally together by teacher and

students.

Just as it is possible to talk of a written genre - a text systematically patterned and organized

to make meaning - it is also possible to speak of a curriculum genre, where the term refers to

the ways in which teaching/learning activities are systematically structured and organized in

patterns of classroom discourse. Curriculum genres are also systematically shaped and structured

ways of making meaning (Christie 1984:2).

The emphasis on the relationship between written text and curriculum genre is one

of the principal areas of interest of Christie’s work (1984, n.d., 1989). Christie

analyses a number of curriculum genres and demonstrates that the patterns of

interaction between teacher and student is reflected in the written genres produced by

the children. For example, she has described the patterns of interaction that occur in

morning news sessions (1984, n.d.), where individuals offer observations to others in

the class on ‘newsworthy’ items. This activity is closely monitored by the teacher who

determines how the newsgiver will be nominated, and who then offers comments on

each child’s contribution. Christie found that in first year and second year of school

the most common written genre produced was that of observation. She suggested

(Christie 1984:9) that this fact may be explained by reference to the patterns of

language the children encountered in their reading and the patterns of spoken discourse

in which they engaged with their teacher. The finding that children use particular

written genres because of the context in which they are learning means that even when

teachers are not conscious of what they are doing, they are having a very powerful

effect, not only on the children’s writing development, but on the kind of knowledge

being constructed in their classrooms.

Hasan (1987) looked at a specific form of curriculum genre, that of ‘picture

reading’, where a picture presented by the teacher is the focal point for class dis-

tinction. Hasan found that ‘determinate’ reading of the picture was by far the most

common, while ‘inferential’ and ‘hypothetical’ readings were less often in evidence.

Perhaps more important, Hasan’s research indicated that the teacher’s interpretation

may not be the same as the student’s, yet they both have a validity. Different inter-

pretations are possible because of the regulative principle or code which involves

‘culturally determined positioning devices’ generated by social class relations (Bem-

stein 1981:327). What is important for classroom interaction is that the teacher must

not only be aware but must also see the value of the student’s interpretations. The

teacher’s role is to offer alternatives which are real choices, not simply superimposed.

(For the application of oral genre outside the framework of the school, see Ventola

1988.)


Written Genres

Martin and Rothery’s Report No. 1 (1980) was the precursor of a number of studies

on written genre. They analyzed a narrative and an expository text, as these were two

of the genres most commonly used in schools. The narrative text was examined for

schematic structure, transitivity, reference, conjunction and theme. The expository

text was analyzed for schematic structure, lexical cohesion, conjunction and theme

(see Halliday 1985 for an explanation of these terms). Martin and Rothery were able

to show that the patterns of structure, theme, conjunction and lexical cohesion were

being constantly repeated in the texts in such a way that there was no doubt that a

schematic structure existed (Martin and Rothery 1980:24). The report also looked at

the key question of what is ‘good’ and ‘bad’ writing. It was suggested that the kind

of analysis outlined in the report offered insights into the structure and linguistic

features that contribute to a cohesive and well developed text. In other words the

teacher no longer needed to give ‘impressionistic’ comments to the student on the

‘goodness’ or ‘badness’ of the writing but was now equipped to be specific, that is

to say, at more than one level of text, not just at the lexico-grammatical.

Report No.2 (Martin and Rothery 1981) was based on a sampling of a large number

of texts from primary schools. The main finding from this report was that teachers

generally refer to all children’s texts as ‘stories’ regardless of the genre; that is to say,

that while primary teachers accept a range of genres in children’s writing, they tended

to favour narrative rather than factual genres (Hammond 1987). Martin and Rothery

attempted to outline a typology of the genres children write at school.

Recount-Norrotwe ThemoW norrtive

Observation/

Comment

<

ExposlUon -Lterory cntzism

Years of schooling

I23456 7 6 9 IO II 12

(Martin and Rothery 1961)

Figure 3.

A very important part of this second report was the detailed linguistic description

of each of the genres identified; it is this explicit description which makes the work


of Martin and Rothery different from that of Britton et al. (1975) and Moffett (1968).

Martin and Rothery have further developed their typology and Poynton (1986) listed

nine genres that could be found in the primary school.

1. Labelling

2. Observation

3. Observation/Comment

4. Recount

5. Narrative

6. Report

7. Procedural - method

8. Procedural - instrumental

9. Exposition

This list of genres is not meant to be an absolute; as we have already indicated, one

of the characteristics of the genre is its flexibility within a stable framework. The

needs of society will determine what genres are used and in what contexts.

Labelling, Observation, Observation/Comment are the earliest types of texts pro-

duced by children. Labelling is characterized by exophoric reference linking texts to

pictures. Observation/Comment has two distinct structural elements, description and

reaction, where most of the text is descriptive with a final comment such as ‘because

I like them’. However, often a child will produce a piece of writing that is a mixture

of genres or at a transition stage between genres, for example between Observation/

Comment and Recount where there are signs of temporal organization. The teacher

has to be able to identify this transitional type of text so as to be in a position to inter-

vene successfully in helping the child master a new genre.

Narrative differs from Recount in that it has the schematic structure: Orientation,

Complication, Resolution, Coda. Report, perhaps above all the written genres at this

early stage, depends to a large extent on the manner in which the preparation for

writing was set up in the class. This involves the process of ‘scaffolding’ (Bruner

1985) or the building up of a generic structure which the child can learn to recognize

and use. It also shows that oral and written genre are closely linked. The right sort

of ‘scaffolding’ for the child, whether provided by the teacher or arrived at by group

work is essential for later more advanced Report writing or Exposition. Thus there

is an important difference to be made between the specifications of various kinds of

relations between statements and simply a list. Report genre should also help to

gradually get children away from extreme dependence on written sources of informa-

tion and the temptation to simply copy. If, in the initial stages of learning to handle

factual material, this dependence is seen as modelling rather than as simply copying,

then children will move on to producing more independent texts (Poynton 1986).

Procedural texts (method and instrumental), the ‘how to do something’ e.g. planting

beans, would be seen as method, while the instrumental is a detailing of the hoe used


in the planting. The presentation of this sort of task in the classroom is very important

because of the need to establish a set of principles or ideas which become the basis

for the learner to proceed to learn newer and more demanding information. Also, as

we have seen in the curriculum genre, the type of questions the teacher asks can

determine the written outcome of the student.

Lastly, there is Exposition: this particular genre has the schematic structure of thesis

plus argument, e.g. ‘football is important to me because. . .’ The more complex the

fiefd of discourse involved the more explicit the ‘scaffolding’ needs to be.

We can summarise, then, by saying that instructional discourse which incorporates

a variety of genres should create the opportunities for the de-contextualizing of societal

discourses such that the learner can learn how to use these discourses effectively.

However. recent research, at least in Australia and in Britain (Harris and Wilkinson

1986). shows that only a limited range of genres is taught in the classroom. Child-

centered education which has dominated the classroom in a number of English speak-

ing countries has founded on the idea that children can understand and undertake

their ‘subjects’ in their own words. This is certainly a starting point, as was seen in

the success of the Nufield/Schools Council Programme in Linguistics and English

Teaching (1964-71) (see Pearce et al. 1989 for an overview of these programmes).

But once the breakthrough to literacy had been accomplished, too many children spent

their time writing a limited number of genres (Observation/Comment; Recount; and

Narrative). This, then, cut them off from any real understanding of what the

humanities, social sciences and sciences were about and denied them the tools these

disciplines have developed to understand the world. The claim is that these tools are

fundamentally linguistic ones which describe the genres and varieties of abstract and

technical language associated with each discipline.

However, a very prevalent view of the young writer in the classroom is that of

the ‘creator of his own world’ (Dixon 1967: 13), the ‘author’ in the classroom (Graves

1983).

True authormg occurs naturally to the extent that the writer is composing with raw matertals,

that IS. source content not previously abstracted and formulated by others Inslstmg on

maxImum authorshIp should starve off the construmg or treating of wrmng as only some sort

of transcrIptIon or paraphrasing or verbal tailormg from ready-made cloth (Moffett 1981:89).

What Dixon and Moffett are concerned with is the limitations and constraints per-

ceived in the genre approach. Their concept of the individual is that human behaviour

can be explained not in terms of social experience but much more in terms of innate

capacities which are then brought forth by a socializing process. The genre approach

sees the individual in the Vygotskyan sense of the self-regulated individual achieved

through interaction within his/her own zone of proximal development (Foley in

press). This ‘author in the classroom’ view of the child as some sort of full-fledged


individual confuses the concept of the immature child writing in the school and the

mature literary author (Gilbert 1989). The child is in school to learn how to use the

tools of the culture to become an effective member of that culture because learning

is an initiation through interaction into the knowledge, values, attitudes and beliefs

carried by that culture.

The Second Language

Much of what we have discussed in relation to the first language can be said of the

second language classroom. Indeed, within the Australian context there are a growing

number of studies that have concerned themselves with genre in the second language

classroom, for example Gray (1986) on Aboriginal education, Drury and Gollin (1986)

on EFL/ESL students in tertiary level institutions and Jones er al. (1989) on the

slightly broader perspective of second language curriculum. There are also an in-

creasing number of studies on genre in countries where English is one of the dominant

languages in a bilingual education system, for example Singapore and Canada.

Oral Genres

Oral genres were looked at by Samraj (n.d.) in Singapore. She studied the structure

of ‘Picture Talk’ lessons in the primary classroom. This is one of the possible forms

of curriculum genre described by Christie (1985). What is involved in the ‘Picture

Talk’ lesson in Singapore is that the students are given a picture (often from their

classroom readers) and a discussion of the picture would develop. The students would

then be given instructions to write a certain number of sentences based on the picture.

Hasan’s (1987) model was used for this study. What Samraj’s study shows is that the

teacher in the classroom did not build on the interaction created by the ‘Picture Talk’

activity when it was applied to writing. The skills manifested in controlling the genre

in the oral form by the children were not exploited by the sort of questions the teacher

asked in the children’s written work. For example, analytic exposition skills were

shown in the child’s oral control as it developed out of the teacher’s question: ‘Would

you like to live in the attrap houses or would you prefer to live in flats?’ This was

reduced to simple Labelling by the teacher when she asked the question: ‘Write for

me sentences on flats’. Samraj also found that the teachers needed to have greater

control over the discourse production. In ‘Picture Talk’ there was Labelling, Personal

Evaluation and Description all mixed together because there was no explicit instruction

on the genres the students were asked to produce. The net result was a series of texts

that lacked both cohesion and coherence. The themes and the manner of presentation

did not allow for the possibility of ‘de-contextualization’ of discourse, that is, of the

discourse being used in new contexts, to derive new results (Bernstein 1986).


Chang’s (n.d.) work in Canada on classroom discourse illustrates well the chasm

that exists between the teacher’s awareness of the language control of the child in the

spoken mode and what the child produces on paper. In a series of studies Chang gives

a detailed account of the sort of interactive discourse that can go on in the classroom

(see also Wells n.d.). Perhaps more importantly, Chang’s study showed the effect

these closely examined patterns of discourse had on the teacher’s awareness of the

language used. Teachers saw, perhaps for the first time, the effect that interactive

‘scaffolding’ could have upon the written outcome of the child.

Written Genres

Foley in two studies (1987) and (1989), looked at the developmental features of

children’s writing in Singapore. The most marked difference from the Australian

studies was the direct control imposed on the children’s writing by the teacher,

Controlled writing is, of course, a widely used technique in second language

classrooms, but in Singapore with English medium schooling, and a society where

English is the dominant working language, the degree of control manifested in the

children’s writing was much greater than expected. Transcripts of language used in

the classroom showed that there were long stretches of teacher-talk which required no

active student participation. The overall impression from both primary and early

secondary classrooms was that when answers were given, they were highly mech-

anical, with polar questions dominating. There was no ‘scaffolding’, no negotiated

outcomes between participants. In Bernstein’s terms there was srrong clussijcution

and srrong framing in the classroom. Classification refers to the degree of boundary

maintenance between contents. Framing refers to the degree of control teacher and

student possess over the selection, organisation, pacing and timing of the knowledge

received and transmitted in the pedagogical relationship (Bernstein 1973). Foley’s

studies showed that the extremely restricted genre (observation/comment, recount and

narrative) used by the teachers in their ‘guided composition’ classes, together with an

over emphasis on the formal aspect of the lexico-grammar was leading to an arres-

tation in the development of the children’s writing. The controlling factor seemed to

be the formal examination mode of assessment which begins in third year of primary

school and continues at crucial intervals until the student leaves the educational

system. Control by this type of formal examination places the emphasis on producing

‘grammatical’ sentences. This is not consciousness raising of language because

language is seen here, simply as form, syntax and lexis within the stratum of the

sentence. Closely controlled writing also has a wash-back effect on the oral discourse

as can be illustrated from the following transcript where twelve-year-olds were

preparing to write on Visiring a sick friend.


T. Was he badly hurt?

P: Yes.

T: Was it that serious that he had to be hospitalised?

P: Yes, it was that serious that he had to be hospttahsed.

T: Did he see a doctor?

P: Yes.

(Several utterances later, teacher addressmg another student)

T If your friend is restmg at home, do you make a point to visit him, Chai How?

CH: Yes, yes I make a point to wit him.

T. Since your frtends or your friend will be away for quite some time, he’ll be resting at home

or he will be m hospital recuperating? Don’t you think he wtll mtss his lessons?

CH. Yes.

(Saftiah bte Mohammed Amin n.d.).

The type of question and answer paradigm involved in this exchange underlines the

effect that language, seen in behaviourist terms, can have on discourse in the class-

room. The most obvious would be the polar-type replies and the repetition of the full

utterance which would be highly unusual in ‘real’ classroom discourse.

In very many classrooms where the medium of education is a second language, once

the child has entered secondary school the strong clussijcarion which is at work within

‘content’ areas means that there is little carry-over from the formal language class.

The discourse paradigms of the humanities, social sciences and the sciences,

technicality and abstraction are, at best, picked up, not taught.

CONCLUSION

The explicit teaching of genre in the classroom foregrounds the fact that there are

certain modes of speaking and of writing which are more appropriate in some circum-

stances than in others and the delineation of these modes is one of the functions that

the school has to play in a child’s education. It could be claimed, therefore, that a

teacher’s understanding of the generic structure of a text is necessary for a child’s

development as genre allows the teacher to focus on the writing and oral processes

and the ways in which a piece of text is constructed by the child. The teacher can look

for linguistic signals in the text of the child’s intentions and why the child included

them. This, then, enables the teacher to get away from impressionistic comments such

as: ‘this is a good/bad piece of work’ without being explicit about what constitutes

‘goodness’ or ‘badness’ and at what level. Teachers tend to revert to ‘correction’:

grammar, punctuation, spelling etc. and rarely go beyond the lexico-grammatical

stratum of discourse. The student and very often the teacher are not aware that a

failure to write well is determined by a multilayered process in discourse.

Writers who put forward arguments for a genre-based approach do so on the

grounds that genre, the stages passed through to achieve goals within a given culture,


provides a readily accessible starting point for learning about language. In dealing

with genre we are dealing with texts, and text is the semantic unit of language in use.

Within the community, there is a strong awareness that there are varieties of texts:

Report, Narrative, Instruction, Consultation and so on. By beginning with genre we

begin where there is already some awareness of a difference in these texts. The

genre approach makes explicit the potential of the system for meaning. This allows

building up a knowledge about language in its own right, such that children can make

use of this knowledge in using language. For a child to become literate involves a

consciousness of language not present in speech (at least not in the early stages of

schooling) (Rothery 1989). Critics of the genre approach (Sawyer and Watson 1987)

have asked why writing is any more a matter of conscious learning of structures than

speech. To read and write children must develop a consciousness of the units of

language, in particular words, clause complexes and texts and how they are organized

graphically.

Children have to learn to percewe these dlfferent umts as entitles that are dtstlnct and yet at the

same time semantlcally related (Rothery 1989:229)

These are ‘the natural iconic relation (processes in verbs, qualities as modifiers,

logical relations as conjunctions, people and things as nouns etc.) between meaning

and wording (Martin et al. 1987). It is through these ‘iconic relations’ that writing

is used to store and consolidate information and interpretation which need to be

organized. Abstraction through the process of replacing the active verb form found

in speech by a nominal group (Halliday 1985) is an important source for organizing

text. As a consequence children will have great difficulty in mastering the range of

genres used in society which depend on abstraction as a basic principle of organization

without some form of guidance in their writing.

Other critics (Reid 1987) would reject the genre approach as ‘transcription’,

‘paraphrasing’, ‘verbal tailoring from ready-made cloth’ (Moffett 1981:89) in favour

of an emphasis on the creative power of authoring. They see the genre approach in

pedagogic discourse as arresting the development of the individual. However, a major

weakness in their argument relates to this consciousness of language which is so

important for the ‘apprentice adolescent writer’ (Gilbert 1988), precisely, because it

falls into the background for the mature writer, the main focus becoming meaning.

It may, therefore, be more accurate to characterize the process of writing as shifts in

the degree of conscious awareness that a writer brings to bear on his/her language

(Rothery 1989). The young writer has to have a degree of control over language before

this conscious awareness can be backgrounded. Schematic structures then, which the

context of culture and situation have created, are real and not arbitrary. Genre should

be seen as a fiberaring element as it provides the student with access to the highly


prized ways of speaking and writing within a given culture. It may be true however,

in the second language classroom that there has been a danger that text would become

‘verbal tailoring’ because of the strong classi$cation and strong framing in the

pedagogical discourse. In the second language classroom, language is foregrounded

but often at the lexico-grammatical level and rarely rises to a consideration of genre.

The main reason for this has been the necessity to provide a ‘correct’ model of the

target language. The rules that were learned about grammatical relations within the

clause and between clauses were seen as means for regulating the student’s language

use in speech and writing. Maintaining such a degree of control for too long in the

second language classroom has resulted in an excessive focus on a narrow inter-

pretation of the textual aspect of discourse and not enough on the ideational and

interpersonal. While the problem in the first language classroom has been in some

ways the opposite, a focus on ideational and interpersonal and perhaps not enough on

the textual.

This paper, then, has argued for a view of successful teaching in terms of

interactional strategies in the classroom. This would involve guidance in the context

of shared experience, leading to the learner being able to develop texts by him/herself

within the zone of proximal development. This is more than a ‘drawing out’ of the

creativity of the young child but stresses a ‘scaffolding’ process. By making use of

modelling and jointly negotiated texts for the teaching of writing, the claim is that we

are simply making use of ‘natural’ strategies for language development. These are part

of the child’s experience and build upon many of the features that a child has used

in the development of oracy. In the context of the school, what is added is making

explicit some aspects of the text which the child is learning to produce, in terms of

its stages and patterns of linguistic choices. These choices convey meaning so that text

can have a functional use to broaden the culture of the child by allowing the child to

enter more fully into that culture.

NOTES

1. I would like to thank the School of English and Linguistics, Macquarie University

for providing me with the facilities to write this paper. I would also like to

acknowledge my debt to Michael Halliday, Bridget Goom and an unknown

reviewer for their careful reading and comments made on an earlier version.

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