Genre Studies / Analysis -- An Introduction

This video describes genre in brief. Systemic-functional linguists employ genre as part of their project to relate language use to its social context, in particular, ‘the context of culture.’ Interest in genre arose out of a growing sense of the inadequacy of the concept of ‘register’ to account for the contextual aspects of text. Register analysis assumes that textual features can be predicted because texts vary conventionally in relation to three ‘situational variables’; namely, ‘field’ (subject matter), ‘tenor’ (relationship between participants in the interaction), and ‘mode’ (whether the text is written or spoken). These situational variables did not deal with why the text might have been written or spoken. The realization that a text might be shaped and so categorized in relation to its communicative purpose led to a resurgence of interest in a text's genre; that is, how a text relates systematically to its context of culture.

For example, the register of entries in travel guidebooks might vary according to the writer's relationship with the intended readership (a formal relationship with erudite connoisseurs of, say, art history and architecture, or an informal relationship with student backpackers); the subject matter covered by the entries (fields such as food, wine, history, architecture, beaches, night clubs, and various types of accommodation); and the mode (usually written but possibly with some appeal to spoken discourse in the less formal realizations). None of these situational variables takes into consideration why tourist guidebooks come to be written; in other words, their context of culture. Analysis of the genre of travel guidebooks would consider the cultural phenomenon of tourism: the fact that different types of people choose to travel as a leisure pursuit in which they gaze at certain things (landscape, certain buildings), eat certain kinds of food, and indulge in particular leisure pursuits (swimming, clubbing, visiting galleries, shopping for souvenirs) before moving on. A consideration of the genre of a text helps account for its content, as well as its form: A generic text is one in which conventional characteristics have developed out of an evolving set of cultural imperatives.
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Видео Genre Studies / Analysis -- An Introduction канала Language & Linguistics Online Dr Khurram Shahzad