07132040 PELİN YAĞMUR ATAŞ07132006 MEHMET ÖZDEMİR

DISCOURSE AND GENRERichards and Schmidt define the term

genre as: « a type of discourse that occurs in a particular setting, that has distinctive and recognizable patterns and norms of organization and structure and that has particular and distinctive communicative functions».

There has been increased attention given to the notion of genre in discourse studies as well as in the area of language teaching and learning.

The approach to genre analysis commonly applied in the teaching of English for specific purposes is based on Swales (1981, 1990) analyses of the discourse structure of research introductions.

WHAT IS GENRE?Genres are ways in which people ‘get things done’ through their use of spoken and written discourse.

In 1990, Swales, the accepted leader in genre and move analysis in the field of ESP, defined a genre as a class of communicative events commonly used by the members of a given community who share some set of communicative purposes.

Bloor and Bloor (1993) defined genre as aspecific product of a social practice which can be described and taught because of its formal characteristics.

For Miller (1984), genre was a kind of social action which took place in a specific discourse community.

Genres change through time. This may, for example, be in response to changes in technologies.

Bhatia (1997) says that ‘genre embedding’ refers to where one genre, for example, a letter, a story, is used for another ‘conventionally distinct’ genre, such as an advertisement to sell a product, or a job advertisement.

DEFINING GENREMartin’s (1984:25) defines genre as ‘a

staged, goal-oriented, purposeful activity’.

Swales (2004: 61) says he prefers the notion of ‘metaphor’ for talking about genres, rather than ‘definition’.

CHOICE AND CONSTRAINT IN THE USE OF SPOKEN and WRİTTEN GENRES

Genres are dynamic and open to change, but it is not a case of ‘free for all’ or ‘anything goes’.

As Devitt (2004: 86) explains, conformity among genre users ‘is a fact of genre, for genres provide an expected way of acting’.

ASSIGNING A TEXT TO A GENRE CATEGORYHow do we assign a text to a ‘genre category’?The author of the textThe intended audience of the textThe purpose of the textThe situation in which the text occursThe physical form The title of the textThe content of the text The level formality of the textParticular uses of language in the text The style or register of the text

Genres are most helpfully seen as ‘resources for meaning’ rather than systems of rules’ (Swales 2002: 25)

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GENRES

Genre chains

genre networks

genre sets

repertoires of genres

GENRE CHAINS--the linking of genres within and across texts--in order to determine how heritage language writers transfer discursive patterns of cohesion across genres and across languages.

‘giving a lecture in a conference’

• Call for papers• Submission of abstracts• Evaluation of abstracts• Submission of the full paper• Converting the paper into a power point

presentation• Presenting the slides• Question-answering• Publishing the paper in conference

proceedings

APPLYING FOR A JOB- job advertisement- position description- letter of application- resume- job interview- offer of appointment- negotiation of offer

Genre networks is the technical term that describes the source(s) from which

each genre originates.

sources of information

CitationsQuotationsplagiarism

a power point presentation

Genre setsThe totality of the different genres that one individual or members of a

given community (of professionals) engages in is referred to as genre sets

Applied linguistsBookspublish papergive lecturespresent posterschair conferencessupervise theses

* Genres never stand in isolation

ReferencesGenre (20 november 2012). Retrived 21 november 2012 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genre

Paltridge, B. 2006. Discourse and Genre. Discourse Analysis

Salmani, M. A. The place of genre analysis in international communication. Retrived 21 november 2012 from http://www.ijls.net/volumes/volume5issue1/salmani4.pdf