Unit 4

GENRES
I Pre-reading
Task 1) In pairs, scan the three texts below and try to define (a) what text types (literary/non-
literary) and (b) what genres they are.

1. _______________________________________________

A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.
I say it just
Begins to live
That day.

2. ____________________________________________________

A modern masterpiece from one of Italy's most acclaimed authors, My Brilliant Friend is a
rich, intense and generous hearted story about two friends, Elena and Lila. Ferrante's
inimitable style lends itself perfectly to a meticulous portrait of these two women that is also
the story of a nation and a touching meditation on the nature of friendship. Through the lives
of these two women, Ferrante tells the story of a neighbourhood, a city and a country as it is
transformed in ways that, in turn, also transform the relationship between her two
protagonists.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/cka/My-Brilliant-Friend-1-Elena-
Ferrante/1609450787/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1488328840&sr=1-
1&keywords=brilliant+friend, 1. 3. 2017

3. ___________________________________________________

Although Arabic is a language with a long scholarly tradition, relatively little is known about
the rhetorical and linguistic features of contemporary Arabic prose. In this paper, we examine
28 Arabic and English paired abstracts dealing with the language sciences drawn from three
journals. The analysis shows in both sub-corpora little use of first person pronouns or

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promotional elements, and the move structures tended to be simple, often only background
findings. Differences between the two languages included greater use of rhetorical and
metaphorical flourishes in some Arabic texts and increased attention to background
knowledge in some of the English ones. These findings may be related to certain scholastic
traditions in the Arab World and to the fact that Arab humanities journals have only recently
required articles to be accompanied by abstracts.

Key words: academic discourse, Arabic/English, contrastive discourse, discourse analysis

and research article abstract

Task 2) Match the titles below with the texts 1 – 3.

a) Arabic and English abstracts in bilingual language science journals: Same or different?
(Lafi M. Alharbi, John Swales)
b) A Word is Dead (Emily Dickinson)
c) My Brilliant Friend (Elena Ferrante)

II Reading
Task 1) Scan the text below and find literary genres that you are familiar with.
Task 2) Read the text below.

Literary Genres
Literature depends on rhetorical figures but also on larger structures, particularly literary
genres. What are genres and what is their role? Are terms like epic and novel simply
convenient ways of classifying works on the basis of gross resemblances or do they have
functions for readers and writers?
For readers, genres are sets of conventions and expectations: knowing whether we are reading
a detective story or a romance, a lyric poem or a tragedy, we are on the lookout for different
things and make assumptions about what will be significant. Reading a detective story, we
look for clues in a way we don’t when reading a tragedy. What would be a striking figure in a
lyric – ‘the Secret sits in the middle’ – might be a minor circumstantial detail in a ghost story
or work of science fiction, where secrets might have acquired bodies.
Historically, many theorists of genre have followed the Greeks, who divided works among
three broad classes according to who speaks: poetic or lyric, where the narrator speaks in the
first person, epic or narrative, where the narrator speaks in his own voice but allows
characters to speak in theirs, and drama, where the characters do all the talking. Another way
of making this distinction is to focus on the relation of speaker to audience. In epic, there is
oral recitation: a poet directly confronting the listening audience. In drama, the author is
concealed from the audience and the characters on stage talk. In lyric – the most complicated
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case – the poet, in singing or chanting, turns his back on his listeners, so to speak, and
‘pretends to be talking to himself or to someone else: a spirit of Nature, a Muse, a personal
friend, a lover, a god, a personified abstraction, or a natural object’. To these three elementary
genres we can add the modern genre of the novel, which addresses the reader through a book.
Epic and tragic drama were in ancient times and in the Renaissance the crowning
achievements of literature, the highest accomplishments of any aspiring poet. The invention
of the novel brought a new competitor onto the literary scene, but between the late eighteenth
century and the mid-twentieth century, the lyric, a short non-narrative poem, came to be
identified with the essence of literature. Once seen primarily as a mode of elevated
expression, the elegant formulation of cultural values and attitudes, lyric poetry later came to
be seen as the expression of powerful feeling, dealing at once with everyday life and
transcendent values, giving concrete expression to the most inward feelings of the individual
subject. This idea still holds sway. Contemporary theorists, though, have come to treat lyric
less as expression of the poet’s feelings and more as associative and imaginative work on
language – an experimenting with linguistic connections and formulations that makes poetry a
disruption of culture rather than the main repository of its values.
(Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction, pp. 72 – 73)

III Reading Comprehension

Task 1) Based on the information provided in two text, circle the letter of the best answer.
1) Literature depends on
a) either on rhetorical figures or on larger structure
b) neither on rhetorical figures nor on larger structure
c) both on rhetorical figures and on larger structure

2) A literary genre is associated with a particular

a) set of beliefs and expectations
b) set of conventions and expectations
c) set of conventions and prejudices

3) Many theorists categorize literary works according to

a) who reads a literary work
b) who believes in a literary work
c) who speaks in a literary work

4) In ancient times and in the Renaissance, the most appreciated literary genres were
a) novel and lyric
b) lyric and drama
c) epic and tragic drama

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 5) Novel is a relatively
a) modern literary genre
b) unimportant literary genre
c) underestimated literary genre

IV Vocabulary in Context
Task 1) Translate the sentences from the text above paying special attention to the underlined
words or expressions.
1. Are terms like epic and novel simply convenient ways of classifying works on the
basis of gross resemblances or do they have functions for readers and writers?
2. What would be a striking figure in a lyric – ‘the Secret sits in the middle’ – might be
a minor circumstantial detail in a ghost story or work of science fiction, where
secrets might have acquired bodies.
3. Epic and tragic drama were in ancient times and in the Renaissance the crowning
achievements of literature, the highest accomplishments of any aspiring poet.
4. In lyric – the most complicated case – the poet, in singing or chanting, turns his back
on his listeners, so to speak, and ‘pretends to be talking to himself or to someone else:
a spirit of Nature, a Muse, a personal friend, a lover, a god, a personified abstraction,
or a natural object’.
5. Contemporary theorists, though, have come to treat lyric less as expression of the
poet’s feelings and more as associative and imaginative work on language – an
experimenting with linguistic connections and formulations that makes poetry a
disruption of culture rather than the main repository of its values.
Task 2) Fill in the following words from the Task 1 into the gaps below. Make grammatical
changes if necessary.

resemblance, n., figure, n., minor, adj., accomplishment, n., disruption, n.

1. Her role in the project was ________________________.

2. He bears a striking __________________________  to his father.
3. The change will be made with minimal ________________ of service.
4. Metaphors and similis are common rethorical devices or _________________ of
speech.
5. His discovery is one of the greatest scientific ______________________ of the
century. (Merriam-Webster Learner's
Dictionary)

V Speaking
Task 1) Talking about books often means putting them into different categories. There are
numerous categorizations of literary genres. The most common categorization distinguishes
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two main categories of books: fiction and nonfiction. In pairs, compare the names of some
English genres below with their Croatian equivalents.

Nonfiction: autobiography, biography, essays, informational text…

Fiction: drama, fable, fairy tales, fantasy, folklore, historical fiction, horror, humor, legend,
mystery, poetry, science fiction, short story…

In small groups, discuss your favorite literary genres and give reasons for your choice.

Task 2) In small groups, write down the genres common in academia. Discuss the differences
among them in terms of the target audience (students, scholars, general readers) and the ways
in which they present knowledge (e.g. inform and instruct; claim and present arguments...)
Task 3) In small groups, study the texts provided by your instructor and try to define their
genres. Find evidence in the texts to support your claims.

VI Listening
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W--C4AzvwiU, 28 Feb. 2017
Task 1 Listen to the interview with John Swales, a linguist whose seminal work Genre
Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings (1990) inspired numerous studies of
non-literary genres. The methodology proposed by Swales provides a framework for research
on structure and language used in various academic (and non-academic) genres across
disciplines and, hence, contributes significantly to the design of EAP curricula.
While listening, try to answer the following questions:
1) Provide some examples of simple, complex, rare and common genres.
a) simple:
b) complex:
c) rare:
d) common:

2) With respect to structure, the genre may be:

a)
b)
or alternatively:
a)
b)
3) What are the main tasks of EAP instructors with respect to genre pedagogy?
a)
b)

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 c)

4) What are two main techniques for genre consciousness raising?

a)
b)

VII Writing: A Book Blurb