Seven Steps in Analysing Genres

In order to undertake a comprehensive

investigation of any genre, one needs to consider
some or all of the following seven steps (Bhatia,
1993:22-36) :

1. Placing the given genre-text in a situational context

2. Surveying existing literature
3. Refining the situational/contextual analysis
4. Selecting corpus
5. Studying the institutional context
6. Levels of linguistic analysis
7. Specialist information in genre analysis
1. Placing the given genre-text in a situational
context
First, one needs to place the genre-text (a typical
representative example of the genre) intuitively in a
situational context.
In order to do this, one’s prior experience, the
internal clues in the text, and the encyclopaedic
knowledge of the world one already has will be
important.
They include the writer’s previous experience and
background knowledge about the specialist discipline
as well as the communicative conventions associated
with that discipline.
 The background knowledge of the discipline
one gets from his/her association with the
professional community, and the knowledge of
the communicative conventions one gets from
his/her previous experience of similar texts, and
his or her understanding of the procedures
used in the area of activity to which the genre
belongs will help the writer to understand why
the genre is conventionally written in the way it
is.
2. Surveying existing literature
This will include, among other things,
literature on

- linguistic analyses of the genre in question

or other related or similar genres

- tools, methods or theories of linguistic/

discourse/genre anaysis which might be
relevant to this situation
- practitioner advice, guide books, manuals,
etc. relevant to the speech community in
question

- discussions of the social structure, history,

beliefs, goals, etc. of the professional or
academic community which uses the genre in
question
3. Refining the situational/contextual analysis
Having intuitively placed the text roughly in a
contextual framework, one needs to refine the
analysis further by
- defining the speaker/writer, the audience,
their relationship and goals

- defining the historical, socio-cultural,

philosophic and/or occupational placement
of the community in which the discourse
takes place
- identifying the network of surrounding texts
and linguistic traditions that form the
background of this particular genre

- identifying the topic/subject/extratextual

reality which the text is trying to represent,
change or use and the relationship of the
text to that reality
4. Selecting corpus
In order to select the right kind and size of
corpus one needs to :

- define the genre/sub-genre well enough so

that it may be distinguishable from other
genres

- make sure that one’s criteria for deciding

whether a text belongs to a specific genre
are clearly stated
- decide on one’s criteria for an adequate
selection of the corpus for one’s specific
purposes such as

- a long single typical text for detailed analysis

- a few randomly chosen texts for exploratory

investigation

- a large statistical sample to investigate a few

specified features
5. Studying the institutional context

A good genre analyst next attempts to study

the institutional context, including the system
and/or methodology, in which the genre is used
and the rules and conventions (linguistic, social,
cultural, academic, professional) that govern
the use of language in such institutional
settings.
 These rules and conventions are most often
implicitly understood and unconsciously
followed by the participants in that
communicative situation in which the genre in
question is used.
Information on these aspects of institutional
contexts is available from guide books,
manuals, practitioner advice, history, beliefs,
goals of the community in published or
otherwise available literature.
6. Levels of linguistic analysis
The genre analyst then decides at which level(s) the
most distinctive or significant features of language
occur, and carries out the appropriate analysis, which
may concentrate on one or more of the following three
levels of linguistic realization(Bhatia, 1993:24-34) :

1. Analysis of lexico-grammatical features

2. Analysis of text-patterning or textualization (tactical
aspects)
3. Structural interpretation of the text-genre (cognitive
move structures)
6.1. Level 1: Analysis of Lexico-grammatical Features

A text can be analysed quantitatively by studying

the specific features that are predominantly used in a
certain genre. In other words, Level 1 refers to the
linguistic analysis of frequency of lexico-grammatical
properties in a certain genre.This is generally done by
undertaking a large-scale corpus-based statistical
analysis of a representative sample of the variety in
question.
 An example of such an analysis can be given from
Özyıldırım’s study(2010:67) about legislative language
in Turkish. Some of the frequences of lexico-
grammatical features in a corpus of 32.000 words are
as follows :
Frequency Percentage
Nouns: 15.450 48.2%
Postpositions 1428 4.4%
Passives 442 1.3%
Rel.Clauses 1350 4.2%
Adjectives 1395 4.3%
Stative forms 250 0.7%
6.2. Level 2: Analysis of text-patterning or textualization

This aspect of linguistic analysis highlights the

tactical aspect of conventional language use,
specifying the way members of a particular speech
community assign restricted values to various aspects
of language use (lexis, syntax or discourse).
An example of this comes from an early analysis of
chemistry textbooks by Swales (1974). He found that
pre-modifying en-participles in this corpus textualise
two different aspects : exemplifying or generalizing.
In the following example, exemplifying function of –en
participle can be observed :
- A given bottle contains a compound which upon analysis is shown to contain 0.600
gram-atom of phosphorous and 1.500 gram-atom of oxygen.

In the following example, on the other hand, the

function of ‘a given’ is generalizing without
commitment to specificity :

- Figure 9.5 shows how the vapour pressure of a given substance varies with
temperature.
 Just as it is possible for a particular syntactic feature to
perform several functions specific to a particular genre, similarly
,it is also possible for a particular feature of language to perform
different functions in different genres. A good example of this
can be the use of NPs(noun phrase) and nominalizations in
advertising, legislation or scientific research articles.

In advertising, for example, we see frequent use of NPs.

What purpose do they serve in the text ? The answer is that
one of the most important strategies that advertisers use is the
positive description of the product and the most useful linguistic
feature for that purpose is the adjective. So, adjectives, and
accordingly, NPs are used frequently for positive product
descriptions.
6.3. Level 3: Structural interpretation of the text-genre

Structural interpretation of the text-genre highlights the

cognitive aspects of language organization (cognitive move
structure). Analysis of structural organization of the genre
reveals preferred ways of communicating intention in specific
areas of inquiry.
Swales (1990: 141), for example discovered that the
cognitive move structure of research article introductions which
he calls CARS model has the following three moves :

1. Establishing a territory
2. Establishing a niche
3. Occupying the niche
 The idea in cognitive move structuring is to interpret
the regularities of organization in order to understand
the rationale for the genre. In other words, it is the
conventionalized and standardized organization used
by almost all the members of the professional
community.

Cognitive structuring in a genre is the property of the

genre as such and not that of the individual reader. It
depends upon the communicative purpose that it
serves in the genre and that is why it varies from one
genre to another.
7. Specialist information in genre analysis
Finally, the analyst double checks his findings
against reactions from a specialist informant, who,
generally, is a practising member of the disciplinary
culture in which the genre is routinely used. The
specialist reaction confirms his findings, brings validity
to his insights and adds psychological reality to his
analysis.
However, consulting a specialist informant is a
difficult job. Firstly, it might be difficult to find a truely
resourceful specialist informant. Secondly, it might
also be difficult to develop a common understanding of
the purpose of inquiry.
 Therefore, as stated in Bhatia (1993:35), the
specialist informant should :

1) be a competent and trained specialist member of

the genre in question
2) have a feel for the specialist language and be
prepared to talk about it openly
3) be in a position to explain clearly what he believes
expert members of the disciplinary culture do
when they exploit language in order to accomplish
their generic goals.
 References

Bhatia, Vijay, K. 1993.Analysing Genre : Language

Use in Proffessional Settings.Longman, London.
Özyıldırım, I. 2010. Tür Çözümlemesi: Türkçe
Metin İncelemeleri ve Karşılaştırmalar. BilgeSu,
Ankara
Swales, J. 1990. Genre Analysis : English in
Academic and Research Settings.
Cambridge:CUP.