Republic of the Philippines

Province of Bohol
Municipality of Talibon
TALIBON POLYTECHNIC COLLEGE
San Isidro, Talibon, Bohol

ELS 107
ENGLISH DISCOURSE

MODULE VI
GENRE OF DISCOURSE
(WEEK 14 AND 15)

Previous discussions on discourse include the study of genre as its types. To

reiterate, genre refers to a certain linguistic variation due to the communicative
purposes to which the language is put. There are four major genre in discourse:
stories, evaluating, informing and procedural.
This module would go deep into each of the discourse genre; after which, you
are to create a composition based on each form.

Module Objectives:
At the end of the module, you are expected to do the following with at least 80
percent accuracy:
1. Identify features of each discourse genre
2. Analyze texts based on the features of each genre
3. Produce texts with on each discourse genre
4. Recognize the significance of the knowledge on genre in English discourse

Contents:
Lesson 1: STORIES
Lesson 2: EVALUATING
Lesson 3: INFORMING AND PROCEDURAL
 MODULE VI. LESSON 1.
GENRE: STORIES
Lesson Objectives: Identify features of stories as a discourse genre
Analyze stories based on its features

A Activate Your Prior Knowledge

Read the story below. How would you know that this is a story?

One day, a farmer whose sons are always quarrelling with one another, had
tried a long time in vain to reconcile them with words. Finally, he decided that he
might have more success by settling one sort of example. So he called his sons to him
and told them to place a bundle of sticks in front of him.
Then, after tying them into a bundle, he told them, one after the other, to pick
up the bundle of sticks and break it. They all tried, but nothing came of their efforts.
Then, the father untied the bundle and gave them the sticks to break one by one, which
they did with great ease.
“So it is with you my sons,” said the farmer. “As long as you remain untied,
you’re a match for all your enemies. But if you are divided among yourselves, you’ll
be broken as easily as these sticks.”
-Aesop, The Bundles of Sticks
Stories form one classification of genre in discourse. As review, check this part
of a diagram of genre below.

B Acquire New Knowledge

Each story type typically (but optionally) begins with an Orientation stage that
presents an expectant activity sequence, but varies in how this expectancy is disrupted
and how the disruption is responded to. Variations in the staging and type of attitude
characteristic of each story genre is summarised in the table below.
 Staging and attitude in stories is exemplified here with an anecdote from the novel
Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence, by Indigenous Australian author Doris Pilkington (1996),
about the epic journey of three girls who had been removed from their families, to return
to their home in the Western Australian desert. In this extract, the policeman charged
with removing the girls appears at the family campsite, and announces his intention.
The stages of Remarkable Event and Reaction unfold in a sequence of intensifying
problems and reactions, beginning with the appearance of the white man and the
family’s reaction of fear and anxiety; then the policeman’s announcement and their
reaction of silent tears; and finally the removal, followed by the family’s intense grief.
Each problem is thus evaluated by the emotional reaction that follows it. Anecdote
stages are indicated with initial capitals, and expressions of affect in bold.

Molly and Gracie finished their breakfast and decided to take all their dirty
clothes and wash them in the soak further down the river. They returned to the
Orientation
camp looking clean and refreshed and joined the rest of the family in the shade
for lunch of tinned corned beef, damper and tea.
The family had just finished eating when all the camp dogs began barking,
Remarkable
making a terrible din. ‘Shut up,’ yelled their owners, throwing stones at them.
Event
The dogs whined and skulked away.
Then all eyes turned to the cause of the commotion. A tall, rugged white man
stood on the bank above them. He could easily have been mistaken for a
Problem
pastoralist or a grazier with his tanned complexion except that he was wearing
khaki clothing.
Fear and anxiety swept over them when they realised that the fateful day they
Reaction
had been dreading had come at last…
When Constable Riggs, Protector of Aborigines, finally spoke his voice was full
of authority and purpose…‘I’ve come to take Molly, Gracie and Daisy, the three
Problem
half-caste girls, with me to Moore Rive Native Settlement,’ he informed the
family.
The old man nodded to show that he understood what Riggs was saying. The
rest of the family just hung their heads, refusing to face the man who was taking
Reaction
their daughters away from them. Silent tears welled in their eyes and trickled
down their cheeks
‘Hurry up then, I want to get started. We’ve got a long way to go yet. You girls
Problem
can ride this horse back to the depot,’ he said, handing the reins over to Molly.
Molly and Gracie sat silently on the horse, tears streaming down their cheeks as
Constable Riggs turned the big bay stallion and led the way back to the depot. A
Reaction high pitched wail broke out. The cries of agonised mothers and the women,
and the deep sobs of grandfathers, uncles and cousins filled the air. Molly and
Gracie looked back just once before they disappeared through the river gums.
 Behind them, those remaining in the camp found sharp objects and gashed
themselves and inflicted deep wounds to their heads and bodies as an
expression of their sorrow. The two frightened and miserable girls began to
cry, silently at first, then uncontrollably; their grief made worse by the
lamentations of their loved ones and the visions of them sitting on the ground in
their camp letting their tears mix with the red blood that flowed from the cuts
on their heads.

The stages of a genre are relatively stable components of its organisation (labelled
with initial capitals above), but phases within each stage are more variable, and may be
unique to the particular text. Common types of phases have been identified in a wide
range of oral and literary stories in English and other languages. Each phase type
performs a certain function to engage the listener/reader as the story unfolds, by
construing its field of activities, people, things and places, by evoking emotional
responses, or by linking it to common experiences and interpretations of life. These
functions are summarised in Table 2.

Creative manipulation of story phases is a critical resource for achieving the social
goals of story genres. For example in the extract from Rabbit-Proof Fence above, the
author leads the reader’s emotions through a seesaw of problems and reactions, to
induce us to identify with the feelings of the family, and so to empathise with their
resignation and grief at the invader’s final act of barbarity.

Beyond this extract, Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence is a long story whose overall
purpose is to applaud the girls’ tenacity at returning to their family against all odds. But
like novels in general, it is constructed as a series of smaller stories, which function in
this case to engage the reader in sharing the protagonists’ feelings, and admiring the
girls and their helpers and condemning their captors and pursuers. One way this is
achieved is by building and releasing tension, through series of problems and responses
on the various scales of events, story stages, and whole chapters. Longer texts such as
novels are thus modelled as macrogenres.

While the deployment of phases in stories is highly variable, biographical

recounts are more predictable. They also begin with an Orientation, that typically
charts the person’s birth and early life, and perhaps the reasons for their fame, and
follow with the stages of their life, or Life Stages. Each stage in the person’s life is a
phase of the text, and is typically signalled by a time or place, as starting point of a
sentence, underlined here.

Orientation Nganyintja is an elder of the Pitjantjatjara people of central Australia, renowned

internationally as an educator and cultural ambassador. She was born in 1930 in
the Mann Ranges, South Australia. Her early years were spent travelling through
her family’s traditional lands, living by hunting and gathering, and until the age
of nine she had not seen a European.
Life Stages At that time her family moved to the newly established mission at Ernabella,
300km to the east of the family homeland. They were soon followed by most of
the Pitjantjatjara people, as they were forced to abandon their Western Desert
lands during the drought of the 1940s.At the mission, Nganyintja excelled at
school, becoming its first Indigenous teacher. She married Charlie Ilyatjari and
began a family that would include four daughters, two sons, 18 grandchildren
and ever more great-grandchildren.

In the early 1960s the family moved to the new government settlement of Amata,
100 km east of their traditional lands, which they visited with camels each
summer holiday, renewing their ties to the landand educating their children in
their traditions. Then in 1979 they were able to buy an old truck and blaze a track
through the bush to re-establish a permanent family community at Nganyintja’s
homeland of Angatja.

In those years the tragedy of teenage petrol sniffing began to engulf the
Pitjantjatjara people. Nganyintja and Ilyatjari established a youth cultural and
training program at Angatja, and worked for many years to get young people out
of the settlements in the region and educate them, both in their cultural traditions
and in community development skills. In addition, Nganyintja became a widely
respected leader and spokesperson for her people.

During the 1980s Nganyintja and Ilyatjari hosted many visits from students and
organizations interested in learning about Indigenous Australian culture. In 1989
they established a cultural tourism venture known as Desert Tracks, that has
brought hundreds of Australian and international visitors to Angatja, and
provided income and employment to many Pitjantjatjara people, as well as
winning major tourism awards.

In 1993 Nganyintja was awarded the Order of Australia Medal for her services to
the community. She is remembered for her vision and the love she gave
unstintingly to her family and her people.

Historical recounts (although particularly under the “informing” family) follow

a remarkably similar pattern, with each phase typically signalled by time, although
their field is the life of institutions rather than individuals, and their first stage is
typically a historical ‘background’. Historical accounts are similar again, except that
they introduce causal relations, explaining as well as recounting historical events.
 C Apply Your Acquired Knowledge

EXERCISE: Analyze the following story. Identify the following parts (use brackets or
braces for this purpose).
a. orientation
b. remarkable event/s
c. problem/s
d. response/s

Times I Did Not Stand Up for My Mother

She has found my cigarettes. They are in my sock drawer. I am fourteen years old.
“It’s my room!” I yell.
“Charley! We talked about this! I told you not to smoke! It’s the worst thing you can do!
What’s the matter with you?”
“You’re a hypocrite!”
She stops. Her neck stiffens. “Don’t use that word.”
“You smoke! You’re a hypocrite!”
“Don’t use that word!”
“Why not, Mom? You always want me to use big words in a sentence. There’s a sentence.
You smoke. I can’t. My mother is a hypocrite!”
I am moving as I yell this, and the moving seems to give me strength, confidence, as if she
can’t hit me. This is after she has taken a job at the beauty parlor, and instead of her nursing whites,
she wears fashionable clothes to work – like the pedal pushers and turquoise blouse she is wearing
now. These clothes show off her figure. I hate them.
“I am taking these away,” she yells, grabbing the cigarettes. “And you are not going out,
mister!”
“I don’t care!” I glare at her. “And why do you have to dress like that? You make me sick!”

“I what?” Now she is on me, slapping my face. “I WHAT? I make you” – slap! – “sick? I
make” – slap! – “you SICK?” – slap! – “Is that what you” – slap! – “said?” – slap, slap! – “Is it? Is
that what you THINK OF ME?”
“No! No!” I yell. “Stop it!”
I cover my head and duck away. I run down the stairs and out the garage. I stay away until
well past dark. When I finally come home, her bedroom door is closed and I think I hear her crying.
I go to my room. The cigarettes are still there. I light one up and start crying myself.
- Mitch Albom, For One More Day

D Evaluate Your Understanding

TEST: Answer the following items.

1. Define stories as a genre.
2. How are stories similar? How are they different?
 3. What are the usual parts of a story?
4. How is a historical recount both under the family of stories and informing
(check in advance the discussion on informing)?

E Your Assignment

Write a dialogue highlighting a story with all its features. You could use your
knowledge from the previous lessons on discourse in writing the dialogue.

F Evaluate Your Understanding

How much have you learned from this lesson? Check the appropriate box below
based on your level of understanding rated from 1 (the lowest) to 10 (the highest).
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
 MODULE VI. LESSON 2.
GENRE: EVALUATING
Lesson Objectives: Identify features of evaluating texts as a discourse genre
Analyze evaluating texts based on its features

A Activate Your Prior Knowledge

Read the text below. How would you know that this is a story?

Texting, Not Talking

an excerpt from 10 Bad Things That are Good For You

In the Philippines alone, about 400 million text messages are sent in a day, which you may
see as another nail in the coffin of human interaction.
But a survey by YouGov, an international internet-based market research firm, found that 43
percent of respondents felt mobile phones improved family communications.
A study by Professor Helen Haste of the Nestle Social Research Programme in London
confirmed that for young adults, texting was crucial in their interaction with parents.
Experts suggest it’s the discreet nature of texting that makes it so appealing to young people,
allowing them to keep in touch while maintaining their own space.
Phone calls may be more immediate, but texting means explosive emotions can be edited out
and the misinterpretation of tones of voice, which often leads youngsters to avoid phone calls (parents
may sound interrogative when they’re really just concerned), becomes a thing of the past.
- Readers’ Digest (September 2008)

The text above disagrees with the uselessness of text messages in conversation,
hence, evaluating the issue using the point of view of the writer. Evaluation is another
genre in discourse.

B Acquire New Knowledge

Evaluating Discourses: Arguments and Text Responses

Argument genres negotiate positions in public discourse. Perhaps the best known
is exposition, in which a position is expounded, argued for and reiterated
(Thesis^Arguments^Reiteration). Expositions vary in the number of supporting
arguments (though commonly three) and reiterations of the thesis (typically one, after
the arguments).
While expositions are organized around arguments for a single position,
discussions are scaffolded around competing positions: one position will be presented,
then undermined by counter-arguments, and the discussion will be resolved in favour
of the latter (Issue^Sides^Resolution). They vary with the number of issues discussed:
simple discussions present one issue, then sides for and against it; complex discussions
include for and against sides for a series of sub-issues. And complementing these
promotional genres is the challenge, which sets out to demolish an established position,
effectively an anti-exposition (Position^Rebuttal). The potential is illustrated below with
a complex discussion (from Rowe, 1998), in which the issues are scaffolded by means
of metadiscourse (reasons, argument, opposition and the metaphor political hot potato
– underlined below), and the author’s counterarguments, by concession and negation
(in bold).
Response Genres – Evaluating Texts
Another major set of genres for exercising influence and demonstrating
competence are text responses. They typically include the elements
Context^Description^Evaluation, although varying in their relative size and ordering.
Beyond reviews, a key genre in the secondary school curriculum is interpretation.
Mastery of the interpretation genre demonstrates ‘that one is able to “read” the message
of the text and hence is able to respond to the cultural values presented in the narrative’.
Staging of interpretations include an Evaluation of both the text and its message, a
Synopsis that selects certain elements of the text to illustrate the message, and a
Reaffirmation of the evaluation, illustrated here with an interpretation of the movie
Rabbit Proof Fence (Martin, 2005). Here inscribed attitudes are in bold, and invoked
attitudes underlined.
 The interpretation begins by strongly evaluating both the film and its twin
messages of tenacity and injustice. The Synopsis then presents the events that carry
these messages – the initiating injustice and its political context; the girls’ heroic escape
– and the film and its messages are then strongly re-evaluated in the Reaffirmation. As
with arguments, the play of appraisal is critical of the goals of the genre. The tenor
enacted in this particular instance is one of solidarity, drawing the reader in by sharply
excluding both policymakers of the time and those on another planet … or in denial,
and proliferating explicit attitudes.

C Apply Your Acquired Knowledge

EXERCISE: Analyse the texts below as to its parts. Classify each into exposition,
discussion or text response.
1. In the Philippines alone, about 400 million text messages are sent in a day, which you may
see as another nail in the coffin of human interaction.
 But a survey by YouGov, an international internet-based market research firm, found that 43
percent of respondents felt mobile phones improved family communications.
A study by Professor Helen Haste of the Nestle Social Research Programme in London
confirmed that for young adults, texting was crucial in their interaction with parents.
Experts suggest it’s the discreet nature of texting that makes it so appealing to young people,
allowing them to keep in touch while maintaining their own space.
Phone calls may be more immediate, but texting means explosive emotions can be edited out
and the misinterpretation of tones of voice, which often leads youngsters to avoid phone calls (parents
may sound interrogative when they’re really just concerned), becomes a thing of the past.
- Readers’ Digest (September 2008)
2.
Come out and support your theatre department performing the high energy classic, Grease! It’s
fun from beginning to end, and you’ll see just how talented Cleveland High is.
The show starts out with the school year beginning once again, as Danny (senior John Jones)
and new student Sandy (senior Leslie Smith) retell their summer love through song. They soon realize
that they’re both at the same school and can potentially continue their love affair. Seniors Mark Kim,
Rick Lanford, Aaron Burns, and Junior Paul Roddriguea play the “T-Birds,” the fun-loving, toe-
tapping, greaser gang that Danny belongs to. And seniors Anne Porter, Samantha Lilith, sophomore
Rhonda Jen, and freshman Mandy Cane play the sassy “Pink Ladies”. Both groups are full of talent,
although some voices are much stronger than others.
The costume design, by senior Missy Taylor, assisted by freshmen Lily Rand and Johnny Good,
consists of classic ‘50s poodle skirts and letterman jackets. The set design is courtesy of senior Mark
Williams, who was assisted by sophomore Kelly McCoy and junior Ray Chen, and those with a keen
eye might recognize some Cleveland High landmarks in the background.
The play is directed by Mrs. Wilson, head of the theatre department, and she clearly knows a
thing or two about directing a musical! Each actor, from the smallest role to the largest, has their
moments and knows exactly what they’re supposed to be doing. The choreography, created by junior
Marissa Strauss, is simple enough for each actor to perform it well, yet diverse enough to hold the
audience’s attention.
I’ve seen Grease done many times by teenagers, and this has been one of my favourite
productions! I found myself smiling throughout and wanting to sing along to my favourite songs. With
only one more weekend left of this short run, I suggest you dance your way to the auditorium so you
don’t miss it!

D Evaluate Your Understanding

TEST: Answer the following items.

1. What is the structural difference between expositions and discussions?
2. How would your differentiate simple and complex discussions?
3. What are text responses as a genre?
4. How does an author stage an interpretation of a text response or evaluation?
 E Your Assignment

Write a dialogue on evaluating with the parts of your own chosen sub-type. You
could use your knowledge from the previous lessons on discourse in writing the
dialogue.

F Evaluate Your Understanding

How much have you learned from this lesson? Check the appropriate box below
based on your level of understanding rated from 1 (the lowest) to 10 (the highest).
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
 MODULE VI. LESSON 3.
GENRE: INFORMING AND PROCEDURAL
Lesson Objectives: Identify features of informing and procedural texts as a discourse
genre
Analyze informing and procedural texts based on its features

A Activate Your Prior Knowledge

Review on this diagram to recheck the types and sub-types of informing and
procedural genre.

B Acquire New Knowledge

Informing readers: explanations, reports, procedures

Explanations, reports, procedures and protocols have evolved along with the
institutional contexts of science, industry and administration.
 Reports – classifying and describing things
Reports may classify an entity and then describe its features (descriptive), sub-
classify a number of things with respect to a given set of criteria (classifying) or describe
the components of an entity (compositional).The stages of reports include the
‘classification’ of the entity and its ‘description’, but the phases within the description
vary with the type of report and the entity being described. For example, descriptive
reports about animal species typically include phases such as appearance, behaviour,
habitat, while descriptive reports about countries may include location, population,
topography, economy, and soon. The potential is illustrated here with a classifying
report. In this example organisms are classified as producers or consumers, so the text
begins with the ‘classification’ system, which is followed by a ‘description’ of types. The
phases describe each type (in bold) in terms of the criteria for their sub-classification
(underlined).
Classification Producers and consumers. We have seen that organisms in an ecosystem
are first classified as producers or as consumers of chemical energy.
Description
Type 1 Producers in ecosystems are typically photosynthetic organisms, such as
plants, algae and cyanobacteria. These organisms build organic matter
(food from simple inorganic substances by photosynthesis).
Type 2 Consumers in an ecosystem obtain their energy in the form of chemical
energy present in their ‘food’. All consumers depend directly or indirectly
on producers for their supply of chemical energy.
Type 2a Organisms that eat the organic matter of producers or their products
(seeds, fruits) are called primary consumers, for example, leaf-eating
koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus), and nectar-eating honey possums
(Tarsipes rostratus).
Type 2b Organisms that eat primary consumers are known as secondary
consumers. Wedge-tailed eagles that prey on wallabies are secondary
consumers.
Type 2c Some organisms consume the organic matter of secondary consumers and
are labeled tertiary consumers. Ghost bats (Macroderma gigas) capture a
variety of prey, including small mammals.

 Explanations – how processes happen

Explanations imply sequences of causes and effects: process x occurs, so
process y results, which in turns causes process z, and so on. This kind of logical
pattern has been termed an implication sequence (HallidayandMartin,1993). The
typical structure of explanations is to start by specifying the ‘phenomenon’ to be
explained, which is followed by the implication sequence that explains it, i.e. by the
‘explanation’ stage. Explanation genres are of four general types: a sequence of causes
and effects (sequential), multiple causes for an outcome (factorial), multiple effects
from an input (consequential) and multiple conditions and effects (conditional). This
potential is illustrated in the figure below with a sequential explanation of steps in the
cyclic burning and regeneration of the mallee eucalypt. Logical relations between each
step are made explicit with arrows, glossed as ‘so’ and ‘but’.
Procedures, protocols and procedural recounts
Procedures are of course endemic in everyday contexts, from recipes to appliance
manuals, but also in industrial fields, from simple procedures on the factory floor, to
those involving specialized operators or technicians (technical) and multiple choice
points for action (conditional), often accompanied by complex flow charts. Protocols
range from lists of rules and warnings that accompany appliances, to legislation and
strategic plans developed in commercial and administrative contexts. Procedural
recounts range from experiment reports required of school students, through technical
notes that recount the investigation of an industrial problem and recommend action, to
academic research articles that recount a method of research and interpret its results,
and case studies that interpret a wide range of activities in various institutional fields.

C Apply Your Acquired Knowledge

EXERCISE: Determine the type and the parts of the following texts. Use a diagram to
illustrate its parts.
1. There are two divisions of the automatic nervous system which differ in function. The
sympathetic nervous system controls many internal functions during times of stress. It is
responsible for the flight-or-fight response. The parasympathetic nervous system is the opposite
of the sympathetic nervous system. It controls many internal functions of the body at rest.
2. A complete change in form in the growth of certain animals is called metamorphosis.
A butterfly grows from being an egg, a larva (caterpillar), and pupa and finally, a full-grown
 butterfly. Frogs too started up as eggs and tadpoles but then changed into a frog. Cockroaches,
grasshoppers and crickets have diverse means of metamorphosing as well.
3. A baby chick makes efforts to be born. It breaks its egg shell with its beak. A chick
must peck for more than an hour to break out of the shell. When it gets out of the egg, the
chick is tired and its feathers are wet. It rests as its feathers dry. Soon, it can run around and
find food.

D Evaluate Your Understanding

TEST: Complete the following statements by filling in the blanks.

1. A _________ report sub-classifies a number of things with respect to a given set of
criteria.
2. The stages of reports include the __________ of the entity and its ‘description’.
3. Explanations imply sequences of _________ and __________.
4. Explanations are structured starting with the ____________ and followed by the
_____________.
5. Recipes and appliance manuals are examples of ___________.

E Your Assignment

Write a dialogue using informing or procedural genre. You could use your
knowledge from the previous lessons on discourse in writing the dialogue.

F Evaluate Your Understanding

How much have you learned from this lesson? Check the appropriate box below
based on your level of understanding rated from 1 (the lowest) to 10 (the highest).
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
 MODULE OUTPUT

For your module output, you are to create one original composition following
one of the specified genre in this module. Be sure that you are guided by the discourse
specifications of your chosen genre, especially on matters of structure. Be guided as
well by the previous discussions on discourse to come up with a great output
(grammar, register, vocabulary, etc.). Topics will be as specified below:
1. (if you choose) stories
Topic: My Most Unforgettable Experience of Kindness
2. (if you choose) evaluating
Topic: Love in Teenage Years
3. (if you choose) informing
Topic: Outcomes of Completing a College Education
4. (if you choose) procedural
Topic: Gaining a College Degree

RUBRICS FOR COMPOSITIONS

4 1
5 3 2
Criteria (Excellent)
(Very
(Satisfactory) (Good)
(Needs
Satisfactory) Improvement)
Topic is Topic is Topic is
Topic is Topic is
appropriate appropriate inappropriate
appropriate inappropriate
and mostly and partly and mostly
Content (40%) and and not
developed in developed in developed in
interestingly interestingly
an interesting an interesting an interesting
developed developed
manner manner manner
Few parts of Some parts of Most parts of All parts of
Structure for
the the the the
the genre
composition composition composition composition
Organization correctly
do not follow do not follow do not follow do not follow
(30%) used; lessons
the structure the structure the structure the structure
on discourse
and proper and proper and proper and proper
correctly used
discourse discourse discourse discourse
Proper
mechanics
(handwriting, 90 percent of 75 percent of 50 percent of Less than
punctuations, the the the percent of the
Mechanics indentions, composition composition composition composition
(30%) margins, observed observed observed observed
grammar, etc.) proper proper proper proper
observed in mechanics mechanics mechanics mechanics
the entire
composition
*NOTE: Your rate for the outputs will suffer upon submission of an output which is
NOT ORIGINAL/COPIED.