Genre in Linguistic Traditions: Systemic Functional and Corpus

Linguistics’: Chapter 3 By Anis S. Bawarshi & Mary Jo Reiff

SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS

1) Bawarshi & Reiff claim that ‘Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) operates from the
premise that language structure is integrally related to social function and context’.
Explain the quotation by making reference to the SFL approach to language and to the
meaning and implications of each of the terms.
Systemic Functional linguistics (SFL) operates from the premise that language
structure is integrally related to social function and context.
Language: is organised within a culture in a way so as to serve a social purpose within
that culture.
Functional: refers to the work that language does/ purpose it fulfils within particular
contexts.
Systemic: refers to the “systems of choices available to language users for the
realisation of meaning. The structure or organisation of language as a whole is
systemic as long as replacement or permutation of one element will bring about a
change in the whole system.
2) Why is the notion of ‘realization’ relevant to the field of SFL?
Realization: is an especially important concept within SFL. It describes the dynamic
nature of language as a two way movement. Language realises social purposes and
contexts as specific linguistic interactions, at the same time as social purposes and
contexts realise language as specific social actions and meanings.
3) Explain and relate the following concepts: ‘social semiotic’, ‘language’, ‘context of
situation’ and ‘situation types’.
Social Semiotic is the network of meanings that constitute any culture is to a large
extent encoded in and maintained by its discourse-semantic system, which represents
a culture’s meaning potential. Language is a form of socialization, playing a role in how
individuals become socialized and perform meaningful actions within Contexts of
situation (Field, tenor and mode). The contexts of situation are not isolated and unique,
but often reoccur as situation types, a set of typified semiotic and semantic relations
that make up a scenario of persons and actions and events from which the things which
are said derive their meaning. Example situation type: players instructing novice in a
game. As these situation types become conventionalized over time, they begin to
specify the semantic configurations that the speaker will typically fashion.

4) What does Halliday understand by register? What are field, tenor and mode? How
are these concepts realised?
Halliday: Register
Register: “a clustering of semantic features according to situation types”.
Register links a situation type to a particular semantic and lexico-grammatical
patterns. It describes:
● What actually takes place: the social action (Field)
● How participants relate to one another: the role structure or relationship
(Tenor)
● What role language is playing: the abstract symbolic representation (Mode).
All three are contextual factors or variables that are carried into or realised in text.
FIELD: (the social action): The field of discourse: the system of activity within a
particular setting including the participants, practices, and circumstances involved.
- What is happening, the nature of the social action that is taking place, what it
is the participants are engaged in, the language figures as some essential components.
TENOR: (the role of structure). The Tenor of discourse: the social relations between the
participants, their interactions, who is taking part, the nature of the participants, their
statuses and roles (i.e. permanent and temporary relationships); the types of speech
role that they are taking on in the dialogue (situated roles), the whole clusters of
socially significant relationships they are involved in.
MODE: (the symbolic organisation). The mode of discourse: the channel or wavelength
of communication (face-to-face, via e-mail, telephone, or other linguistic systems)
used by participants to perform their actions or relations, what part language is
playing, what the participants expect the language will do for them in the
situation; the symbolic organisation of the text, its status, and its
function in the context, including the channel (spoken, written, on-line,
off-line), the rhetorical mode (i.e. what is being achieved by the text →
persuasive, expository, didactic, rhetorical functions.)
Example: job interview
Field:( what - ideational meaning ) educational (technical) questions pre-planned
Tenor : (who/ interpersonal meaning) unequal, interviewers have more power
Mode: (how/ textual meaning) spoken / formal
5) How can the three register variables proposed by Halliday be related to what he
calls ‘the three language metafunctions’?
Metafunction: a theoretical construct that transfers or transmits the domain of context
to the language system itself. It carries social functions beyond the contextual level
onto the textual level.
What happens at the level of context of situation in terms of field, tenor and mode
corresponds to what happens at the linguistic level in terms of the three language
metafunctions : IDEATIONAL, INTERPERSONAL, TEXTUAL.
IDEATIONAL: Refers to the linguistic representation of action (who is doing what, to
whom, when, where, why, how ) It corresponds to FIELD.
INTERPERSONAL: Describes interactions between participants (such as asking,
stating, elicit information, directing, but also expressing attitudes and opinions) at the
linguistic level. Interpersonal corresponds to TENOR.
TEXTUAL: Describes the flow of information within and between texts, including how
texts are organised, what is made explicit and what is assumed as background
knowledge, how the known and the new are related, and how coherence and cohesion
are achieved. It corresponds to MODE.
6) Why did Systemic Functional approaches to genre emerge? What are the
limitations to these approaches?
Genres in SFL: Halliday’s work has served as a foundation for Systemic Functional
approaches to Genre. Their focus is on helping students “learn to exercise the
appropriate linguistic choices relevant to the needs, functions or meanings at any
time”.
● Systemic Functional approaches to genre emerge partly in response to
concerns over the efficacy of student-centred, process-based literacy teaching, with its
emphasis on “learning through doing”. Such approaches were led by J.R. Martin and
supported by scholarship in the field of education linguistics in Australia.
Limitations:
- This approach ignores the contexts in which texts are acquired and function,
which naturalises and privatises what is actually a social process of literacy acquisition.
- Process approaches deprive students of access to the systemic, patterned
textual choices that function within different contexts of situation.
- Process approaches promote a student-centred approach meant to
encourage student expression and discovery but fail to socially empower students.
- Process approaches reproduce social inequality by denying traditionally
marginalised students access to academic and cultural texts.
- Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis explain that: process-based approaches are
actually “culture bound”; their focus is on student agency and ownership, the power of
voice, student control and motivation. They reflect and privilege “the cultural
aspirations of middle class children from child-centred households”. Its pedagogy of
immersion naturally favours students whose voice is closest to the literate culture of
power in industrial society”.

How does Why if H considers the ctxt of situation the limitation is that ignores the context in which
txts are acquired? (Noe´s doubt) Halliday ignores the broader context and as a consequence it doesn’t
empower students socially. Context of situation refers to what’s going on around the language event,
the immediate environment in which the text is produced (context of production). That’s why,
Malinoski for example, realised that context of situation was not enough and started talking of context
of culture, that is to say the system of belief, values that the speaker brings into any social interaction.

Martin define genre? Explain what each element/word of his definition implies.
Genre: staged, goal-oriented social processes through which social subjects in a given
culture live their lives.
*as a social processes because members of a culture interact with each other to achieve
them.
* as goal oriented because they have evolved to get things done.
* as staged because it usually takes more than one step for participants to achieve their
goals.
8) What developments has Halliday’s model of context undergone?
Martin builds on Halliday’s work by locating genre in relation to register so that genre
and register relate to and realise one another in important ways.
Martin relates genre and register. While register (field, tenor and mode) functions on
the level of context of situation, genre functions on the level of context of culture. That
is to say, genre connects culture to a situation, and register connects the situation to
language. Martin’s formulation enriches our understanding of genre by showing how
social purposes/ motives are linked to text structures.
9) Briefly outline what the LERN project and the teaching-learning cycle are. How
have they contributed to genre pedagogy?
LERN (literacy and Education Research Network)project:
- Martin’s view of genre has been used as a part of the influential LERN project
(Literacy and Education Research Network).
AIMS: - Identify the most important genres within school literacy.
- Develop a pedagogy to teach them critically and efficiently. That pedagogy
has come to be known as the “Teaching-learning Cycle”.
TEACHING-LEARNING CYCLE:
- It has been adapted by various researchers.
- Its basic components include three categories:
● Modelling.
● Joint negotiation of text.
● Independent construction of text.
MODELLING:
Students are exposed to a number of texts representing a given member. In this stage,
students and teachers identify:
- The cultural and situational context the texts have been produced in.
- The genre function.
- The social purposes they serve.
- How structural elements reflect their functions.
- How language features carry out their functions.
Their stage moves from discussion of context and social purpose to a description/
analysis of register and language.
JOINT NEGOTIATION OF TEXT:
- Students and teachers engage in the joint negotiation and their construction
of a text within the genre.
- First conducting the research, developing content knowledge, note-taking,
observing, diagramming.
- And then working collaboratively to produce a version of the genre.
INDEPENDENT CONSTRUCTION OF TEXT:
Students work independently to construct a version of the genre. Their tasks involve:.
- Conducting research to develop content knowledge.
- Drafting the text.
- Conferencing with teachers and peers.
- Editing it.
- Evaluating it and finally publishing their text.
Teaching-learning Cycle (Cont’d)
- The cyclical shape of the model is meant to reflect its flexibility.
- Teachers can then enter into the model at the stage as is appropriate to
students’ level of preparedness.
- Due to its flexible nature, students and teachers can keep rotating through
the cycle as more and more complex genres are added.
- The cycle visibilizes the structural and linguistic features of genres, and the
connection of such features to social function.

10) Bawarshi & Reiff open up this chapter by stating that ‘Systemic Functional
approaches to genre have contributed richly to how genre is understood and applied in
textual analysis and language teaching (…)’. To what extent do you think this is true?
Reflect on the topic and provide examples to account for your answer.
I agree with the statement because genres are the area of language change and in order
to understand language we need to understand genres. Genres identification depends
on contextual cues and interaction. Teaching a language has to include the language
but at the same time teachers need to explain and give tools for the students to interact
with the context in order to achieve a correct communication and use of the language.
Genres have a purpose when used by participants in social interaction, so SFL
contributed greatly to the definition of Genres since it deals with organisation,
purposes and the choices the speakers make when engaging in social interaction.

GENRE AND HISTORICAL / CORPUS LINGUISTICS

11) Briefly explain what genre categorization consists of within the field of Historical
and Corpus Linguistics. How is it related to Rosch’s theory of prototypes?
The field of historical linguistics became interested in text classification when it
expanded its scope of study from sentences to texts. Within texts linguistics there are
two classifications: Deductive and Inductive texts typologies. Deductive text typologies
seek to create overarching categories for genre and text classification (apriori
categories). For example: the Narrative mode overarches genres such as fairy tales,
novels, short stories, newspapers.
Inductive text typologies classify text types based on perceived textual patterns.
Biber’s work in corpus linguistics has most influenced such an approach to genre
classification. Corpus linguistics, using large scale electronic text databases or corpora,
allow researchers to conduct systematic searches for linguistic features, patterns, and
variations in spoken and written texts. Biber identifies groups of linguistic features
called dimensions such as narrative vs non-narrative or non-impersonal vs impersonal
style that co-occur with high frequency in texts. Then by applying these dimensions to
statistical analysis of a corpora, Biber examined the degree to which these dimensions
appear within various texts in each genre. Biber has been able to identify a great deal of
linguistic variation within genres, suggesting that genres can be defined in terms of
more or less complexity. The notion of more or less has played an important role in
historical and corpus linguistic approaches to genre categorization. Based on Eleanor
Rosch’s theory of prototypes, which takes a psychological view of human
categorization, such a typology identifies membership within genre on the basis not of
‘either-or’ but on the basis of ‘more or less, better and poorer’. (Ex. the word ‘Bird’ will
make the sp think of a typical bird in his area, and not in a Tucan) A prototype theory
describes how people categorise objects according to a prototypical image they have
conditioned in their minds by social-cultural factors. The notion of prototypes allows
genre researchers to define text membership within genres on the basis of how closely
their structural and linguistic patterns relate to the genre prototype. Some texts are
closer to their genre prototype while others function more on the periphery of
prototypicality, or , more accurately, on the boundaries of different prototypicalities as
in the case of mixed genres. The relation between texts and genres is not simply based
on features internal to both, but more powerfully is based on learned, conceptual
relations between ‘memory, context and frames’.
12) Relate prototype theory with the studying and teaching of genres.
Prototype theory has important implications for genre study and teaching. Within SFL
genre theory, J.R. Martin has used it to distinguish between typological and topological
genre classifications: “For purposes of typological classification, we have to define just
what percentage of causal relations is required for a text to qualify [as a member of the
genre]. The topological perspective on the other hand allows us to position texts on a
cline, as more or less prototypical . . .”. The topological approach thus allows SFL
approaches to genre teaching to use the teaching-learning cycle to move students
towards more and more prototypical genres through sequenced assignments. At the
same time, corpus linguistic-based analyses of genres have allowed researchers and
teachers working in English for Specific Purposes to identify the most and least salient
features of different academic and workplace genres so that these can be taught more
realistically.
13) What are the implications of studying genre stability and genre dynamics?
Genres are perceived as manifestations of perception leading to interpretation: they are
historical phenomena, sets of conventions that shift and reform themselves in dynamic
systems that evolve constantly as new genres come into being and old ones fade away.

‘Genre in Linguistic Traditions: English for Specific Purposes’ - Chapter

4

1) What is English for Specific Purposes (ESP)? How are ESP approaches characterized?
ESP is an overarching category of Language for Specific Purposes. ESP focuses on
studying and teaching specialized varieties of English (to non-native speakers of
English) in advanced academic and professional settings. ESP is often used as an
umbrella term which comprises more specialized areas of study, such as: English for
Academic Purposes (EAP), English for Occupational Purposes (EOP), English for
Medical Purposes (EMP)
Swales (1990) mentions two key characteristics of ESP genre approaches, namely:
•Their focus on academic and research English
•Their use of genre analysis for applied ends.
2) Compare and contrast the ESP and SFL approaches to the genre.
ESP AND SFL: SIMILARITIES
• They both share the view that linguistic features are connected to social context and
function.
• They are driven by the pedagogical imperative to make visible to disadvantaged
students the connections between language and social function that genres embody.
• They are committed to the idea that explicit teaching of relevant genres provides
access to disadvantaged learners.
3) What does Swales understand by discourse communities? Explain the six defining
characteristics Swales puts forward on defining this notion.
As ‘socio-rhetorical networks that form in order to work towards sets of common
goals’. These common goals become the basis for shared communicative purposes,
with genres enabling discourse community members to achieve these communicative
purposes. Swales proposes six defining characteristics of discourse communities:
1) A broadly agreed set of public goals (which are explicitly stated or tacitly understood)
2) Mechanisms of intercommunication among its members. (telecommunication
technology/ meetings room)
3) Membership depends on individuals using these mechanisms to participate in the
life of the discourse community.
4) One or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims. This must be
recognizable to and defined by members of DC
5) Some specific lexis. (such as abbreviations and acronyms)
6) A threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and
discoursal expertise.
4) According to Swales, what does genre refer to? What does his working definition
involve and imply? To what extent is Swales’ definition of genre different from
Martin’s?
Swales (1990) posits that a genre ‘comprises a class of communicative events, the
members of which share some set of communicative purposes.’
⇒Genres as linguistic and rhetorical actions.
⇒Genres as a relatively stable class of linguistic and rhetorical events which
members of a discourse community have typified in order to respond to and achieve
shared communicative values.
GENRE - MARTIN: Staged, goal-oriented social processes through which social
subjects in a given culture live their lives.
•Genres function:
• as social processes “because members of a culture interact with each other to achieve
them;
• as goal-oriented because they have evolved to get things done; and
• as staged because it usually takes more than one step for participants to achieve their
goals”.
5) What is the rationale behind the genre?
Swales: •The communicative purpose gives rise to and provides the rationale behind
the genre because…
•…it shapes the schematic structure of the discourse.
•…it influences and constrains choice of content and style.
6) Enumerate Bhatia’s steps to analysing genres.
Bhatia outlines 7 steps to analysing genre:
1. Placing a given genre-text in its situational context.
2. Surveying the existing research on the genre.
3. Refining the researcher’s understanding of the genre’s discourse community.
4. Collecting a corpus of the genre.
5. Conducting an ethnography of the institutional context in which the genre takes
place.
6. Deciding which level to explore, namely: lexicogrammatical, text-patterning and
structural interpretation.
7. Seeking a specialist informant from the research site to verify findings.
7) Bawarshi and Reiff posit that ‘[n]ot all ESP genre researchers (…)’ follow the steps
outlined by Bhatia. Taking Swales’ (1990) three-move ‘Creating a Research Paper’
model into consideration, analyse both the way in which they conceptualize the
notion of genre and the connection between Bhatia’s methodology for genre analysis
and Swales’ model.
Swales notion of genre: Genres are communicative events, relatively stable, that
become typified to respond to common goals. Swales has called ‘occluded genres’ that
operate behind the scenes of research articles. Such knowledge of discipline-specific
genres has enabled graduate-level non-native speakers of English to gain access to and
participate in academic and professional discourse communities.
Bhatia outlines seven steps (question 6) to analysing genres: The trajectory of the
analysis thus proceeds from a generic schematic structure to its lexico-grammatical
features, all the while attending to the genre’s communicative purpose and the
discourse community which defines it. The process is by no means linear or static, it
has tended to move from context to text, with context providing knowledge of
communicative purpose and discourse community member’s genre identifications.
Together these steps provide insight into the range of ways ESP genre researchers go
about conducting genre analyses in academic and professional contexts.
Swales first identifies the typical moves authors make within the introduction. Within
each of these moves, Swales identifies a range of possible steps RA authors can take.
From there Swales examines steps more specifically by analysing text-patterning and
lexico-grammatical features within different steps. Moving from text-patterning to
lexico-grammatical features.

The concept of rationale (Swales) is the concept of generic integrity (Bathia)

8) Enumerate and briefly describe the developments the field of ESP has recently
undergone. How have these developments contributed to the study of genre?
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN ESP GENRE STUDIES
• Recent ESP approaches to genre study acknowledge the dynamic, interactive nature of
genres. à Askehave & Swales, Hyland
• ESP genre researches have begun to attend “genre chains” one genre is a necessary
antecedent for another. Attending to networks of genres reveals that genre
competence involves knowledge not only of individual genres, but also of how genres
interact with one another in complex ways to achieve dynamic purposes. (Swales) –
genre intertextuality.
• Some ESP researchers have emphasized ethnographic approaches to genre studies.
Eg: Johns, Paltridge

[Genre researchers of the deeply social nature of genres, recognize that genres are not
only embedded in social contexts such as discourse communities, but also in the sense
that genres help shape social contexts. ]

9) ESP is considered to be ‘a field that bridges linguistic and rhetorical traditions.’

What does this mean? Account for your answer by reflecting on the difference
between early ESP studies and those carried out recently.
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN ESP GENRE STUDIES
• Recent ethnographic approaches in ESP genre teaching signal a recognition among
ESP genre researchers of the deeply social nature of genres.
• Genres are embedded in social contexts (such as discourse communities)
• Genres help shape social contexts
• Hyland: ‘(…) Genres therefore not only embed social realities but also construct
them’.
ESP takes rhetorical traditions (Systemic functional linguistics by Halliday, discourse
communities by Swales, etc) as a starting point in its research. It expands them taking
into account other factors, such as culture, ideology, discourse communities, including
ethnographic approaches.
10) What are the limitations to ESP approaches to genre?
These approaches are often subject to a pedagogy of accommodation, prescriptiveness
and genre competence rather than genre performance.
11) What does a ‘critical perspective on genre’ entail?
CRITICAL APPROACHES TO GENRE
• These might explore the connections between discourse, language learning, language
use, and the social and political contexts while providing students with the tools they
need to succeed.
• Effective participation within a discourse community requires the ability to know:
• why genres and purposes exist
• whose interests they serve
• whose they exclude
• what they make possible
• what they obscure
The critical approach to genre shifts the focus from a pedagogy of cultural
accommodation to a pedagogy of cultural alternatives (Pennycook), whereby students
can potentially adapt genre conventions in order to represent alternative purposes
and/or their own cultural perspectives.
12) What are Rhetorical Genre Studies (RGS) approaches? How do they differ from ESP
approaches?
• Both approaches acknowledge the dynamic relationship between texts and contexts.
• They both recognize genres as situated rhetorical and linguistic actions.
• However, RGS understand genre as
- Situated within contexts such as discourse communities
-Constitutive of contexts (as symbolic worlds readers and writers co-construct and
inhabit)

Generally speaking, then, while ESP genre scholars have tended to understand genres as
communicative tools situated within social contexts, rhetorical genre scholars have tended to
understand genres as sociological concepts embodying textual and social ways of
knowing, being, and interacting in particular contexts.
So while both ESP and Rhetorical genre approaches recognize genres as relating texts and
context, the point of emphasis and analytical/pedagogical trajectory of each approach has
differed, so that, generally speaking, in ESP genre study, context has been used to understand
texts and communicative purposes while in Rhetorical Genre Studies, texts have been used to
study contexts and social actions—in particular, how texts mediate situated symbolic actions.