Genres within Specific Domains

Genres have so far been individually and

independently viewed as clearly distinct entities.
Although it is true that most genres have an
identifiable ‘integrity’ of their own (Bhatia
1993;1994), genres in the real world are often seen
in relation to other genres with a certain degree of
overlap, or sometimes even conflict (Bhatia 1998).
 As stated by Bhatia (2004:29-30) there are
mainly three challenges to the genre theory.
First, on the one hand, we find colonies of reporting
genres, promotional genres, academic introductions
and many others, which often transcend
disciplinary boundaries; on the other hand, we find
systems of genres which are often confined to
specific disciplinary cultures, e.g. legislation cases,
judgements, discussion notes, briefs, etc., which are
often largely associated with legal culture alone.
 The second important aspect of variation in
genres is sometimes associated with the evolution
and development of genres. Although genres are
often identified on the basis of their integrity, which
is a reflection of their conventionalized
characteristics, they are far from static. Most of
them are dynamic, in the sense that they can be
exploited to respond to novel rhetorical contexts,
and thus have propensity for innovation and further
development.
 The third challenge to genre theory comes from
disciplinary overlaps and conflicts within and across
genres. Genre analysis has been conventionally
viewed as the study of situated linguistic behaviour
in institutionalized, academic or professional
settings, where one often gets the impression that
disciplinary distinctions do not play a significant
role.
 As a result, disciplinary characteristics have often
been ignored in most of the analyses of genres.
However, in recent studies of professional
discourses, disciplinary distinctions have been
found to play a significant role, especially in
professional practices, where disciplinary boundries
are being renegotiated, giving rise to
interdisciplinary discourses.
 Disciplines have their typical characteristics, and
are primarily understood in terms of the specific
knowledge, methodologies and shared practices of
their community members, especially their ways of
thinking, constructing and consuming knowledge,
their specific norms and epistemologies and, above
all, their typical goals and disciplinary practices to
achieve those goals (Bhatia 2004:32).
 The only problem is that one needs to have a
certain degree of expertise, recognition and status
in the professional community to be able to
identify and exploit some of these conventionalized
aspects of genre expectations.

However, genres cut across disciplines. Textbook

as a genre, for instance, will certainly display a
number of shared features across disciplinary
boundaries; but, genres at the same time, are
sensitive to disciplinary variations as well.
 Example : Disciplinary variation in textbooks

The textbook genre, irrespective of the discipline it is

associated with, serves a common purpose in academic
contexts, which is reflected in a number of typical features.

One of the major concerns of textbook writing is to

communicate very specialized and precise knowledge to an
audience.
 Textbooks disseminate discipline-based
knowledge and, at the same time, display a
somewhat unequal writer-reader relationship, with
the writer as the specialist and the reader as the
non-initiated apprentice in the discipline, or the
writer as the transmitter, and the reader as the
recipient of established knowledge (Bhatia 2004,
33).
 As Hyland(2000:104) points out, textbooks facilitate the
professional’s role as a teacher and constitute one of the
primary means by which the concepts and analytical
methods of a discipline are acquired.
Furthermore, textbooks play a major role in the learners’
experience and understanding of a subject by providing a
coherently ordered epistemological map of the disciplinary
landscape, and through their textual practices, can help to
convey the values and ideological assumptions of a
particular academic culture.
 However, in spite of these shared characteristics of
textbooks across disciplines, we find that disciplinary
cultures differ on several dimensions.

Examples from two disciplines : Textbooks in economics

and textbooks in law
Textbooks in economics, for instance, will certainly
display a number of similarities with textbooks in law,
because of their common concern with making disciplinary
knowledge accesible to learners new to the disciplines.
 However, they will differ significantly in terms of
their disciplinary characteristics, especially in the
way they approach disciplinary knowledge, the way
they present arguments, the kind of evidence they
consider valid in that discipline, and also the
strategies they find more useful to make difficult
concepts accesible to learners.
 Business studies, in general, depend on
aggressive innovation in the way it constructs its
discourses, which is also reflected in economics
textbooks.
Thus, innovative and reader-friendly strategies
are used in business textbooks (interactive
summaries, colorful and attractive visuals,
computer simulation exercises, etc.) (Bhatia 2004:
37).
 Law, on the other hand, as stated by Bhatia
2004:37) relies on extreme conservatism in the way
it constructs its discourses.It relies heavily on tried
and tested modes of communication.
Legislative writing, for example, which is a very
important genre in law, has not changed much in
the last few decades. Textbook writing in law is no
exception in this respect.
 The two disciplines also vary in terms of
instructional strategies used in textbook materials.
In economics textbooks, knowledge is often
structured in the form of smaller units for greater
understanding of ideas and information whereas in
law textbooks information is more holistically
structured, so that the learners do not
misunderstand any idea or concept out of context
(high degree of intertextuality, a lot of footnotes,
etc.).
 We also find significant variations in the nature
and development of argumentation in the two
disciplines, especially the way evidence is used to
make claims, e.g. the way cases and legislation are
used to make claims and to argue for them in the
discourse of law, and the way numerical data is
used to construct, formulate and support
argumentation in economics.
 Economics, like any other discipline, is concerned with
defining and clarifying technical concepts. However, these
technical terms and concepts are not defined in
conventional linguistic forms.
Even if there are definitions in this discipline, their form,
distribution and functional values are very different from
those in law.
The treatment of terminological explanation is mostly
based on historical development in law textbooks rather
than on a clear and concise definition as in business
studies.
 Thus, it can be concluded that academic
disciplines, although they share common genre-
specific characteristics, do display variations in
rhetorical strategies used, reflecting not only the
nature of the discipline in question, but more
importantly specifically favoured discursive
practices, disciplinary methodologies, and
pedagogic practices considered effective for
individual disciplines.
 REFERENCES
Bhatia, Vijay, K., 1993.Analysing Genre : Language Use in Proffessional
Settings.Longman, London.
Bhatia, Vijay, K., 1994. Generic Integrity in Professional Discourse, in B.L.
Gunarsson, P. Linell and B. Nordberg (eds), Text and Talk in
Professional Contexts. Uppsala : ASLA, 61-76.
Bhatia, Vijay, K., 1998. Discourse of Philanthropic Fund-raising, in
Working Papers, Indianapolis : IOP.
Bhatia, Vijay K., 2004. Worlds of Written Discourse: A Genre-Based
View. Continuum, London.
Hyland, K. 2000. Disciplinary Discourses:Social Interactions in Academic
Writing. Harlow: Pearson Education Ltd.