A3. TEXTS AND THEIR SOCIAL FUNCTION
Different patterns of texture are associated with different types of texts.
Newspaper articles, for example, tend to favour particular kinds of cohesive
devices and are structured in a conventional way with a summary of the main
points in the beginning and with the details coming later. To understand why
such textual conventions are associated with this type of text, we need to
understand something about the people who produce and consume it and what
they are doing with it. The study of the social functions of different kinds of
texts is called:
GENRE ANALYSIS
Certain types of texts tend to favour certain cohesive devices and are
structured in a conventional way. But why? It depends on the function.
We need to understand what the people who produce the texts are trying to do
with them, and how this doing is mixed up with their social or professional
identities.
GENRE: EXPECTATION AND CREATIVITY
A genre is a recognisable communicative event characterised by a set of
communicative purposes identified and mutually understood by members of
the community in which it occurs. Most often it is highly structured and
conventionalised with constraints on allowable contributions in terms of their
intent, positioning, form, and functional value. These constraints, however, are
often exploited by expert members of the discourse community to achieve
private intentions within the framework of the socially recognised purposes.
Genres are not defined as types of texts but rather as types of communicative
events; these events are characterized by constraints on what can and cannot
be done within them; expert users often exploit these constraints in creative
and unexpected ways.
Vijay Bhatia is a retired Professor from the Department of English at the city
University of Hong Kong. His research interests are: Genre analysis of
academic and professional discourses, including, legal, business, newspaper,
advertising, genres; ESP and Professional Communication;
GENRES ARE COMMUNICATIVE EVENTS
Considering texts events highlights the fact that all texts are instances of
people doing things with or to other people. E.g., informing, instructing,
requesting etc. (A newspaper article is an instance of someone informing
someone else about some recent event).
‘Genres are how things get done, when language is used to accomplish them’
(Martin, 1985)
The communicative purposes of texts can be multiple and complex (e.g.,
persuading and instructing) and the same text can be seen by different people
who may have different purposes in mind (e.g., promoting vs selecting). A
