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Chapter 3 Genre Context of Culture in Text

This document discusses genre analysis and how genres are realized through language. It defines genre as purposeful social activities accomplished through language. Genres have three dimensions: register configuration involving field, tenor and mode; schematic structure involving functional stages; and realization through lexico-grammatical choices. Recurrent contexts lead to habitual language patterns and the development of genres as a way to interact linguistically within those contexts. Examples discussed include the genres of horoscopes and buying coffee.

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558 views11 pages

Chapter 3 Genre Context of Culture in Text

This document discusses genre analysis and how genres are realized through language. It defines genre as purposeful social activities accomplished through language. Genres have three dimensions: register configuration involving field, tenor and mode; schematic structure involving functional stages; and realization through lexico-grammatical choices. Recurrent contexts lead to habitual language patterns and the development of genres as a way to interact linguistically within those contexts. Examples discussed include the genres of horoscopes and buying coffee.

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nugrahasakertabarat
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We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Chapter 3

Genre: context of culture in text

texture
We look at the systemic functional interpretation of genre as the 'cultural
purpose' of texts, and examine how texts express genres through structural
and realizational patterns.

Read Text 3.1: Threshold

What is the text stating?

When we state so comfortably that Text 3.1 is a horoscope text, what we


are really stating is what purpose the text fulfils, what kind of job it does in
its culture of origin.
Identifying the purpose of a text clues readers in to how to 'read' and
therefore interpret the (sometimes indeterminate) meanings of the text.
What is wrong with Text 2.3?
 The 'text' is that it doesn't display much cohesion at all.
 The participants introduced in sentence I (.Stalin, 1) are not referred
to again
 The lexical items are from a dozen different unrelated fields
 There are no interpretable conjunctive relations between sentences

There’s no generic identity


If a text can't easily be attributed to a genre, then it is in some ways a
problematic text.

Genre
 'A genre is a staged, goal-oriented, purposeful activity in which
speakers engage as members of our culture' (Martin, 1934: 25).

 Less technically, 'Genres are how things get done when language is
used to accomplish them (Martin, l985b: 248).

Many different genres as there are recognizable social activity types in our
culture:
 Literary genres; short stories, autobiographies, ballads, sonnets,
fables, tragedies
 Popular fiction genres: romantic novels, whodunits, sitcoms
 Popular non-fiction genres: instructional manuals, news stories,
profiles, reviews recipes, how-to features
 Educational genres: lectures, tutorials, report/essay writing, leading
seminars, examinations, text-book writing

Everyday genres, genres in which we take part in daily life, such as:

• buying and selling things ('transactional' genres)


• seeking and supplying information
• telling stories
• gossiping
• making appointments
• exchanging opinions
• going to interviews
• chatting with friends

Systemic linguistics suggests that the generic identity of a text, the way in
which it is similar to other texts of its genre, lies in three dimensions:
1. The co-occurrence of a particular contextual cluster, or its register
configuration
2. The texts staged or schematic structure
3. The realizational patterns in the text

1. Register configuration
Berger and Luckman (1966) suggest that all human activity is subject to
habituation.

What do you have for breakfast?


‘It saves time & energy’  economical

The Russian linguist and literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin pointed out that as
language use becomes habitualized, we can recognize what he called
'speech genres'. Bakhtin claimed that speech genres develop as language
patterns in particular contexts become predictable and relatively stable:

We learn to cast our speech in generic forms and, when


hearing others' speech, we guess its genre from the very first
words; we predict a certain length (that is, the approximate
length of the speech whole) and a certain compositional
structure; we foresee the end; that is, from the very beginning
we have a sense of the speech whole, which is only later
differentiated during the speech process. (Bakhtin 1994: 83)

On the subject of language genres, Bakhtin goes even further. He claims


not just that genres are 'economic' but that they are essential:
If speech genres did not exist and we had not mastered them, if
we had to originate them during the speech process and
construct each utterance at will for the first time, speech
communication would be almost impossible. (Bakhtin 1994: 84)

In other words, as situations, or contexts, recur, so we develop


recurrent ways of using language:

1. What aspects of situations need to recur for two situations to be felt


by interactants to be 'similar enough' to call for the habitualized
genre?
2. In what aspects of our language use do we see the 'relatively
consistent' patterns of meaning in recurrent situations?

Register theory identifies three main dimensions of situations or context:


field, tenor and mode

saving time & energy; economical

Consumer : Hello, Can I have coffee, please?  opening


Seller : What kind of coffee would you like?  Body
Consumer : Black coffee with no sugar.
Seller : It’s Rp5000.
Consumer : Here it is
Seller : Ok, wait a moment please.
Consumer : Thanks.  Closing

Buying your coffee:


 field  coffee (transitivity analysis)
 tenor  customer/provider (interpersonal analysis)
 the mode  face-to-face (thematic analysis)

Horoscope texts
Field  'predicting romantic, material, and career events'
Tenor  ‘advice and warning’
Mode  ‘direct address from writer to (generic) reader’

Genres develop as ways of dealing linguistically with recurrent


configurations of register variables.
In other words, as certain contextual combinations become stable, ways of
interacting within those contexts also become habitualized and, eventually,
institutionalized as genres.

2. Schematic structure
Genres develop linguistic expression through a limited number of functional
stages, occurring in a particular sequence.

Horoscope texts, for example, typically involve die following stages:


General Outlook: a stage in which the astrologer makes a general
statement about the period covered by the horoscope (e.g. it's going to be
a rosy month for you.)
Uncontingent Predictions: a stage in which general predictions are made
about your immediate future (you'll meet and marry a tall man).
Contingent Predictions: a stage in which different advice is offered
according to the salient category membership of readers (if single, x will
happen; if married,)
Advice: a stage in which the astrologer offers advice and warnings (invest
wisely, etc.)

Recount  orientation^events^reorientation

Schematic structure simply refers to the staged, step-by-step organization


of the genre.

Each stage in the genre contributes a part of the overall meanings that
must be made for the genre to be accomplished successfully.

What genre?
Once upon a time … narrative
Can I help you? … sale service
A funny thing happened to me on the way to the office … recount
Have you heard the one about the two elephants? … joke

Constituency
Constitute
A genre is made up of constituent stage.
The constituent stages of a genre are a Beginning, a Middle and an End.

Functional labelling
1. Formal criteria: we could divide the text into stages/parts according to
the form of the different constituents.
This approach emphasizes sameness, as we divide the text so that
each unit/stage is a constituent of the same type.
2. Functional criteria: we could divide the genre into stages/parts
according to the function of the different constituents. This approach
emphasizes difference, as we divide the text according to the
different functions of each stage.

Formal approach  we could divide up the horoscope text into


paragraphs, then each paragraph into sentences, each sentence into
words and so on.

Functional label  stages only those sentences or groups of sentences


which fulfil a function relative to the whole.
Habituation of interactions like this has led to social conventions about
which stages the interactants must jointly negotiate their way through in
order to complete the transaction successfully.
A linear description of the schematic structure of the post office text
becomes:

Sales Initiation ^ Sales Request ^ Sales Compliance ^ Price ^


Sales Request ^ Sales Clarification ^ Purchase ^ Price ^
Payment ^ Change ^ Purchase Closure

*^ = followed by

Realization of elements of schematic structure


All we have to go on in analyzing genre is language - the words and
structures speakers use.

Horoscope text
Field  romantic predictions (transitivity)
Lexical items to do with heterosexual relationship {man, dating, private life)
and expressions of time (dates, months)

The tenor  (mood) advice and warnings through the recurrent patterns of
interpersonal meanings: the use of modality and modulation (could be,
may, should be)

The mode (Theme-Rheme) only visible through the textual meanings: the
patterns of direct address to the reader (the pronoun you)

Texts of different genres will reveal different lexico-grammatical choices -


different words and structures.
Different elements of schematic structure will reveal different lexico-
grammatical choices.

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