An investigation into structure and meaning of geological textbooks as a genre in english and vietnamese

Given the necessity with ESP teaching and learning, this study sets out to investigate the structure and meaning of geological textbooks as a genre in English and Vietnamese using the th

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

DO KIM PHUONG

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE STRUCTURE

AND MEANING OF GEOLOGICAL TEXTBOOKS

AS A GENRE IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

NGHIÊN CỨU CẤU TRÚC

VÀ NGỮ NGHĨA CÁC GIÁO TRÌNH ĐỊA CHẤT

NHƯ MỘT THỂ LOẠI TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT

LUẬN ÁN TIẾN SĨ NGÀNH TIẾNG ANH

Hanoi, 2012

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

DO KIM PHUONG

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE STRUCTURE

AND MEANING OF GEOLOGICAL TEXTBOOKS

AS A GENRE IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

NGHIÊN CỨU CẤU TRÚC

VÀ NGỮ NGHĨA CÁC GIÁO TRÌNH ĐỊA CHẤT

NHƯ MỘT THỂ LOẠI TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT

Field: English Linguistics Code: 62.22.15.01

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements……… …vi

List of tables and figures……… ……… ….viii

PART I: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale of the study……… …1

2 Aim and Scope of the study……… …….5

3 Methodology ……….………….5

4 Design of the study……… …… 9

PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUNDS 1.1 Genre and genre analysis……… … … 11

1 1 1 The notion of genre……… … ….11

1.1.2 Genre in folklore studies……… … 12

1.1 3 Genre in linguistics……… 13

1.1 4 Genre in rhetoric……… …… 15

1.2 Approaches to genre……… 20

1.3 Genre and language study……… 27

1.4 Systemic- functional approach to language study……… …… 31

1.4.1 The metafunctions……… 32

1.4.2 The Transitivity system……….………… 35

1.4.3 The Mood system……….……… ….…42

1.4.4 The Theme system……….…….……….… 46

1.5 Summary………….……… ……52

CHAPTER 2: GENERIC STRUCTURE AND LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH GEOLOGICAL TEXTBOOKS 2.1 Generic structure of English geological textbooks……….…… 53

2.1.1 The organization of English geological textbooks………… ……… 54

2.1.2 Generic features of English geological textbooks……… …56

2.1.2.1 Generic structure of the Introduction Parts……….….57

2.1.2.2 Generic structure of the Body Parts……… …58

2.1.2.2.1 Classifying or decomposing……… 58

2.1.2.2.2 Describing……… 60

2.1.2.2.3 Explanation……… 62

2.1.3 The organization of the Body Parts……… ……… 65

2 2 Linguistic features of English geological textbooks……….68

2 2 1 Transitivity analysis of Introduction Parts and Body Parts……… 68

2.2.1.1 Transitivity analysis of the Introduction Parts……… …… …68

2.2.1.2 Transitivity analysis of the Body Parts……… ………72

2 2 2 Mood analysis of Introduction Parts and Body Parts……… ………80

2 2 2 1 Mood analysis of the Introduction Parts……… ……….….… 80

2 2 2 2 Mood analysis of the Body Parts……… …….………….……… 83

2 2 3 Thematic analysis of Introduction Parts and Body Parts………… 86

2 2 3.1 Thematic analysis of the Introduction Parts……… 86

2 2 3.2 Thematic analysis of the Body Parts……… ………… 90

2 3 Summary……….…… 96

CHAPTER 3: GENERIC STRUCTURE AND LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF VIETNAMESE GEOLOGICAL TEXTBOOKS 3.1 Generic structure of Vietnamese geological textbooks……….98

3.1.1 The organization of Vietnamese geological textbooks……… 99

3.1.2 Generic features of Vietnamese geological textbooks……… 101

3.1.2.1 Generic structure of the Introduction Parts………101

3.1.2.2 Generic structure of the Body Parts……….… 102

3.1.2.2.1 Classifying or decomposing……….…… 102

3.1.2.2.2 Describing……… 104

3.1.2.2.3 Explanation……… 105

3.1.3 The organization of the Body Parts……… … …….107

3.2 Linguistic features of Vietnamese geological textbooks……… 109

3.2.1 Transitivity analysis of the Introduction Parts and the Body Parts…… ….109

3.2.1.1 Transitivity analysis of the Introduction Parts……… 110

3.2.1.2 Transitivity analysis of the Body Parts……… ….112

3.2.2 Mood analysis of the Introduction Parts and the Body Parts………… 118

3.2.2.1 Mood analysis of the Introduction Parts……… … 118

3.2.2.2 Mood analysis of the Body Parts……… …… 120

3.2.3 Thematic analysis of the Introduction Parts and the Body Parts …… … 122

3.2.3.1 Thematic analysis of the Introduction Parts……… 122

3.2.3.2 Thematic analysis of the Body Parts……… 125

3.3 Summary……… ….… 130

CHAPTER 4: COMPARISON BETWEEN ENGLISH GEOLOGICAL TEXTBOOKS AND VIETNAMESE GEOLOGICAL TEXTBBOOKS 4 1 The overall generic structure of English and Vietnamese geological textbooks……… ……… 132

4.2 Comparison of the Introduction Parts ……….…… ….133

4.2.1 Generic structure……… ……… 133

4.2.2 Linguistic features……… ………… …135

4.3 Comparison of the Body Parts ……… ….137

4.3.1 Generic structure……… ….…… ……138

4.3.2 Linguistic features……… ……… ……140

4.4 Comparison of thematic structure of English and Vietnamese geological Introduction Parts and Body Parts……… ……… …….142

4.4 1 Comparison of thematic structure in English and Vietnamese clauses in different metafunctions……… …….142

4.4.1.1 The boundary between Theme and Rheme in English and Vietnamese clauses……… 142

4.4.1.2 Single theme ……….……….144

4.4.1.2.1 Topical Theme……… ….144

4.4.1.2.2 Interpersonal Theme……… …146

4.4.1.2.3 Textual Theme……… 149

4.4.1.3 Multiple theme ……….…….152

4.4.2 Comparison of thematic structure ……… ……….155

4.4.2.1 Comparison of thematic structure in terms of markedness………… ….155

4.4.2.2 Comparison of thematic structure in terms of realization……… …159

4.4.2.2.1 Subject Themes……… ……159

4.4.2.2.2 Complement Themes……… 161

4.4.2.2.3 Adjunct Themes……… …162

4.5 Discussion of the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese geological textbooks……… 164

4.5.1 Generic and linguistic similarities……….……… …164

4.5.1.1 Generic similarities………164

4.5.1.2 Linguistic similarities……….167

4.5.2 Generic and linguistic differences……….…172

4.5.2.1 Generic differences……… ……….172

4.5.2.2 Linguistic differences……….173

4 6 Summary………….……… … 174

PART III: CONCLUSION……… 177

PERSONAL PUBLICATIONS……… 182

REFERENCES……… ……183

FIGURES AND TABLES

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

Figure 1.3 A simplified model of the English Process System, with major

Participant roles

37

CHAPTER 2: GENERIC STRUCTURE AND LINGUISTIC

FEATURES OF ENGLISH GEOLOGICAL TEXTBOOKS

Table 2.1 Distribution of moves in the five English Introduction Parts 58 Table 2.2 Combination of four-move introduction structure and the

CHAPTER 3: GENERIC STRUCTURE AND LINGUISTIC

FEATURES OF VIETNAMESE GEOLOGICAL TEXTBOOKS

Table 3.1 Distribution of moves in the English Introduction Parts 101 Table 3.2 Combination of four-move introduction structure and the

Table 3.13 The Thematic analysis of the Body Parts (illustrated by clause) 129 Table 3.14 The Thematic analysis of the Body Parts (illustrated by

percentage)

130

CHAPTER 4: COMPARISON BETWEEN ENGLISH AND

VIETNAMESE GEOLOGICAL TEXTBOOKS

Table 4.1 Total number of clauses in English and Vietnamese Introduction

Parts

134

Table 4.2 Comparison of frequency of Processes in the English and

Vietnamese Introduction Parts

Themes in English geological textbooks

146

Table 4.8 Most common Modal Adjuncts functioned as interpersonal

Themes in Vietnamese geological textbooks

148

Table 4.9 Most common Conjunctive Adjuncts functioned as textual

Themes in English geological textbooks

149

Table 4.10 Most common Conjunctions functioned as textual Themes in

Vietnamese geological textbooks

151

Table 4.11 Combination of textual and interpersonal Themes in English

geological textbooks

153

Table 4.12 Combination of textual and interpersonal Themes in

Vietnamese geological textbooks

153

Table 4.13 Similarities and differences between types of Themes in

English and Vietnamese clauses as of different metafunctions

154

Table 4.14 Unmarked Themes in English and Vietnamese geological

textbooks

157

Table 4.15 Marked Themes in English and Vietnamese geological

textbooks

157

Table 4.16 Fronted Predicators function as the unmarked Themes in

Vietnamese declarative clauses

Table 4.19 Types of Themes and their realizations in English and

Vietnamese geological declarative clauses

164

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1 RATIONALE OF THE STUDY

Geology is the science of the history of Earth‘s evolution It is based, first, on observations of the Earth itself and other planetary bodies, but the application of such sciences as biology, chemistry, physics, and materials sciences is also required

to understand the processes we observe Geology differs from these other sciences

in at least three ways

First, geology is fundamentally a historically oriented science dealing with processes that for the most part occur on a time scale that is immense compared with human lives Thus, it is impossible to observe an entire process directly; we can see only what is happening at a single geological instant in time Because of this constraint, the inference of geologic processes relies heavily upon the fundamental assumption that spatial variation can be interpreted as temporal evolution In other words, we assume that the same process can be found in various stages of advancement in different places and that therefore we can piece together observations made in different places to infer a temporal evolution of that process

Second, geology deals with large-scale and complex systems for which controlled experiments are difficult if not impossible to construct Thus, the observation and description of natural features acquire proportionately more importance than they have in most other sciences

Third, the fact that geologic evidence is fragmentary and incomplete makes any of the inferences drawn from the data non-unique and highly dependent upon our intuition and experience Despite these differences, the methods employed by geologists to investigate the Earth are philosophically much the same as those used

in other realms of science

Concerning the discourse of geology, it remains a separate subject area, with a focus

on natural geological phenomena and events For the most part its discourse is indistinguishable from that used in science, the main difference being the absence of experiments to illustrate the scientific world view constructed in introductory textbooks Geology as explained to students is very explicit about its goals The three stages geologists have to deal with are: to observe, order and explain the experiential world

From the point of view of ESP teaching and learning, geological textbooks in English and Vietnamese have never been exploited by any Vietnamese linguists so far It is presumably clear that to be effective, such an adaptation must be firmly based on understanding of the specific genre in the target language, in terms not only of the surface linguistic features but also of the discourse conventions, and the underlying scientific values, which must certainly be dependent on an empirical investigation

Given the necessity with ESP teaching and learning, this study sets out to investigate the structure and meaning of geological textbooks as a genre in English and Vietnamese using the theories of systemic – functional grammar as theoretical framework The theory of systemic functional linguistics was originally formulated

by M.A.K Halliday in the early 1960s From its very beginning, systemic functional linguistics has been marked by its recognition that all languages take place in the context of a social situation, that the situation has an impact on the nature and the meaning of the language used and that any account of language must therefore include reference to that context of use

With the increasing international interest in the functional nature of language and in the linguistic analysis of texts much of work about the systemic functional model, both from practical and theoretical perspective has been done by systemicists such

as Berry (1975); Fawcett (1980); Halliday (1994); Martin (1985, 1992); Morley (1985); Ventura (1991); Downing and Locke (1992); Bloor, T & M Bloor (1995);

Matthiessen (1995); Egging (1994); Butt, Fahey, Spinks, and Yallop (1996); Lock (1996); Thompson (1996); H.V.Van (1997, 2002) and many others

The research I have undertaken is an attempt to investigate the structure and meaning of geological textbooks in English and Vietnamese as a subgenre of scientific textbooks The analyses into generic structure and linguistic features in both two languages will be done Generic analysis considering as the first task of the research tends to find out the typical generic features for a particular kind of textbook-geological textbooks The second task of the research is to examine linguistic analysis in terms of Transitivity, Mood, and Theme using systemic functional grammar as a theoretical framework A comparison from the systemic functional perspective would show the similarities as well as differences in generic structure and linguistic features of geological textbooks in the two languages This research, hopefully, would be a worthwhile effort to provide a more articulate insight into ESP teaching and learning; and to serve as a framework for implicational purposes, which can be both theoretical and practical

In terms of theoretical values, this research would be the first step in the investigation of the English and Vietnamese geological textbooks from a systemic functional perspective Though the systemic functional linguistics model has won international interest and support from linguists for nearly forty years, the application of this linguistic approach in the study of Vietnamese can only be found

in the work of a small number of Vietnamese linguists such C X Hao (1991); H.V.Van (1997, 2002) and D.Q Ban (2005)

As regards practical purposes, a focus on generic structure and linguistic features of geological textbooks in both English and Vietnamese can have startling and immediate results in ESP teaching and learning Martin (1990) states ―when the students‘ texts are difficult to follow and it is hard to pinpoint exactly what they are reading or writing about, the problem often originates in the nature of the language used in the texts or the linguistic features to be exact‖ Once language learners

understand how the ordering of language elements works in the language to orient the audience and to signpost and organize meanings, they have gained a powerful tool for managing the meanings of texts which are just beyond their current level of language proficiency In other words, an understanding of structure and meaning of

a text can increase the comprehensible input accessible to students, especially when they work with written language

Genre has been studied in English by such linguists as Gregory and Carroll (1978); Jamieson and Campell (1978); Halliday (1978); Miller (1984); Martin (1985); Couture (1986); Preston (1989); Swales (1990); Bhatia (1993) and many others However, their studies have been concerned with issues of genre in English or in comparison with languages other than Vietnamese In Vietnam, many researches on genre have been carried out These researchers have carried their studies on

different kinds of genre namely: Research paper as a genre in English and

Vietnamese: A systemic functional comparison by Duong Van Loc (2001); Applying Genre-based Approach in Teaching the Writing of the English Discussion Genre to Vietnamese EFL Students at Tertiary level by Dang Thi Kim Anh (2002); Research into Genre Analysis at Linguistic Level: The Case of English Fairly Tales by Tran

Thi Ngoc Lien (2003); The Generic structure and Linguistic features of Economics

Discourse in English and Vietnamese by Nguyen Thuy Phuong Lan (2003); An investigation into the generic structure of English and Vietnamese News Reportage and its text-forming devices by Pham Thi Thanh Thuy (2004); English and Vietnamese TESOL Journal Article Abstracts: A genre-based analysis by Nguyen

Thi Bich Ngoc (2011)

2 AIM AND SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The aim of the dissertation is to explore the generic structure and linguistic features

of geological textbooks in English and Vietnamese To achieve the proposed aim,

we will commit ourselves to addressing the following research question

 What are the generic structure and linguistic features of English and Vietnamese geological textbooks as seen from systemic functional perspective?

As stated above this dissertation focuses on the investigation into generic structure and linguistic features of geological textbooks in English and Vietnamese The theoretical framework on which the study is based is that of the systemic functional linguistics (hereafter abbreviated to ―SFL‖), a model of language as developed by M.A.K Halliday, and other systemicists Generic structure is examined based on the theories as observed by Bhatia (1993) and Martin (1990) In terms of linguistic analysis, the research restricts itself to the analysis of the Transitivity, Mood, and Theme of the texts chosen for the study Therefore, the analysis of the texts in terms

of the issues such as cohesion, reference, substitution, ellipsis, lexical cohesion, etc are out of the scope of this research

3 METHODOLOGY

The main methods employed in this study are descriptive, analytic, and contrastive

It is descriptive because in comparing the generic structure and linguistic features of geological textbooks in English and Vietnamese, we need to establish a common theoretical framework; and in order to understand and use this framework effectively we have to describe it in detail by either re-examining the existing concepts or, in case of need developing the new ones In our study, we will re-examine the notion of genre, genre analysis as developed by Bhatia (1993), Halliday and Martin (1993) As our study is concerned mainly with the generic and linguistic analyses of the five Introduction Parts and Body Parts, it will present the analyses of these parts in terms of Transitivity, Mood, and Theme Finally, contrastive method is applied to find out what are the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese Introduction Parts and Body Parts

We use the contrastive method because we want to establish the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese geological textbooks; and in order to point out the similarities as well as the differences between English and Vietnamese geological textbooks in terms of generic structure and linguistic features, we have to analyze the data This involves the analytic method

Our study, to some extent, also uses qualitative method This method is employed to offer logical and meaningful explanation of the presence and absence of certain generic and linguistic features in the two languages under study and especially their meanings relative to the social context, in this case the discourse community is represented by the textbook writers in the two academic cultures

We use the theory of systemic-functional grammar as developed by Halliday and other systemic linguists as the theoretical framework for the following reasons:

(i) In the SFL model, Firth (1957), Halliday (1994) and Matthiessen (1995) stated that language is conceptualized as poly-systemic – a system of systems and the whole grammatical system is seen as ―hanging together‖ This means that ―it is difficult to break in at any point without presupposing a great deal of what is still to come‖ (Halliday, 1994)

(ii) SFG is thought to ensure high validity in the analysis (Hasan, 1989, cited

in Paltridge, 1994) The main focus of the SF theory is the social and cultural role of language and systemic functional linguists attempt to explain the metafunctions, the interrelationships between culture, society, and language use

As for any cross-lingual comparative research, the researcher needs to start his /her comparison from a certain starting point That is to say she/he needs to rely on a language as a base then compare the other language from certain parameters established In this case, the two languages involved are English and Vietnamese

To compare the generic structure and linguistic features of the five Introduction Parts and Body Parts, we take the English language as the base language and Vietnamese as the comparative language

The corpus selected for the study is five English and Vietnamese Introduction Parts and five English and Vietnamese Body Parts The English and Vietnamese geological textbooks chosen for the study have to be based on the three following principles:

(i) representative: geological textbooks in English and Vietnamese are various consisting of different subjects and are written by different authors To meet the requirement of the representative, we chose textbooks of the main subjects in geology including physical geology, tectonics, and Earth science in English and Vietnamese In a chosen textbook, we chose the contents having the representative

in both English and Vietnamese (the Introduction Parts, the Body Parts) and the samples are of the same contents in both English and Vietnamese

(ii) authentic: English and Vietnamese geological textbooks are written by well-known authors, geologists They are newly-published They have been used as main textbooks in Vietnam, the USA, Canada, many English-speaking countries The samples are authentic and original

(iii) adequate/comprehensive: the size of the samples for the study is considered appropriate to obtain the accurate results They are neither too big nor two small The total number of clauses in the five English and Vietnamese Introduction Parts is 124 clauses and 198 clauses respectively The total number of clauses in the five English and Vietnamese Body Parts is 657 clauses and 449 clauses respectively The detailed analyses of the Introduction Parts and Body Parts

in terms of clauses, Transitivity, Mood, Theme, and the text analyses are represented in Appendix 1 and Appendix 2

The reason for the choice is that the generic structure and linguistic features of geological textbooks in English and Vietnamese have not been studied especially in systemic functional linguistics After establishing the locus of genre, Transitivity, Mood, and Theme in English and Vietnamese geological textbooks in the theoretical framework for this study – that of SFL – we set up the parameters of the generic structure and linguistic features of the five English geological Introduction Parts and Body Parts then use them to compare with those of Vietnamese A

hypothesis we need to make before the comparison is that, like the English geological Introduction Parts and Body Parts, the Vietnamese geological Introduction Parts and Body Parts have the similar generic structure and linguistic features

The illustrating material in the dissertation is text-based, with examples taken from natural written textbooks Ideally, the analyses have been taken through the whole authentic texts So, in order to exemplify, we often search for short extracts or passages from complete texts which contain a number of examples

We have decided to base the grammatical comparison on a particular corpus because the grammatical phenomena explored in this study are restricted to a particular genre and a particular text type As the majority of examples are authentic, they sometimes contain elements which are irrelevant to the point under discussion and sometimes are elliptical; i.e certain elements have to be restricted with the help of co-text/context

In some instances, in order to avoid overload of information not needed immediately, what we have done is (i) to ―tidy up‖ the original example by removing the irrelevant elements such as false starts, stutters and so on or by reducing a highly complex nominal group to a proper name, and (ii) to expand the elements of an elliptical example, so as to remove ellipsis It is hoped that these

―editing‖ steps, taken minimally, in no way invalidate the suitability of the examples, especially where Transitivity, Mood, and Theme analyses of geological

Introduction Parts and Body Parts are concerned

4 DESIGN OF THE STUDY

Apart from the Introduction and Conclusion, the study is organized into four

chapters

The Introduction outlines the rationale of the study has been conducted; the aim

and scope of the study; the methodology, and the design of the study

Chapter 1 attempts to establish the theoretical framework for the study It concerns

itself with the notion of genre and how it is conceptualized from different linguistic approaches The review of genre from different linguistic approaches leads to the exploration of generic structure of geological textbooks in English in SFL The key concepts in systemic functional linguistics are examined to provide a clear picture

of the linguistic model and also point out where the systems of Transitivity, Mood, and Theme are located in the linguistic space The aim is to show the notion of genre and generic structure as well as linguistic features of geological textbooks in English and Vietnamese

Chapter 2 is concerned with the investigation into the generic structure and

linguistic features of the five English geological Introduction Parts and Body Parts The generic analysis deals with the nature of the two main functions of textbooks exploited in English geological textbooks The linguistic analysis is carried out in terms of Transitivity, Mood, and Theme This Chapter shows the inter-relationship between the generic structure and the linguistic features of the English geological textbooks

Chapter 3 looks at the generic structure and linguistic features of the five

Vietnamese geological Introduction Parts and Body Parts The generic analysis deals with the nature of the two main functions of textbooks to exploit the generic structure of Vietnamese geological textbooks The linguistic analysis is carried out also in terms of Transitivity, Mood, and Theme This Chapter provides the inter-

relationship between the generic structure and the linguistic features of the Vietnamese geological textbooks

Chapter 4 presents the similarities and differences in generic structure and

linguistic features between English and Vietnamese geological textbooks In this chapter, the main focus will be on the investigation into linguistic features of the texts chosen to provide parameters for the comparison

The Conclusion provides a synopsis of the study with some of its achievements and

makes some suggestions for further research

PART II: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

This Chapter is to review the theoretical bases relevant to the present study: genre analysis and the framework of systemic-functional grammar As a way of start, we will take a look at the notions of genre, and genre analysis made as they are understood by scholars such as Jamieson and Campbell (1978), Miller (1994), Martin (1985, 1990, 1993, 2001), Preston (1986), Swales (1990), Bhatia (1993), Halliday (1993) and many others Then we will discuss the most relevant concepts

of the systemic-functional grammar, which provide the theoretical framework for our analyses in the Chapters that follow

1.1 Genre and genre analysis

1 1 1 The notion of genre

The notion of genre has its origin in literary studies It has been understood differently by different scholars Swales (1990) for example, believes that the term

‗genre‖ has been maladroidly used and genre remains a fuzzy concept, a somewhat loose term of art He explains that the term became worse especially in the US as genre has in recent years become associated with a disreputably formulaic way of constructing particular texts - a kind of writing or speaking by numbers This association, as he defines, characterizes genre as a mere mechanism, and hence is inimical to the enlightened and enlightening concept that language is ultimately a matter of choice He then considered the issue whether genre as a structuring device for language teaching is doomed to encourage the unthinking application of formulas, or whether such an outcome is rather and over-simplification brought across by pedagogical convenience An initial issue for him is to examine what scholars have actually said about genres in a number of fields such as folklore, literary studies, linguistics and rhetoric

1.1.2 Genre in folklore studies

The concept of genre has maintained a central position in folklore studies ever since the pioneering work in the early nineteenth century on German myths, legends and folktales by the Brothers Grimm Folklorists of various groups considered genre differently One considered genre as a classificatory category, it means a story may be classified as a myth, legend or tale; another major group sees genre as forms, one established tradition taking these forms as permanent Thus, legends and proverbs have not changed their character over recorded history However, he found out, the functionalists in folklore would rather stress socio-cultural value For Malinowski (1960), for example, folklore genres contribute to the maintenance and survival of social groups because they serve social and spiritual needs Thus, for them major narrative genres such as myth, legend and tale are not so labeled according to the form of the narrative itself but according to the form of the narrative received by the community Swales‘s observation in this brief survey is that not all folklorists accept the permanence of form concept Some are more interested in the evolution of the genres themselves as a necessary response to

a changing world The lessons Swales got from the folklorists for a genre-based approach to academic English are of three main points

First, the classifying of genre is seen as having some limited use, but as an archival

of typological convenience rather than as a discovery procedure Second, a community, whether social or discoursal, will often view genres as a means to an end Third, a community‘s perceptions of how a text is generically interpreted is of considerable importance to the analyst

In the concern with the use of genre in literary studies, Swales indicates that folklorists may have special historicist reasons for holding onto the permanence of form In contrast, literary criticizes and theorists may have special reasons for de-emphasizing stability, since their scholarly activity is typically designed to show how the chosen author breaks the mould of convention and so establishes

significance and originality He also emphasizes that actual literary practice in the twentieth century would seem, on the surface, to have thrown away convention - in form, in content and in authorial role - as to render obsolete the term genre itself He then presented different arguments and observations on genre by scholars like Todorov, Hepburn, Fowler, Hawkes, Schauber and Spoisky These scholars either argue the necessity of genre, genre generation, genre conventions in literary works

or stress the value of genre As Fowler discusses the importance of genre and denotes that genre provides a communication system, for the use of writers in writing, and readers and critics in reading and interpreting

From their points of view, Swales remarks neither Todorov nor Fowler accept that genres are simply assemblies of more-or-less similar textual objects but, instead, are coded and keyed events set within social communicative processes He also evaluated recognizing those codes and keys can be a powerful facilitator of both comprehension and composition

effectiveness of another genre such as a political speech It is still not a sermon, however ―sermonizing‖ it may be

Swales agreed with Preston (1989) that it is not that speech event and genres need to

be kept apart, but rather than situations and genres need to be In concerning with the use of genre in linguistics by another group of linguists, Swales remarks that the concept of genre has also in recent years been discussed by the systemic or

―Hallidayan‖ linguists However, the relationship between genre and the longer established concept of register is not always clear Register, or functional language variation, as Gregory and Carroll (1978) defined, is ‗a contextual category correlating grouping of linguistic features with recurrent situational features‘ This

category has typically been analyzed in terms of three variables labeled field, mode and tenor The discussion of the use of genre remains controversial among systemic

linguists

Halliday (1978) proposed his comment on these terms: field, mode and tenor act

collectively as determinants of the text through their specification of the register, at the same time they are systematically associated with the linguistic system through

the functional components of the semantics‘ He pointed out that field is associated with the management of the ideas, tenor with the management of personal relations, and mode with the management of discourse itself The categories provide a

conceptual framework for analysis, they are not themselves kinds of language use

On the other hand, Martin (1985) makes the following three-way distinction: genres are realized through registers, and registers in turn are realized through language However, Couture (1986) provides unusual classification of the use of register and genre within systemic linguistics He notes that registers impose constraints at the linguistic levels of vocabulary and syntax, whereas genre constraints operate at the level of discourse structure For Couture the two concepts need to be kept apart;

genre (research report, explanation, business report) are complete structured texts,

while register (language of scientific reporting, language of newspaper reporting,

bureaucratic language) represent more generalizable stylistic choices Genres have

‗complementary‘ registers, and communicative success with texts may require ‗an appropriate relationship to system of genre and register‘

Aside from scholars such as Martin, Couture, linguistics as a whole has tended to find genre indigestible The difficulty seems to derive from the fact

that register is a well-established and central concept in linguistics, while genre is a

recent appendage found to be necessary as a result of important studies of text structure In conclusion, Swales remarks that despite these equivocations, linguistic contributions to the evolving study genre lie in the emphasis given to the three main points:

(a) Genres as types of goal-directed communication events;

(b) Genres as having schematic structures;

(c) Genres as disassociated from registers or styles

1.1.4 Genre in rhetoric

Ever since Aristotle, rhetorical inquiry and criticism have been interested in classifying discourse One common approach has been to proceed deductively, in a top-down manner, and construct a closed system of categories Kinneavy-one prominent modem example-classifies discourse into four main types: expressive, persuasive, literary and referential A discourse will be classified into a particular type according to which component in the communication process receives the primary focus Swales argued that though such classifications have impressive intellectual credentials and considerable organizing power, the propensity for early categorization can lead to a failure to understand particular discourses in their own terms

Two other linguists of this group, Jamieson and Campbell (1978), argue that ‗a genre is a group unified by a constellation of forms that recurs in each of its members‘ As Jamieson observes, antecedent genres operate as powerful constraining models Her generic analysis aims to illuminate rather than classify

This analysis offers a way of studying discoursal development over time that is detachable from an analysis of an individual event or / and individual author; it also suggests a potential method of establishing the genre-membership or otherwise of a particular text

Miller (1984) shares with Campbell and Jamieson‘s view and denotes that the analysis of actual genres can clarify certain social and historical aspects of rhetoric that might otherwise be missed She also emphasized ‗genres are unstable entities:

‗the number of genres in any society is indeterminate and depends upon the complexity and diversity of society‘ Swales summed up Miller‘s discussion in three main points: firstly, she has principled reasons for extending the scope of genre analysis to types of discourse usually disregarded by rhetorical scholars; secondly, she argues that ‗a rhetorically sound definition of genre must be centered not on the substance or form of discourse but on the action it is used to accomplish‘ and thirdly, she gives serious attention to how genres fit into the wider scale of human affairs

Swales (1990) concludes the study of genre by rhetoricians as fol1ows: genre analysts among the rhetoricians make a substantial contribution to an evolving concept of genre suitable for the applied purposes of genre study They provide a valuable historical concept for the study of genre movements and they finally destroy the myth that genre analysis necessarily has something to do with constructing a classification of genres The foregoing brief survey of how genres are perceived in four different disciplines, as Swales denotes, indicates something of a common stance Its components can be summarized as follows:

- a distrust of classification and of ficile or premature prescriptivism;

- a sense that genres are important for inter-grating past and present;

- a recognition that genres are situated within discourse communities, wherein the beliefs and naming practices of members have relevance;

- an emphasis on communicative purpose and social action;

- an interest in generic structure and an understanding of the double generative capacity of genre - to establish rhetorical goals and to further their compliment

Having observed the study of genre by many scholars, Swales (Ibid.) offered the reactivation of genres and he believed it to be appropriate for the applied purposes Swales‘s characterization of genres consists of five main points His detailed explanation of these five points can be summarized as follows: firstly, he assumes the role and variety of communicative events in social life A communicative event plays both a significant and an indispensable role and it varies in their particular occurrence Moreover, it comprises not only the discourse itself and its participants, but also the role of that discourse and the environment of its productions and reception including its historical and cultural associations Secondly, the principal criteria feature that turns a collection of communicative events into a genre is some shared set of communicative purposes

Swales‘s point of view accords with that of Miller (1984) or Martin (1985) that is placing the primary determinant of genre-membership on shared purpose rather than

on similarities of form or some other criterion Their decision is based on the assumption that genres are communicative vehicles for the achievement of goals, except for some exceptional cases They also admitted that in some cases identifying purpose may be relatively easy, but in others it may not be so easy, and that it is not uncommon to find genres that have sets of communicative purposes

For instance, while news broadcasts are doubtlessly designed to keep their audience

up to date with events of the world, they may also have purposes of moulding public opinion, organizing public behavior, or presenting the controllers and paymasters of the broadcasting organization in favorable light When purposive elements come into conflict with each other, the effectiveness of the genre as socio-rhetorical action becomes questionable Thirdly, exemplars or instances of genres vary in their proto-typicality

Except for communicative purpose that genre-membership is based on, Swales also found out two additional features or two possible ways required to establish such

membership that are the definitional approach and the family resemblance

approach, of which the former is much the better established and indeed, underpins

the creation and worth of dictionaries, glossaries and specialized technologies The definitional view has had some success in certain areas, like kinship terms numbers, physical and chemical elements However, this view has experienced great difficulty in drawing up lists or defining characteristics of such everyday categories

as fruits, vegetables and furniture

The family resemblance approach has not been without critic Wittgensttein‘s

discussion of family resemblance and subsequent comment have given rise to a

―prototype‖ or cluster theory designed to account for the genre analysts to recognize instances of categories The prototype approach to categories is particularly associated with the work of many scholars like Rosch, Mervis, Amstrong, Gleitman, Clark, etc They argued that the most typical category members are prototypes; a category has its own internal structure, which will assign features or properties a certain probability for being included in category members Fourthly, the rationale

behind a genre establishes constraints on allowable contributions in terms of their

content, positioning and form

He observed that there is a close relationship among the discourse community, set

of purposes of genres, the established members, the parent discourse community, the rationale and the conventions He pointed out that the surface features and local decision are highly contributory to the performance outcome Fifthly, a discourse community‘s nomenclature for genres is an important source of insight

Swales denotes that knowledge of the conventions of a genre is likely to be much greater in those who routinely or professionally operate within that genre In consequence, active discourse community members tend to have the greatest genre -specific expertise as these active members give genre names to classes of communicative events that they recognize when providing recurring rhetorical action

Another linguist, Bhatia was involved in genre analysis in an attempt to develop a

course on genre analysis In his book ―Analyzing genre - language use in

professional settings‖ he presented his opinion, his comments on genre analysis

compared with those of other linguists such as Swales, Martin, etc In his book

―Analyzing genre‖ (1993) with theoretical preliminaries of genre analysis, Bhatia

stated to introduce a thick description of language in use, it is necessary to combine socio-cultural and psycho linguistic aspects of text-construction and interpretation with linguistic insights, in order to answer the question: why are specific discourse-genres written and used by the specialist communities the way they are? The concept of genre, which has been so prevalent in literature, sociology and rhetoric for a long time, has started assuming importance in linguistics only recently Genre analysis as an insightful and thick description of academic and professional texts has become a powerful and useful tool to arrive at significant form-function correlations which can be utilized for a number of applied linguistic purposes Having taken an elaboration of four major aspects in Swale‘s genre definition, Bhatia came to the following conclusion:

‗each genre is an instance of a successful achievement of a specific communicative purpose using conventionalized knowledge of linguistic and discoursal resources Since each genre, in certain important respects, structures the narrow world of experience or reality in a particular way, the implication is that the same experience or reality will require a different way of structuring‘

(Bhatia, 1993: 13)

From the point of view of applied genre analysis, his primary concern is of two fold: first, to characterize typical or conventional textual features of any genre - specific text in an attempt to identify pedagogically utilizable form-function correlations; second, to explain such a characterization in the context of the socio-culture as well as the cognitive constraints operating in the relevant area of specialization, whether professional or academic Discourse analysis, of which applied genre analysis is a recent but very significant development, is a multi-

disciplinary activity to which a number of researchers from a variety of disciplines

in the last quarter of a century

1.2 Approaches to genre

Genre is a term which, as Preston says, one approaches with some trepidation (Preston, 1986) The word is highly attractive but extremely slippery Genre is quite easily used to refer to a distinctive category of discourse of any type, spoken or written, with or without literary aspirations Over the past twenty years, the term has been developed as a means for examining non-literary texts

The term ‗genre‘ has been used for many years to refer to different styles of literary discourse such as sonnets, tragedies, and romances It highlights the fact that different types of discourse can be identified by their overall shape or generic structure Recently, the term has been adapted by functional linguists to refer to different types of communicative events (Martin, 1984; Swales, 1990) They argue that language exists to fulfill certain functions and that these functions will determine the overall shape or generic structure of the discourse Different types of communicative events result in different types of discourse, and each of these will

have its own distinctive characteristics

There are two main approaches to genre - the Swalesian and the Systemic-

functional They differ somewhat in their theoretical formulations but they do not

appear to be in fundamental conflict

Systemic - functional linguists use the term genre to describe the impact of the context of culture on language; by exploring the staged, step-by-step structures cultures institutionalized as ways of achieving goals (Eggins, 1994: 9) The concept

of genre can be seen as an enhancement of Halliday‘s theory of the relationship between form, function, and context That is, the relationship of language and its cultural context can be examined by analyzing how texts are shaped in order to

achieve the goals of a particular culture SFL theorists view genres as descriptions

of staging and linguistic patterning typically drawn on to achieve particular social goals, rather than as rule-governed structures The theory also takes into account that genres can vary from culture to culture The strategy they are using is to interpret both register and genre as semiotic systems in their own right Both depend

on words and structures to make meanings

It is claimed that text creates and is created by its context (Halliday, 1994) and also

―the combination of context of culture- meaning the environment of the text and context of situation-meaning the cultural background of the text results in the

differences and similarities between one piece of language and another‖ (Butt et al

2003: 3)

The context of situation of the text, according to Systemic-functional linguistics

(SFL), consists of three aspects, namely Field – the nature of the social action that

is taking place; Tenor – the nature of the participants, their status and roles; Mode

– what part the language is playing, what the participants are expecting the language

to do for them in that situation These three factors, according to Derewianka

(1990), together determine the register of the text

The context of culture, according to Callaghan and Rothery (1988: 33), is referred

to as relating to the purpose that the text is designed to achieve in a particular

culture However, as different cultures achieve their purposes through language in different ways (Derewainka, 1990: 18), this results in differences in the way texts are structured to achieve their purposes in different cultures When we consider the

structure of a text to help it achieve its purpose, we are looking at its genre, which

roughly refers to ―particular text-types‖ (Derewainka, 1990: 18) For example, the schematic structure of a shopping transaction in an American context may differ from that in a Vietnamese context In brief, the culture in which the text is used to

determine the genre of the text

The interdependence between text and context is well summed up by Christie:

―when people create a text, the choices they make with respect to register are said to involve the context of situation, whereas the choices made with respect to the overall genre are said to involve the context of culture This relation is illustrated in the following diagram

CULTURE

Figure 1.1 The relationship between text and context

(Derewainka, 1990: 19)

Reflecting SFL views about language and the role of genre in this theory, Australian

genre theorists have defined genres as staged goal-oriented social processes

through which social subjects in a given culture live their life (Martin, 1997:13; Christie, Martin & Rothery, 1989: 16) Callaghan and Rothery (1988: 25) explain

three elements in the definition in detail: ―genres are defined as social processes

because members of a given culture have learned to use them in an interactive

social setting They are goal-oriented because they have evolved (and continue to

evolve) to allow people in the culture to achieve their goals; to get things done

They are staged and have a distinctive beginning, middle and end structure which is

the means for people achieving their goals‖

Genre, in very simple terms, can be seen as ‗register plus purpose‘ (Eggins, 1994: 36) Eggins illustrates this relationship diagrammatically in Figure 1.2

Figure 1.2 Genre and register in relation to language

(Source: Eggins, 1994: 34) The diagram captures the following claims: that genre is one of the two levels of context we are recognizing; that genre is more abstract, more general than register; that genres are realized through language; and that this process of realizing genres

in language is mediated through the realization of register

The SFL approach to genre highlights the marco-structure of text by showing how it follows various functional sequences and unfolds in a series of obligatory or optional stages This staged and goal-oriented organization may depend on the context of culture in which it operates and it will often evolve over time The structure which shapes and organizes a text is typically referred to as ―Schematic structure‖ Individual texts are classified as members of a particular genre when their structure instantiates a particular configuration of stages

In addition to these large units of discourse, SFL can help to reveal association between a particular genre and particular semantic features of an ideational, interpersonal and / or textual kind Analysis of the register variables of field, tenor, and mode show how particular fields are built up through highly favored options in transitivity and other experiential systems; how relationships between participants are mediated through mood selection and modality; and how the textual features reflect the extent to which interactants accompany action, constitute action, or comment on the events being discussed Martin (2001: 160) states:

genre makes meaning by shaping register by conditioning the way in which field, mode, and tenor are currently mapped onto one another in a given culture This mapping tends to unfold in phrases, and gives rise to the distinctive goal-oriented staging structure of genres Genres have been described as culturally evolved goal- directed social processes which are enabling and facilitative of some socio-cultural purpose

The other major school of thought with regard to genre is the Swalesian The leading figure in this school is John Swales (1990), whose most influential book concentrates on academic genres His role is a significant one in shaping the ESP genre theory His definition centers on the notion of a discourse community whose members agree upon the acceptable features of specific genres This notion is exemplified in detail by reference to article introductions According to Swales,

A genre comprises a class of communicative events, the members of which share some set of communicative purposes These purposes are recognized by the expert members of the parent discourse community, and thereby constitute the rationale for the genre This rationale shapes the schematic structure of the discourse and influences and constrains choice of content and style Communicative purpose is

both a privileged criterion and one that operates to keep the scope of a genre as here conceived narrowly focused on comparable rhetorical action In addition to purpose, exemplars of a genre exhibit various patterns of similarities in terms of structure, style, content and intended audience If all high prototypical expectations are realized the exemplar will be viewed as prototypical by the pattern discourse community The genre names inherited and produced by discourse communities and imported by other constitute valuable ethnographic communication, but typically need further validation

(Swales, 1985:58)

Bhatia (1993) takes Swales‘s ideas and shows their application to genres belonging

to other discourse communities, most notably those associated with the legal profession The most recent study of genre by Bhatia (1993: 13) based on the work

by Swales (1990) will be taken into consideration He defines genre as follows:

It is a recognizable communicative event characterized by a set of communicative

purposes identified and understood by the members of the professional or academic community in which it regularly occurs Most often it is structured and conventionalized with constraints on allowable contributions in terms of their intent, positioning, form and functional value These constraints, however, are often exploited by the expert members of the discourse community to achieve private intentions within the framework of socially recognized purposes

(Bhatia, 1993: 13)

Both Swales and Bhatia make communicative purpose the central criterion for genre identification It is this communicative purpose that shapes the genre and gives it internal structure For instance, as Bhatia argues, although the two kinds of documents – job applications and promotion letters are typically considered two different kinds of texts, with little in common, they are of the same genre because they are used to serve the same communicative purpose – to promote a particular product or service; both are persuasive and exploit the same form Bhatia provides sample letters and careful discussions of the language use in the moves

There are two interrelated aspects of genre theory, i.e the constraints on generic construction, a pre-knowledge of which gives power to insiders in specific discourse communities, and the exploitation of this power by experienced and expert members of such disciplinary cultures to achieve their ‗private intentions‘ within ‗socially recognized communicative purposes‘ Bhatia (2001: 66) maintains

that although being products of conventional knowledge embedded in disciplinary cultures, generic forms are dynamic constructs The majority of genres are subject

to free creative reformation Typical realizations of these institutionalized forms are therefore ‗often characterized by their generic integrity, on the one hand, their propensity for innovation, on the other‘ He observes that these two aspects of genre may appear to be somewhat contradictory to each other In fact, it will not be inaccurate to suggest that one is, in a way, an essential prerequisite to the other

Generic integrity is the product of the conventional features of a specific generic construct Although these conventions are embedded in the rhetorical context, they often constrain the use of linguistic resources and are frequently invoked to arrive at

a reasonable interpretation of the genre or even determine the choice of genre to suit

a particular context Within generic boundaries, experienced users of genre often manage to exercise considerable freedom to manipulate generic conventions to respond to novel situations, to mix what Bhatia (1993) calls ‗private intentions‘ with socially recognized communicative purposes, and even to produce new forms of discourse As Dubrow (1982: 29) points out, ‗a concern for generic traditions, far from precluding originality, often helps to produce it.‘

Having studied different points of view of linguists of different traditions we now come to establish the definition of genre as follows:

Genres are staged, goal-oriented and purposeful A genre can be defined as a cultural specific text-type which results from using language (spoken or written)

to help accomplish something Associated with genre are:

- Particular purposes;

- Particular stages: distinctive beginnings, middles and ends;

- Particular linguistic features

The above approaches to genre and different genre definitions are provided in this part to differentiate the tradition from the notion of genre that dates back to ancient

Greece when Aristotle used it to distinguish different kinds of writings in his Rhetoric (Benoit, 2000), and other notions of genre representing various perspectives such as those of Bazerman (1998), Miller (1984); Swales (1990), Bhatia (1993), Dubrow (1982), etc The debate over genre theories and genre pedagogy is an intense and multi-voiced one

1.3 Genre and language study

Genre theory provides many useful educational applications; it has not been developed exclusively as an educational tool Genre theory has been of great value

to both theorists and applied linguists They believe that explicit teaching of generic structures and their associated grammatical features can help learners of all types (particularly non-native speakers of English) to master the functions and the conventionalized and standardized aspects of genre construction, which will certainly facilitate effective communication in a range of disciplines and professions An awareness of genre is clearly relevant for designing curriculum in a way responsive to students‘ needs Most language teachers are familiar with the notion that we use language differently depending on our communicative purposes

On the basis of needs analysis, the course can be oriented towards achieving control

of the relevant genres

The main goals of SFL genre pedagogy, according to Hyon (1996), are to help students succeed and to empower them Callaghan (1991: 72) contends that the goal

of systemic functional grammar and genre-based teaching for primary and secondary schools is to help students ‗participate effectively in the school curriculum and the broader community‘ Kress (1988) also maintains that genres

―give their users access to certain realms of social action and interaction, and certain realms of social influence and power‖ In order to achieve the main goals, the SFL genre-based pedagogy holds the following four main principles:

First, language development is seen as involving three interrelated elements: learning language, learning through language and learning about language (Christie, 1987: 29; Christie, Maritn & Rothery, 1989; Halliday, 1992) This also implies that learning language is a social activity and the outcome of the collaboration between the teacher and the student, and between the student and others in the group

One aspect of the first principle, namely learning about language, leads to the second principle, which argues that learning occurs more effectively if the teaching

is explicit Explicit teaching here assumes several aspects, including being explicit about the way language works to mean (Kalantzis & Cope, 1984; Freez & Joyce, 1998; Rothery, 1986), and teaching explicitly the various kinds of text types that students need (Martin, 1992; Wyatt- Smith, 1997) Derewianka (1990) argues that if the children have explicit knowledge about language resource that is available, they can make informed choices when developing texts of their own This also means

―teaching grammar again‖, functional grammar, and not the formal traditional variety (Kalantzis & Cope, 1984)

Another major principle of the SFL genre pedagogy is that the process of learning language is a series of ―scaffolded developmental steps‖ which address different aspects of language (Freez & Joyce, 1998: 26) This point is also emphasized in Martin (1999) and Rothery (1996) as critical and fundamental in the pedagogy They mention ―guidance through interaction‖ and ―shared experience‖ between teachers and students, or adult caretakers and children This principle, according to Martin, gave rise to a number of teaching models

The fourth important principle involves views about learning writing The Sydney genre tradition argues that successful participation in any context of situation requires the ability to recognize and use the relevant discourse patterns or generic structure (Christie, 1985: 34) Hence, the genre theory promotes learning to write different genres and new ways of using grammar to create genres (Christie, 1990;

Martin, 1985) It is emphasized strongly in Christie et al (1986, 1989) that learning

to write involves learning to write a large range of genres

It is thought that genre theory has been of great value to applied linguists who are concerned with applied discourse analysis and are interested in making use of the findings of linguistic analysis for a wide range of applied linguistic purposes, especially for planning and designing of ESP programs Genre is a valuable concept for English language teachers Martin (2001: 162) states:

It is perhaps a truism to say that you can‘t write if you don‘t first know language But it is equally true to say that you can‘t write if you don‘t control the appropriate register and genres Unfortunately, control of these systems is something that educators have too often taken for granted

Painter (2001: 172) shares the same point of view that of Martin‘s She remarks:

Students will need to gain a clear understanding of the nature and stages of the social process under attention and how it is like or unlike comparable social processes in their own culture This will provide the learner with insights into the English-speaking culture and opportunities to reflect on or contest its assumptions

as well as to gain confidence and experience in using the language patterns that are particularly fore-grounded in the genre In this way students will gain choices about the extent to which they wish to operate in the ways of the new culture, and teachers will have a basis for designing clear outcomes for the language course or any part of it

In ESP, researchers have focused on the implications of genre theory and analysis

of English for academic purposes (EAP) and English for professional communication (EPC) classroom (Hyon, 1996), particularly in the fields of second and foreign language learning and teaching Concerning the instructional framework, ESP researchers have presented genres as useful discourse models for ESP writing instructions Genre-based approaches to teaching writing have been increasingly adopted Genre analysis emphasizes the crucial importance of rhetorical text structure and is beginning to influence how writing is taught by providing models of different communicative activities It is essential for the learner

to be familiar with specific generic conventions associated with particular professional settings, which are ‗accessible and very teachable‘ (Er, 2001: 229)

Swales (1990) emphasizes there is considerable variation amongst the papers in the scale of research, in the level of analysis (from the straight counting of surface linguistic features to the search for underlying structure), and in the methodological and linguistic approaches devised or drawn upon Useful part characterizations of this variety are provided by Widdowson (1979) and Jarvis (1983) In fact, some of this research attempts to describe scientific writing in general: research articles, textbooks, specialized reports, etc

In ―Writing science‖ Martin (Halliday and Martin, 1993) pointed out that the major

genre in science textbooks is what is technically called a report He also emphasized the textbooks themselves are in fact large reports, broken down by headings and subheadings into sections Their main function of these reports is to organize information about things, typically by classifying, or decomposing things, defining, describing, and listing their properties Shea‘s research (Shea, 1998) confirms that reports and explanations are the most recognizable genres in science textbooks

Concerning technical writing in science textbooks Martin explains technical writing

is the most strongly associated in the culture with the various fields of science In broad terms science is concerned with: how the world is organized; and how it came

to be that way Science textbooks deal with both these concerns The two most

relevant genres will be referred to as report (how the world is organized) and

explanation (why it is organized that way) The main difference is that reports focus

on things while explanations focus on processes Science textbooks shift from report to explanation as appropriate when building up chapters Christie (cited in Christie et al 1990, 1992) stated that reports and explanations are the principal factual genres that have been explored in the discussion of scientific textbooks Importantly, scientific textbooks were amongst the materials analyzed by researchers such as Martin (1990: 100, 104); Shea (1988); Christie et al 1990)