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Understanding Genre in Professional Writing

This document is an introduction to a genre analysis assignment for an English course. It discusses how genres emerge from recurring social situations and accomplish social actions. Genres are important to understand as they structure professional communities through their conventions and influence on discourse and power relations. The goals of the assignment are to become familiar with genres in one's field, how genres influence rhetorical situations and audiences, and how genres are connected to social contexts. Understanding genre will improve writing and reading in one's profession by providing awareness of genres' social and material implications. References on genre analysis in various professional settings are provided.

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Hassan Junaid Marwat
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17 views3 pages

Understanding Genre in Professional Writing

This document is an introduction to a genre analysis assignment for an English course. It discusses how genres emerge from recurring social situations and accomplish social actions. Genres are important to understand as they structure professional communities through their conventions and influence on discourse and power relations. The goals of the assignment are to become familiar with genres in one's field, how genres influence rhetorical situations and audiences, and how genres are connected to social contexts. Understanding genre will improve writing and reading in one's profession by providing awareness of genres' social and material implications. References on genre analysis in various professional settings are provided.

Uploaded by

Hassan Junaid Marwat
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

6/7/2021 Name: Abdullah

Reg No#: EN120172009


Subject: Genre Analysis
Semester: BS 8th “A”

Department of English, KUST Kohat


Introduction:
Introduction
 
As we learned in the first week of the course, we can become better writers by becoming more
aware of a variety of genres and studying how they function to influence discourse. In our first
reading, Anne Beaufort emphasized the importance of not only learning new genres, but also
gaining a meta-awareness of what we already know about genres, how they work and what they
do. Accordingly, the readings in Unit 2 focus significant attention on the concept of genre in
order to get you thinking about how genres emerge as a result of recurring situations, as well
as how they are always connected to some kind of “social action” in our everyday lives. Genres
are not just textual categories, they are embedded in our speech utterances,
daily encounters, even social structures. Furthermore, the more knowledge we can acquire about
genre, the more successful we will be at understanding how disciplinary and professional
communities construct, maintain, and disseminate both information(discourse) and power
relations. Because genre is so important in understanding how texts can structure and govern
social communities (esp. professional communities), this assignment asks you to do some genre
analysis in order to accomplish a number of goals:

 become more familiar with typical genres in your professional field: their textual features
and conventions,

 identify how genres influence rhetorical situations, accomplishing rhetorical goals of an


institution or writer, and how they have a direct influence on their audiences

 gain an understanding of how texts (and the genres they belong to) are always connected
to social situations and social actions

 realize that genres organize material relations, e.g. providing/withholding access to


goods, services, etc

What does this have to do with writing, reading, and rhetoric in your profession? Gaining an
understanding of how genre operates will not only improve your chances of being a successful
writer in a given genre, it will also allow you to understand the multiple and significant social-
material implications of specific genres in your field.

Conclusion:
References:
 Bhatia, V.K. (1993): Analysing Genre: Language Use in Professional Settings. London:
Longman.
 Reid, I. (ed.) (1987): The place of genre in learning: Current debates. Geelong: Deakin
University Press, Australia.
 Bhatia, V. K. (1997): Genre-mixing in academic introductions. In: English for Specific
Purposes 16,3, 181-195.
 Selinker, L. (1979): On the use of informants in discourse analysis and “language for
specialized purposes. In: International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language
Teaching 17(3), 189-215.
 Swales, J.M. (1990): Genre Analysis. English in Academic and Research Settings.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Pres.s

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