Deconstructing Bhatia's Approach in Esp

Deconstructing Bhatia's Approach in Esp

Introduction

Practicing a genre is almost like playing a game, with its own rules and conventions. Established genre participants, both writers and readers, are like skilled players, who succeed by their manipulation and exploitation of, rather than a strict compliance with, the rules of the game. It is not simply a matter of learning the language or even learning the rules of the game ,it is more like acquiring the rules of the game in order to be able to exploit and manipulate them to fulfil professional and disciplinary purposes (Bhatia 1998 in Paltridge 2006:86)

Bhatia's exploratory comments about genre certainly provide much room for thought. His views on genre are in line with commonly held views about genre. In order to explicate his arguments thoroughly, it's incumbent on the reader to carefully unpack the meanings from this paragraph. It's probably best to understand what the commonly held views on genre theory are before elaborating on Bhatia's statement. Genre theory allows us to explain what are some of the main concepts and goals in genre and how this translates to social functions. We have used a simple analysis of a recipe in order to further our belief that Bhatia's explanation is representative of contemporary genre understanding.

Genre Theory

One view of genre which has been adapted from Swales (1990) is that genre is a communicative event in which people try to get things done. Genres follow certain conventions, norms and are regular in the form and structure. Genre can be divided into spoken and written discourse where people get things done.

Despite the fact that genres are described as flexible, they are required to have stable features in order to belong and be categorized in a particular group. (Pare and Smart 1994), Swales proposes that genres are types of events which have clear communicative features which adhere to convention and restrictions. The act of identifying which genre class a genre should be classified in is dependent on the conventional characteristics that it possesses.

Swales (1990) proposes that genres themselves are classes of communicative events which usually contain certain unchanging characteristics. In other words, pigeonholing specific communicative events into a genre class should be dependent on the regular characteristics of genre not only on form and function but also on genre production and interpretation. Pare and Smart (1994) suggest four types of regularities necessary to ensure the stability of a particular genre: ‘regularity in textual features, in social roles, in composing processes, and in reading practices' (p: 146). Thus, the more regular the features of a particular genre, the more established the genre is; also the more frequently a particular genre is used by its community, the more established the genre is.

Textual characteristics of genres, such as their rhetorical organization, generic components and their move structure are systematized in order to meet reader's expectation. Genre types such as political speeches, news reports, letters to the editors and recipes are written in the same regularized form as their functionality is unchanging. Codification of rhetorical moves and styles can result in manuals such as those used by writers and editors of the New York Times

Producers and interpreters of a particular genre type occupy different positions in the creation and usage of specific texts. A news item may go through a serious of people before being publish. The writer, the sub-editor, the editor and the lay out person will all have input on the genre type in recognition of the various social needs that genre plays. This regularity of roles forces stabilization of genre characteristics as adherence to the rules is given priority. Creativity being given leeway only when there is a clear purpose and it serves different needs. Constraints

In order to better explicate Bhatia's description, a practical demonstration may be useful at this stage. We chose 3 sample texts from the genre type of a recipe. The first two are representative of typical recipes while the third is atypical.

For the purposes of genre identification, a few factors may be considered for evaluative purposes.

1. Is it goal orientated?

2. Is it staged?

3. What is the setting?

4. How is it organized and structured?

Criteria

Purpose

Goal

To provide the reader with the knowledge to cook or prepare a type of food dish

Staged