OPAC development as the genre transition process, Part II: OPAC genre analysis

Abstract: This book builds on the author's 1999 award-winning ALISE dissertation titled Planned and Situated Aspects in Interactive IR: Patterns of User Interactive Intentions and Information Seeking Strateg...

Abstract: Special Issue: PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH WITTGENSTEIN SOCIETY 10TH ANNIVERSARY CONFERENCE: WITTGENSTEIN IN THE 21ST CENTURY © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Abstract: Drawing on rhetorical theory and structuration, this article proposes genres of organizational communication as a concept useful for studying communication as embedded in social process rather than as the result of isolated rational actions. Genres (e.g. the memo, the proposal, and the meeting) are typified communicative actions characterized by similar substance and form and taken in response to recurrent situations. These genres evolve over time in reciprocal interaction between institutionalized practices and individual human actions. They are distinct from communication media, though media may play a role in genre form, and the introduction of new media may occasion genre evolution. After the genre concept is developed, the article shows how it addresses existing limitations in research on media, demonstrates its usefulness in an extended historical example, and draws implications for future research.

Abstract: In recent years the concept of 'register' has been increasingly replaced by emphasis on the analysis of genre, which relates work in sociolinguistics, text linguistics and discourse analysis to the study of specialist areas of language. This book is a clear, authoritative guide to this complex area. He provides a survey of approaches to varieties of language, and considers these in relation to communication and task-based language learning. Swales outlines an approach to the analysis of genre, and then proceeds to consider examples of different genres and how they can be made accessible through genre analysis. This is important reading for all those working in teaching English for academic purposes and also of interest to those working in post-secondary writing and composition due to relevant issues in writing across the curriculum.

Abstract: Since the early 1980s, in much of the work within a genre-analytic approach, communicative goal or purpose has been used as an important and often primary criterion for deciding whether a particular discourse falls within a particular generic category (book review, sales letter, cross-examination, etc.). However, as the number of genre studies has increased, and as genre theory has become more complex, the concept of 'communicative purpose' has also become more complex, multiple, variable and generally hard to get at. We believe that one consequence of these developments has gone largely unnoticed: that uncertainties surrounding communicative purpose undermine its claimed role as a means of assigning genre membership. In this paper we discuss this paradox, illustrate the difficulties that can arise, and then suggest a procedure whereby 'communicative purpose' can be retained as a viable and valuable concept.

Abstract: Contents: C. Bazerman, P. Prior, Introduction. Part I:Analyzing Texts. T. Huckin, Content Analysis: What Texts Talk About. P. Eubanks, Poetics and Narrativity: How Texts Tell Stories. E. Barton, Linguistic Discourse Analysis: How the Language in Texts Works. C. Bazerman, Intertextuality: How Texts Rely on Other Texts. M.Z. Buell, Code-Switching and Second Language Writing: How Multiple Codes Are Combined in a Text. A.F. Wysocki, The Multiple Media of Texts: How Onscreen and Paper Texts Incorporate Words, Images, and Other Media. Part II:Analyzing Textual Practices. P. Prior, Tracing Process: How Texts Come Into Being. K. Leander, P. Prior, Speaking and Writing: How Talk and Text Interact in Situated Practices. G. Kamberelis, L. de la Luna, Children's Writing: How Textual Forms, Contextual Forces, and Textual Politics Co-Emerge. J. Selzer, Rhetorical Analysis: Understanding How Texts Persuade Readers. C. Bazerman, Speech Acts, Genres, and Activity Systems: How Texts Organize Activity and People.