english and vietnamese tesol journal article abstracts a genre-based analysis = các toát yếu bài báo tiếng anh và tiếng việt chuyên ngành giảng dạy tiếng anh phân tích theo thể loại

1

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ BÍCH NGỌC


ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE TESOL JOURNAL
ARTICLE ABSTRACTS: A GENRE-BASED
ANALYSIS

CÁC TOÁT YẾU BÀI BÁO TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT
CHUYÊN NGÀNH GIẢNG DẠY TIẾNG ANH: PHÂN TÍCH
THEO THỂ LOẠI
M.A. Combined Programme Thesis



Major: English Linguistics
Code: 602215





Hanoi -2011

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VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ BÍCH NGỌC


ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE TESOL JOURNAL
ARTICLE ABSTRACTS: A GENRE-BASED
ANALYSIS

CÁC TOÁT YẾU BÀI BÁO TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT
CHUYÊN NGÀNH GIẢNG DẠY TIẾNG ANH: PHÂN TÍCH
THEO THỂ LOẠI
M.A. Combined Programme Thesis



Major: English Linguistics
Code: 602215
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Hoàng Văn Vân




Hanoi -2011

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART A: INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………1
1. Rationale of the study………………………………………………………………… 2
2. Aims and objectives of the study……………………………………………………….2
3. Scope of the study………………………………………………………………………3
4. Theoretical frameworks and research questions……………………………………… 3
5. Methodology…………………………………………………………………………….4
6. Design of the study…………………………………………………………………… 4
PART B: DEVELOPMENT……………………………………………………… …… 6
Chapter 1: Literature Review……………………………………………………….……7
1. Introduction………………………………………………………………………… …7
2. Genre analysis……………………………………………………………………………7
2.1. The ESP approach to genre…………………………………………………………….7
2.2. Systemic function approach to genre……………………… ……………………….13
2.3. The similarities and differences between ESP and systemic functional
approach… 18
3. The theory of SFL………………………………………………………………………20
4. Research article abstracts……………………………………………………………….23
4.1. Research article abstracts…………………………………………………………… 23
4.2. Genre analysis of research article abstracts……………………………………….… 26
4.2.1. Move analysis of research article abstracts…………………………………………26
4.2.2. SFL studies on research article abstracts……………………………………………31
5. Summary……………………………………………………………………………… 36
Chapter 2: The research……………………………………………………………… 37
1. Introduction………………………………………………………….………………….37
2. Data collection……………………………………………………………………….….37
3. Data
analysis………………………………………………………………………….…38
4. Findings……………………………………………………………………………… 40
4.1. Move analysis…………………………………………………………………………40

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4.1.1. The overall structure of English and Vietnamese research article abstracts (RAAs)40
4.1.2. Analysis of Move 1: Situating the
research……………………………… ……….41
4.1.3. Analysis of Move 2: Presenting the research…………………………………… 44
4.1.4. Analysis of Move 3: Describing
methodology…………………………… …… 47
4.1.5. Analysis of Move 4: Summarizing the results…………………………………… 49
4.1.6. Analysis of Move 5: Discussing the research………………………………….… 49
4.1.7. Some variations of move structure……… …………………………………… 51
4.2. Passive voice
construction…………………………………………………….…… 54
4.3. Transitivity analysis……………………………………………………… ……… 54
4.3.1. The distribution of processes in the English and Vietnamese RAAs……………….54
4.3.2. Analysis of material processes……………………………………………… …….56
4.3.3. Analysis of relational processes………………………………….… …………….58
4.3.4. Analysis of mental processes……………………………………….………………60
4.3.5. Analysis of verbal processes……………………………………………………… 61
4.3.6. Analysis of existential processes…………………………….…………………… 62
5. Summary ……………………………………………………………………… ……64
PART C: CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………… 65
1. Conclusion……………………………………………………….…………………… 66
2. Implications………………………………………………… ……………………… 67
3. Directions for further research 68
References 69
Appendix A……………………………………………………………………………… 72
Appendix
B…………………………………………………………………………… 81

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ESP - English for specific purposes
RAA - Research article abstract
SFL - Systemic Functional Linguistics
TESOL - Teaching English to speakers of other languages

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LIST OF TABLES


Table 2. 1 Process types, their meanings and characteristic participants
(Halliday, 2004:260)………………………………………………………21
Table 2. 2 Frequency of moves in abstracts of English and Vietnamese
economic articles (N.T.Hung & B.T.T.Ha, 2007)…………………………28
Table 2. 3 The analysis of the Processes (Silva et al., 2007:805)…………………….29
Table 2. 4 Thematic organization: percentage (Silva et al., 2007: 808)………………30
Table 2. 5 Interpersonal meanings (Silva et al., 207: 810)……………………………31
Table 2. 6 Comparison of frequency of Processes in the international and
Chinese sets (Huang, 2009: 27)……………………………………………32
Table 2. 7 Linguistic features in English and Vietnamese research papers
(D.V. Loc, 2001: 68)………………………………………………………33
Table 3. 1 Combination model for research article abstracts analysis……………… 36
Table 3. 2 Total sentences and average of abstracts………………………………….37
Table 3. 3 Comparison of English and Vietnamese sets, Move distribution…………37
Table 3. 4 Comparison of English and Vietnamese sets, Submove distribution…… 38
Table 3. 5 Reduced moves in English and Vietnamese sets………………………….45
Table 3. 6 Distribution of additional moves/submoves of English and
Vietnamese abstracts………………………………………………………50
Table 3. 7 Distribution of Passive voice Construction in English and
Vietnamese sets……………………………………………………………51
Table 3. 8 Comparison of frequency of Processes in the English and

Vietnamese sets……………………………………………………………53

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LIST OF FIGURES



Figure 1 A framework for developing academic English courses
(Swale, 1990: 69)…………………………………………………………6
Figure 2 Perspectives on discourse (Bhatia, 2002 : 16)… 9
Figure 3 Halliday‟s network of meanings (Anis, S.B. and Mary,
J. R. , 2010:31)………………………………………………………… 13
Figure 4 Martin‟s (1985) modified network of meaning (Anis, S.B.
and Mary, J. R. , 2010:31)……………………………………………….14
Figure 5 The Inter-related Status of the Abstract for Scholarly
Communication between Producers and End-users
(Chan S.K., Foo S., 2000:3)……………………………………………23

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PART A
INTRODUCTION

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1. Rationale of the study
More and more Vietnamese scholars are having their research articles published in
English-medium journals. However, it is noted that this number is still modest in
comparison with authors from other countries (only nine articles in The Asian EFL
Journal, one in The Journal of English as An International Language, none in The
Linguistics Journal, none in The Asian ESP Journal, to name some). One of the reasons
identified is the different generic features that Vietnamese research article abstracts often
retain (N. T. Hung and B. T. T. Ha, 2007). The abstract is an important part of a research
article as it captures the essence of the whole article. Also, it is the „advertisement‟ of the
research article; whether or not the article is going to be published or read largely depends
on the abstract. Graetz (1985) noted that it greatly enhances the comprehension of journal
abstracts if readers can recognize the linguistic signals of the different functions of an
abstract. And because these signals provide a clear guidance to readers, writer can then
communicate their ideas more effectively. The knowledge of the textual structure and the
linguistic features of research article abstracts therefore will be of great value to novice
writers. In fact, there have been a number of studies of research article abstracts. However,
very few studies have compared genre in English journal article abstracts and Vietnamese
ones, none of which focused on TESOL field. Dudley-Evans (2000) noticed that „texts
used in particular specialist environments […] have particular characteristics that
distinguish them from other texts…‟ Therefore, in this study, a genre-based analysis was
conducted to compare English and Vietnamese TESOL journal article abstracts.

2. Aims and objectives of the study
In this study, a genre-based analysis was conducted to compare the structure and linguistic
features of research article abstracts in English and Vietnamese to find the similarities and
differences between the two sets. These differences may not necessarily be constraints for
Vietnamese scholars to publish in English-medium journals. However, the results of this
study suggest implications for Vietnamese TESOL scholars, especially M.A students of
English Linguistics and English Language Teaching. Besides, suggestions may also be

made for foreign TESOL scholars who wish to publish in Vietnamese journals.



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3. Scope of the study
On the basis of the purpose stated above, the study focused on journal article abstracts in
TESOL field only. Besides, due to the limitation of time and the author‟s knowledge, the
study only focused on the move structure and transitivity analyses.

4. Theoretical frameworks and research questions
There have been a considerable number of studies on the structure of research articles
(Swales, 1981, 1990; Salager-Meyer, 1992; Bhatia, 1993; Martin, 2003; Lores, 2004;
Samraj, 2004), and a number of models have been proposed. However, variation in
rhetorical structures according to academic disciplines and genres are notified (Swales,
1990). Therefore, this study drew on models of move structure of previous studies. These
models were then refined, basing on data of the study.

It is noted that move analysis can only show how research articles are organized at the
macro-level; it cannot explain how language is used (Huang, 2009). Therefore, transitivity
analysis was also conducted to examine the data at a more micro level, using Halliday‟s
(2004) transitivity system. The transitivity system construes the world of experience into a
manageable set of PROCESS TYPES, including: material processes (i.e., processes of
doing – and – happening), mental processes (i.e., processes of sensing), relational
processes (i.e., processes of being and having), verbal processes (i.e. process of saying),
existential processes (e.g., exist, arise, ensure, emerge) and behavioral processes (e.g.,
breathe, cough, smile, dream) will be examined.

Basing on the presented theoretical framework, the study addressed the following research
questions:

1. How are English and Vietnamese TESOL journal article abstracts structured? What
are the differences between the two sets?
2. How are different types of processes used in the data? What are the differences in
the use of processes between the two sets?




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5. Methodology
5.1. Data collection
Three Vietnamese journals and three English journals were selected. Vietnamese journals
include: Journal of Science - Foreign Languages (Vietnam National University, Hanoi),
Journal of Science (Hue University), and Journal of Science and Technology (Da Nang
University) from 2004 to 2010. Three English journals chosen are: TESOL Quarterly,
TESOL Journal, and TESL-EJ. These journals were chosen because they are central
readings in both international and Vietnamese TESOL fields. Articles were chosen
randomly in these journals from 2004 to 2010.

5.2. Data analysis procedure
For move structure analysis, a top-down approach was utilized to identify the moves and
steps in the articles, based on functions or content of the text.

For transitivity analysis, different process types were compared, and percentages for each
process type per move and section were calculated in both sets.

6. Design of the study
The study is organized around four chapters.
Chapter one, Introduction, aims at giving the background of the study. In this chapter, the
rationales, objectives, scope, and method of the study are briefly introduced.

Chapter two, Literature review, aims at providing the theoretical background of the present
study. First, the theories of genre and different ways and means of genre analysis are
addressed, with the focus on Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) approach and English
for Specific Purposes (ESP) approach to genre, which were adopted in the present study. In
the second part of the chapter, previous studies on generic structure and lexico-grammar of
research article abstracts are reviewed.

Chapter three, Methodology, discusses in detail the framework for analysis, and the
research procedure. Next, the findings of the research are presented. The structures and

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linguistic features of research article abstracts are described and compared between the two
sets, English and Vietnamese ones.

The last chapter, Conclusion, summarizes the whole research. Implications for TESOL
scholars are also discussed in this chapter.

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PART B
DEVELOPMENT



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CHAPTER 1
LITERATURE REVIEW

1. Introduction
This chapter provides theoretical background which the present study is based upon as well
as the review of the previous studies on the subject. In the first part of the chapter,
theoretical background, the theories of genre and different ways and means of genre
analysis are addressed, with the focus on Systemic Functional approach and English for
Specific Purposes (ESP) approach to genre, which were adopted in the present study. In
the second part of the chapter, previous studies on generic structure and lexico-grammar of

research article abstracts are reviewed.

2. Genre analysis
The concept of genre has been used widely recently in linguistics. Although there is a long
tradition of the study of genre in literature, genre analysis in linguistics has come to the
fore only since 1980s. In examining the concept of genre, I studied Swales, Bhatia, Martin
and other genre analysts. Genre is viewed differently from different disciplines. In this
chapter, I review two major approaches to genre which this study is based upon: English
for specific purpose (ESP) approach and systemic functional approach.

2.1. The ESP approach to genre
From perspective of English for Specific Purpose, Swales (1990) provides a detailed
definition of genre:

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 rational shapes the schematic structure of 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 similarity in terms of
structure, style, content and intended audience. If all high probability expectations
are realized, the exemplar will be viewed as prototypical by the parent discourse

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community. The genre names inherited and produced by discourse communities
and imported by others constitute valuable ethnographic communication, but
typically need further validation. (p58)

One of the key words in Swales‟ definition of genre is „discourse community‟; genres are
developed, used and modified by the discourse community in response to the recurrent
rhetorical situations they face. Swales conceptualized discourse community with six
defining characteristics as follows:

1. A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals.
2. A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its
members.
3. A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide
information and feedback.
4. A discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the
communicative furtherance of its aims.
5. In addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired some specific
lexis.
6. A discourse communicative has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree
of relevant content and discoursal expertise.

On the purpose of serving ESP instruction, Swales‟ (1981, 1990) genre analysis focused on
the description of the language and discourse features of specific genres. The information
acquired in the analysis is then applied in curriculum design and ESP teaching materials.
He proposed a framework for developing academic English courses, explaining how the
knowledge of discourse and community contribute to the development of academic
English programs.






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Ethnography

DISCOURSE COMMUNITIES

Evaluations and
validations

INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS
AND ADVICE


Access
routes
for the
designer











Discourse analysis

GENRE

Methodology

LANGUAGE-LEARNING TASKS

SECOND LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION/ ACQUISITION OF
LITERACY, ETC.













Figure 1. A framework for developing academic English courses (Swale, 1990: 69)

In the ESP perspective, discourse structures are usually described in terms of moves, and
communicative purpose is given an important role. Moves are defined as functional units
in a text which together fulfill the overall communicative purpose of the genre (Connor,
Davis, & De Rycker, 1995). Moves may contain multiple elements that together, or in
some combination, realize the move. These elements are referred to as „steps‟ by Swales
(1990). The steps of a move primarily function to achieve the purpose of the move to
which it belongs. In short, moves represent semantic and functional units of texts that have
specific communicative purpose. In addition, moves generally have distinct linguistic

boundaries that can be objectively analyzed (Biber, Connor, and Upton, 2007). The second
part of the chapter will show how „moves‟ and „steps‟ can describe the genre of research
article abstracts.

Continuing this approach to genre analysis established by Swales, Bhatia (1993) argued for
combining language insights with socio-cognitive and cultural considerations. He further
argues that these factors contribute to genre construction, interpretation, use and
exploitation. He attempts to move the focus of genre study from a predominantly

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pedagogic direction to studying genres in their professional and institutional settings – the
real worlds of written discourse. A different concept of genre thus follows – genre is not
considered as something pure with distinctly established boundaries and limits, necessarily
attributed to a specific discourse community. He put forward a comprehensive definition of
genre as follows.
Genre essentially refers to language use in a conventionalized communicative
setting in order to give expression to a specific set of communicative goals of a
disciplinary or social institution, which give rise to stable structural forms by
imposing constraints on the use of lexico-grammatical as well as discoursal
resources (Bhatia, 2004: 23)

Bhatia (2004) argues that the tension between mixing and embedding of genres and yet
preserving their generic integrity is the key to how professional expertise is acquired and
this has not been put forth in available literature. Bhatia considers genres in all their
complexity: vertically as super-genres and sub-genres, horizontally as genre sets, and their
interrelations and relatedness to features of context. Bhatia (1993, 2004) maintains that
generic integrity is not static but developing in concordance with a particular generic event.
He advocates a multidimensional approach for analysis of the intricacies of academic,
professional and institutional discourse by drawing on various discourse and non-discourse
techniques that offer new perspectives and insights into how the real world of the written

discourse is represented in the generic structuring of texts (Bhatia, 2004). To illustrate this,
he proposed an overlapping model of genre analysis, which reflects multiple-perspectives
to genre.









21
















Figure 2. Perspectives on discourse (Bhatia, 2002 : 16)

As can be seen, three perspectives on discourse include: the textual perspective, the socio-
cognitive perspective (the world of private intentions, i.e., exploitations of discourse by
individual players), and the socio-critical perspective.

Discourse as text refers to the analysis of language use that is confined to the surface level
properties of discourse, which include formal, as well as functional aspects of discourse,
that is phonological, lexico-grammatical, semantic, organizational, including
intersentential cohesion, and other aspects of text structure such as 'given' and 'new',
'theme' and 'rheme', or information structures, such as 'general-particular', problem-
Socio-critical perspective

Pedagogic perspective
DISCOURSE AS SOCIAL
PRACTICE
Social knowledge


Socio-cognitive domain
DISCOURSE AS GENRE
Genre knowledge



DISCOURSE AS TEXT
Textual knowledge

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solution, etc., not necessarily having interaction with context in a broad sense. Although
discourse is essentially embedded in context, discourse as text often excludes any
significant analysis of context in any meaningful way, except in a very narrow sense of
intertextuality to include interactions with surrounding texts. Similarly, the emphasis at this
level of analysis is essentially on the properties associated with the construction of the
textual product, rather than on the interpretation or use of such a product. It largely ignores
the contribution often made by the reader on the basis of what he or she brings to the
interpretation of the textual output, especially in terms of the knowledge of the world,

including the professional, socio-cultural, and institutional knowledge as well as
experience that one is likely to use to interpret, use, and exploit such a discourse.

Discourse as genre, in contrast, extends the analysis beyond the textual output to
incorporate Context in a broader sense to account for not only the way text is constructed,
but also for the way it is likely to be interpreted, used and exploited in specific contexts,
whether social, institutional, or more narrowly professional, to achieve specific goals. The
nature of questions addressed in this kind of analysis may often include not only linguistic,
but also socio-cognitive and ethnographic. This kind of grounded analysis of the textual
output is very typical of any framework within genre-based theory.

Discourse as social practice takes this interaction with the Context a step further in the
direction of social context, where the focus shifts significantly from the textual output to
the features of context, such as the changing identities of the participants, the social
structures or professional relationships the genres are likely to maintain or change, the
benefits or disadvantages such genres are likely to bring to a particular set of readers.

It is important to note that the three interacting views of discourse are not mutually
exclusive, but essentially complementary to each other. It is possible to use the proposed
framework in a number of ways, depending upon the objective one may need or decide to
pursue. (Bhatia, 2002: 17)


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In brief, the two dominant features of the ESP approach to genre are the description of
genre in terms of functionally-defined stages, moves, and steps, and the association of
genre with particular „discourse communities‟, i.e. networks of expert users (for example:
applied linguists) for whom a genre or set of genres (research article, conference paper)
constitutes their professionally recognized means of communication.

2.2. Systemic functional approach to genre
The second approach to genre which is relevant to the present study is systemic functional
approach. Systemic functional linguistics sees language structure as integrally related to
social function and context. Language is organized the way it is within a culture because
such an organization serves a social purpose within that culture. “Functional” thus refer to
the work that language does within particular context. “Systemic” refers to the structure or
organization of language so that it can be used to get things done within those contexts.
“Systemic” then refers to the “systems of choices” available to language users for the
realization of meaning.

A great deal of the work in SFL can be traced to Halliday‟s Language as Social Semiotic,
in which Halliday describes how “the network of meanings” that constitute any culture,
what he calls the “social semiotic,” is to a large extent encoded in and maintained by its
discourse-semantic system, which represents a culture‟s “meaning potential”. This is why,
as Halliday argues, language is a form of socialization, playing a role in how individuals
become socialized and perform meaningful actions within what he calls “contexts of
situation.” Halliday explains that contexts of situation are not isolated and unique, but
often reoccur as “situation types,” a set of typified semiotic and semantic relations that
make up “a scenario . . . of persons and actions and events from which the things which are
said derive their meaning”. Because contexts of situation reoccur as situation types, those
who participate in these situation types develop typified ways of linguistically interacting
within them. As these situation types become conventionalized over time, they begin to
“specify the semantic configurations that the speaker will typically fashion”. Halliday
refers to this “clustering of semantic features according to situation types” as register. By
linking a situation type with particular semantic and lexico-grammatic patterns, register

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describes what actually takes place (the “field”), how participants relate to one another (the
“tenor”), and what role language is playing (the “mode”).

Field refers to what is happening, to the nature of the social action that is taking place:
what is it that the participants are engaged in, in which the language figures as some
essential components?

Tenor refers to who is taking part, to the nature of the participants, their statuses and roles:
what kind of role relationships of one kind or another, both the types of speech role that
they are taking on in the dialogue and the whole cluster of socially significant relationships
on which they are involved?

Mode refers to what part the language is playing, that it is that the participants are
expecting the language to do for them in that situation: the symbolic organization of the
text, the status that it has, and its function in the context, including the channel (is it spoken
or written or some combination of the two?) and also the rhetorical mode, what is being
achieved by the text in terms of such categories as persuasive, expository, didactic, and the
like. (Halliday &Hassan, 1998)

What happens at the level of context of situation in terms of field, tenor, and mode
corresponds to what happens at the linguistic level in terms of what Halliday refers to as
the three language “metafunctions”: ideational, interpersonal, and textual.

Ideational refers to the linguistic representation of action (who is doing what, to whom,
when, and where). As such, the ideational metafunction corresponds with field.

Interpersonal describes interactions between participants (such as asking questions,
making statements, or giving commands) at the linguistic level. The interpersonal
corresponds with tenor.

Textual describes the flow of information within and between texts, including how texts
are organized, what is made explicit and what is assumed as background knowledge, how

25
the known and the new are related, and how coherence and cohesion are achieved. The
textual metafunction thus corresponds to mode. At the level of register, then, context of
situation and language realize one another as follows:

Context of situation: field tenor mode

Register

Language ideational interpersonal textual


discourse-semantics

lexico-grammar

Phonology/graphology

Figure 3: Halliday‟s network of meanings (Anis, S.B. and Mary, J. R. , 2010:31)

Martin builds on Halliday‟s work by locating genre in relation to register so that genre and
register relate to and realize one another in important ways. According to Martin, while
register functions on the level of context of situation, genre functions on the level of
context of culture. The relationship can be diagrammed as follows:

26
Context of culture: genre


Context of situation: field tenor mode

Register

Language ideational interpersonal textual


discourse-semantics

lexico-grammar

Phonology/graphology

Figure 4: Martin‟s (1985) modified network of meaning (Anis, S.B. and Mary, J. R. ,
2010:31)

In such a model, genre connects culture to situation, and register connects situation to
language, or, as Martin puts it, “register (encompassing field, tenor and mode)
contextualizes language and is in turn contextualized by genre”. Martin‟s formulation
enriches our understanding of genre by showing how social purposes are linked to text
structures, and how these are realized as situated social and linguistic actions within
register.

Genres are how things get done, when language is used to accomplish them, they
range from literary to far from literary forms: poems, narratives, expositions,
lectures, seminars, recipes, manuals, appointment making, service encounters, news
broadcasts and so on. The term genre is used here to embrace each of the
linguistically realized activity types which comprise so much of our culture.
(Martin, 1985:250)


27
Genre „refers to the staged purposeful social processes through which a culture is realized
in a language‟ (Martin and Rothery, 1986:243).

Later on, Hassan (1989) proposed a theory for generic analysis: „generic structure
potential‟ in her collaborative work with Halliday Language, context, and text: aspects of
language in a social semiotic perspective. The essence of her generic structure potential
theory consists of three main propositions as follows.

The features of contextual configuration could be used for making some kind of
predictions about text structure and the sequence and order of the elements in the structure.
Contextual configuration is composed of three components as stated above: field of
discourse, tenor of discourse, and mode of discourse.

Every genre has a generic structure potential, in which there are three kinds of elements:
obligatory, optional, and recursive. The generic structure potential for a genre is a linear
combination of the above-mentioned three elements in a certain order or sequence.

Genre is defined by obligatory elements in structure. By implication, the obligatory
elements and their sequence define the genre to which a text belongs. The function of
optional elements may account for the variations in all the texts that belong to the same

genre.

Hassan has made a systematic probe into the concept of genre, providing a theoretical basis
for further research in the area.

Systemic functional approach has stressed the importance of the social purposes of genre
and of describing the schematic (rhetorical) structures that have evolved to serve these
purposes. Work in this area has sought to explicate the distinctive stages, or moves, of
genres together with the patterns of lexical, grammatical, and cohesive choices which
„construct the function of the stages of genre‟ (Rothhery, 1996:93).



28
2.3. The similarities and differences between English for Specific Purpose approach
and Systemic Functional approach
Although the two approaches discussed above deal with different issues, they have a great
deal in common. Anis and Mary (2010) pointed out three the similarities between the two
approaches
 They both share the view that linguistic features are connected to social context and
function.
 They are both driven by the pedagogical imperative to make visible to
disadvantaged students the connections between language and social function the
genre embody.
 Both ESP and SFL genre approaches are also commited to the idea that this kind of
explicit teaching of relevant genres provide access to disadvantaged learners.

Although the two approach have similar analytical strategies and pedagogical
commitments, they differ in their target audience. SFL genre approaches generally target
economically and culturally disadvantaged school-aged children in Australia, while ESP

genre approaches generally target more advanced, often graduate-level, international
students in British and U.S. universities, who, as non-native speakers of English, are
linguistically disadvantaged. The differences in target audience and genre focus between
systemic functional approach and English for Specific Purpose approach highlight a related
difference in understandings of context. Because SFL approaches generally focus on pre-
genres, they have tended to define context at a fairly macro level. SFL genre approaches
locate genre at the level of “context of culture” . ESP genre approaches, however, locate
genres within more specifically defined contexts: Discourse community, where the genres‟
communicative purposes are more specified and attributable. (Anis and Mary, 2010)

I have discussed in detail two approaches to genre analysis: the ESP approach to genre
with the two representatives: Swales and Bhatia, and the systemic functional approach with
Halliday, Martin, and Hassan. There are also other current approaches to genre study such
as new rhetoric and critical approach. The new rhetoric approach, unlike ESP approach, is
concerned with composition and professional writing in a first language context. The work
of the new rhetoric school also places emphasis on the social purposes that genre fulfills in