Professional Documents
Culture Documents
n the past 15 years, the concept of genre has been the focus of a wave
I of studies in a number of fields concerned with L1 and L2 teaching.
Traditionally a literary construct, genre has become a popular framework
for analyzing the form and function of nonliterary discourse, such as the
research article, as well as a tool for developing educational practices in
fields such as rhetoric, composition studies, professional writing, linguis-
tics, and English for specific purposes (ESP). Candlin (1993) has
marveled at the recent sweeping interest in genre across disciplines:
What is it about the term and the area of study it represents that attracts
such attention? . . . Clearly, a concept that has found its time (p. ix).
Similarly, Freedman and Medway (1994b) observe that in composition
studies, the word genre is on everyones lips, from researchers and
scholars to curriculum planners and teachers (p. 1).
ESP Analyses
1 A few North American researchers have focused on genre-based pedagogy for primary and
secondary school settings (Grabe & Gilbert, 1992; Lemke, 1988).
Contexts
Goals
Empowering Students
INSTRUCTIONAL FRAMEWORKS
3 Callaghan, Knapp, & Noble (1993) note that the social context of a genre is also modeled.
This context can be specific to an educational setting or subject or a wider social activity
(p. 181). For example, one teacher they observed linked the explanation genre to the topic of
the greenhouse effect (pp. 183188).
Note. From Teaching Factual Writing: A Genre-Based Approach. Report of the Disadvantaged
Schools Program Literacy Project (p. 39), by M. Callaghan and J. Rothery, 1988, Sydney,
Australia Metropolitan East Disadvantaged Schools Program. Copyright 1988 by
Metropolitan East Disadvantaged Schools Program. Reprinted with permission.
Different Audiences
5 Appropriately entitled Strictly Genre?, the 1993 LERN Working with Genre confer-
ence was devoted significantly to discussions about the role of critical literacy in the teaching of
genres (Cazden, 1993; Cazden, Cranny-Francis, Knapp, Kress, & Martin, 1993).
In both ESP and New Rhetoric, the texts types central to genre theory
and pedagogy have been fairly specialized, with scholars focusing on
such texts as the experimental research article (Bazerman, 1988; Gosden,
1992; Swales, 1990a), the sales promotion letter (Bhatia, 1993), and the
banks system-evaluation report (Smart, 1992). The genres defined as
elemental in the Australian school (AMES, 1992), on the other hand, have
reflected much broader categories such as procedure, report, explanation,
discussion, exposition, recount, and narrative (LERN, 1990a Martin, 1989;
Cope et al., 1993). Hermine Scheeres, an Australian researcher involved
in teacher training, believes that these broader genre categories are
useful for adult language classrooms because they allow learners to see
connections between these genres and many texts (personal communi-
cation, May 1993). Widdowson (1993) has also cautioned that instruc-
tion in specialized genres may not provide nonnative speakers with
transferable language knowledge. Bhatia (1993), however, argues in
favor of specific genre description and teaching, observing that in
language teaching for specific purposes, it is more realistic, and often
desirable, to find pedagogically useful form-function correlations within,
rather than across, specific genres (p. 11). As these discussions indicate,
further research on genre-based pedagogy for ESL will need to address
the levels of generality at which genres are most usefully identified
during teaching (Allison, 1994, p. 702).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to John Swales, Ron Chen, Betty Samraj, and the anonymous TESOL
Quarterly reviewers for their insightful comments on earlier drafts of this article. I also
thank Brigid Ballard, Anne Burns, Helen Drury, Sandra Gollin, Sue Hood, Helen
Joyce, Hermine Scheeres, Patricia Ward, and Carolyn Webb for their help through-
out this project.
THE AUTHOR
Sunny Hyon received her PhD in linguistics from the University of Michigan and is
Assistant Professor in the English Department at California State University, San
Bernardino. Her research interests include genre theory and pedagogy and ESL
reading instruction.
REFERENCES
Adult Migrant Education Service. (1992). Literacy for further studies: Project report.
Queensland, Australia Author.
.
prospects. In A. Freedman & P. Medway (Eds.), Genre and the new rhetoric (pp. 1-
20). London: Taylor & Francis.
Gilbert, P. (1994). Stoning the romance: Girls as resistant readers and writers. In
A. Freedman & P. Medway (Eds.), Learning and teaching genre (pp. 173-191).
Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook.
Giltrow, J. (1994). Genre and the pragmatic concept of background knowledge. In
A. Freedman & P. Medway (Eds.), Genre and the new rhetoric (pp. 155-178).
London: Taylor & Francis.
Gosden, H. (1992). Discourse functions of marked theme in scientific research
articles. English for Specific Purposes, 11, 207-224.
Grabe, W., & Gilbert, R. (1992, March). The importance of genre in elementary student
writing. Paper presented at the American Association of Applied Linguistics
conference, Vancouver, British Columbia.
Hagan, P., Hood, S., Jackson, E., Jones, M., Joyce, H., & Manidis, M. (1993).
Certificates in spoken and written English (2nd ed.). Sydney, Australia New South
Wales Adult Migrant English Service & National Centre for English Language
Teaching and Research.
Halliday, M. A. K. (1978). Language as social semiotic: The social interpretation of language
and meaning. London: Edward Arnold.
Halliday, M. A. K., & Hasan, R. (1989). Language, context, and text: Aspects of language
in a social-semiotic perspective (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Halliday, M. A. K., & Martin, J. R. (1993). Writing science: Literacy and discursive power.
Bristol, PA: Falmer Press.
Hammond, J. (1987). An overview of the genre-based approach to the teaching of
writing in Australia. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 10, 163-181.
Hammond, J., Burns, A., Joyce, H., Brosnan, D., & Gerot, L. (1992). English for social
purposes: A handbook for teachers of adult literacy. Sydney, Australia: National Center
for English Language Teaching and Research.
Hammond, J., Wickert, R., Burns, A., Joyce, H., & Miller, A. (1992). The pedagogical
relations between adult ESL and adult literacy. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia.
Hanania, E. A. S., & Akhtar, K. (1985). Verb form and rhetorical function in science
writing: A study of MS theses in biology, chemistry and physics. English for Specific
Purposes, 4, 4958.
Hewings, A., & Henderson, W. (1987). A link between genre and schemata: A case
study of economics text. University of Birmingham English Language Research Journal,
1, 156-175.
Hopkins, A., & Dudley-Evans, T. (1988). A genre-based investigation of the discus-
sion sections in articles and dissertations. English for Specific Purposes, 7, 113121.
Hunt, R. (1994). Speech genres, writing genres, school genres, and computer genres.
In A. Freedman & P. Medway (Eds.), Learning and teaching genre (pp. 243-262).
Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook.
Hyon, S. (1995). A genre-based approach to ESL reading: Implications for North America and
Australia. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Johns, A. M. (1993a). ESP around the world: A perspective from the United States.
Les Cahiers de lAPLUT, 13, 7-15.
Johns, A.M. (1993b). Too much on our plates: A response to Terry Santos Ideology
in Composition: L1 and ESL. Journal of Second Language Writing, 2,8388.
Joyce, H. (1992). Workplace texts in the language classroom. Sydney, Australia: New South
Wales Adult Migrant English Service.
Kalantzis, M., & Solomon, N. (1993, May). Language and literacy: The restructured
workplace. Paper presented at the LERN Conference, Working with Genre III,
Sydney, Australia.