Register and Genre

1. Register and Genre Focus on Genre or Text Types

2. Register and Genre • Register is frequently discussed in association with (and is related to the notion of) genre especially in the context of teaching for special purposes (LSP) or discourse analysis.

3. Genre refers to text types: identifiable text compositions. but, still, what can be meant by text types?

4. Text types/ Genre Studies of genre / text types aim to develop awareness of and emphasize proper text conventions (forms) such as letter, telephone call, article, short story, dialogue, etc. or text types according to functions such as: • Expository or informative, • argumentative, • Narrative, • Descriptive

5. Poetical conventions (verse, stanzas, rhyme, etc), academic conventions (existence of chapters, sections, links, references, etc.) Layout and length of these objects and of the document, etc. Structure/ form (Layout) Environment of use Genre Journalism, artistic community, publishers, scientific community, management process, etc. Function Whether it is intended: to describe, to inform, to narrate, to be persuasive, to instruct etc. Legal Medical Religious,

6. Indeed, the concept of genre is not homogeneous • There is a lack “of consensus on the definition of genre. • Biber analysed document genres employing five functional dimensions (information, narration, elaboration, persuasion, abstraction) to characterise text, • Karlgren, et al. concentrated on more popularly accepted genre classes such as FAQ, Job Description, Editorial or Reportage. • Kessler, et al. tried to address both types, • while Finn, et al. studied binary classifications (fact versus opinion, positive versus negative reviews).… Abstraction orgeneralization is the process of formulating general concepts by abstracting common properties of instances), a general idea rather than one relating to a particular object, person, or situation.

7. “The variety of definitions adopted by these researchers illustrates a confused interplay of two notions: one of structure and one of function. • Structure is defined by the visual layout and is expected to be distinguishable mostly by measurable features such as amount of white space; the length of the document, sentences, or words; and, the presence or absence and location of headers (textual information, such as a title, date, or page number, positioned in the top margin of a page and usually repeated throughout a document), delimiters, images, or links.” • http://eprints.erpanet.org/123/01/ykim_sross_DCCConf.pdf

8. “Function, on the other hand, is defined by the intended role of the document and is expected to be characterised mostly by linguistic models and semantic analyses of the documents. • The two notions are closely linked together by medium, process or event.” • http://eprints.erpanet.org/123/01/ykim_sross_DCCConf.pdf

9. “For example, a scientific research article is usually structured so that a title is present on the first page followed by author, affiliation, a body of text consisting of sections, and finally a list of references. It has the function of communicating, arguing or describing research. The interrelationship of structure and function are represented by the formatting requirements of journals or conventions in the community or event for which the document was created. The requirements and conventions evolve to optimise the communicative intentionality within the context; other communities or events may find different structures of documents to optimise the same function…” • http://eprints.erpanet.org/123/01/ykim_sross_DCCConf.pdf

10. «The Naming of Cats": Automated Genre Classication Yunhyong Kim and Seamus Ross Digital Curation Centre (DCC) & Humanities Advanced Technology Information Institute (HATII) University of Glasgow Glasgow, UK « The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter, It isn't just one of your holiday games; You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter, When I tell you, a cat must have three different names." - T.S. Eliot, The Naming of Cats Abstract. This paper builds on the work presented at the ECDL 2006 ([29]) in automated genre classication as a step toward automating metadata extraction from digital documents for ingest into digital repositories such as those run by archives, libraries and eprint services. We divide features of the documents into ve types: features for visual layout, linguistically modeled syntactic features, stylo-metric features, features for semantic structure, and contextual features as an object linked to previously classied objects and other external sources. Results concerning the rst two types have been described elsewhere([29]). The current paper discusses results from testing classiers based on image and stylometric features and shows that genres for which image features fail to cluster are the genres for which stylo-metric features cluster very well. 1 Background and Objective In [29], we summarised the valuable role of automated metadata extraction in the cost-eective ecient management of digital collections: metadata play a key role in management processes ([43], [23]) and the manual creation of metadata is expensive ([15], [23], [40]). As we pointed out in [29], ERPANET's ([18]) Packaged Object Ingest Project ([19]) identied automatic extraction tools for technical metadata (e.g. [33], [35]), and substantial work on descriptive metadata extraction within specic domains has been conducted (e.g.

11. Narrative genre: • Narrates a story • Involves a sequence of events through time is usually chronologically organized (when did the action take place? —› past tense?, what happened then, what problems occurred? How or was the problem resolved?) • Characters as individuals (who are the characters), • Setting (where did the action take place?

12. A Narrative • “A Countryman's son by accident trod upon a Serpent's tail, which turned and bit him so that he died. The father in a rage got his axe, and pursuing the Serpent, cut off part of its tail. So the Serpent in revenge began stinging several of the Farmer's cattle and caused him severe loss. Well, the Farmer thought it best to make it up with the Serpent, and brought food and honey to the mouth of its lair, and said to it:

13. A Narrative: (cont’) • "Let's forget and forgive; perhaps you were right to punish my son, and take vengeance on my cattle, but surely I was right in trying to revenge him; now that we are both satisfied why should not we be friends again?" • "No, no," said the Serpent; "take away your gifts; you can never forget the death of your son, nor I the loss of my tail." • Injuries may be forgiven, but not forgotten.” • (AESOP'S FABLES)

14. A Descriptive • “New York, New York is located on the Atlantic Coast of the United States of America. It was first settled as "New Amsterdam" in 1625 by the Dutch. Today, New York City is an important commercial and banking center which includes Wall Street. Among its many important skyscrapers are the World Trade Center and The Empire State Building. One of the most interesting museums is on Ellis Island which served as the entry point for many immigrants who passed through New York City at the turn of the century.” • http://esl.about.com/library/lessons/blwriteparagraph.htm

15. A Descriptive • “Here's one descriptive paragraph about fishing: • Uncle George and I would head out before it got light. The trek to the pond was always exciting. The earth smelled fresh and new, promising warmth, and as the birds awoke, they'd tentatively practice the prologues to their songs. We'd walk past the apple trees, and I could smell the sharpness of the rotten fruit that had dropped to the ground. Occasionally, I'd slip on a peel, so I learned to be careful not to run too quickly. We'd walk past the water troughs where the tadpoles were busy wiggling their way to froghood and pick up the pond trail on the other side of the musty-smelling old barn. At this point I had to be careful not to get my pole tangled in the underbrush--which constantly grabbed for my dangling hook and bobber--while Uncle George's flashlight jumped and weaved as he made sure the small circle of light was set for my height. He would hold my hand and tell me about the fish, and I was neverscared.“ • http://www.rscc.cc.tn.us/owl&writingcenter/OWL/Describe.html

16. Descriptive • “Notice that I use my senses to describe the scene. All of the senses can be used in a descriptive paper--touch, smell, hearing, taste, and vision, although you may just pick one or two. Notice the language, too. "Froghood" is not a word, but it seems to me that it's better than "adulthood," which I wrote first. And "froghood" works, does it not?” • http://www.rscc.cc.tn.us/owl&writingcenter/OWL/Describe.html

17. Another Descriptive • “ Free Tranquilizerby Anonymous •      Vancouver’s summer sunshine makes me lazy. I indulge myself under the shade of the maple trees during the summer in Central Park in order to bask in Vancouver’s sunshine. Especially when the wind waves the leaves and the sunlight slides through, it feels like velvet patting my body or like a furry cat rubbing me. I like to sit on the bench, which is on the southern shore of the lake. One day, an old Labrador dog sat beside me. Although there were many adults jogging, children giggling, and squirrels chasing around, the old Labrador was as solid as a rock; he closed his eyes and ears and made his daydream without a pause. Sometimes, when the sunlight stung his nose, he shifted his body one inch to avoid it, and when the flies buzzed around his head, he twitched his muscle or his ear to dispel the greedy flies who shared his sunlight. After absorbing enough energy, he trudged away contentedly. I love to sip this free tranquilizer during the summer in Vancouver.” • http://palc.sd40.bc.ca/palc/StudentWriting/2005/freetranq.htm

18. Informative / Expository genre: (a report genre) • The expository paragraph is the presentation of a body of information, opinions, or ideas. It exposes something about a topic. • is non-chronological, involve general actions (—› simple present tense, • Does not deal so much with individuals as with general phenomena • Involves Logical or explanatory relations (because, in hope of, consequently, thus…) • Usually follows a specific structure: defining the phenomenon, information about its characteristics

19. An Expository • “Voting is an Important Act of Citizenship •  Many US citizens do not exercise their right to vote at any level of government. They give up their right to important input on issues because they do not take the time to investigate the issues or go to the polls to cast a ballot for a candidate that may have similar values. Some think that one vote does not make a difference so why should they bother.Often elections are decided by a very small percentage of those eligible and registered to vote.“ • http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Atrium/1437/expository1.html

20. Argumentative genre • “Writers main premise: Students should have to pay fees for university courses • Opposing arguments • She asserts that the skills that students learn at university are important for the future social and economic development of our nation • Joan Sprat (1989:13) argues that the government should provide free university education because such education benefits the whole community. • According to this argument, when students are forced to pay for their education themselves fewer of them will enroll in higher education courses. • Therefore, so this argument goes, the government should invest money in education as it does with other vital resources” • http://www.ltn.lv/~markir/essaywriting/unifee.htm

21. Argumentative • “Supporting arguments • Furthermore, there is money to fund more places for students so that in the future we will not have the shortage of places we had in the past. • However, as John Dawkins (1988:1) explains the government is able to invest the money it gets back into the higher education system so that overall quality is improved. • Moreover, it is unreasonable to expect taxpayers to pay for students' education when those students get well-paid professional jobs after they graduate.” • http://www.ltn.lv/~markir/essaywriting/unifee.htm

22. Other Genres (texts, according to form) • Genre also refers to identifiable general literary domains (according to form) such as poetry, drama, short story and novel as well as lower-order categories such as science fiction, crime and romance (of a novel). • Genre also refers to any formally distinguishable variety, whether of speech or writing, such as songs, sermons, prayers, letters (of complaint), emails, memos, (telephone) conversations, speeches, or presentations.

23. On genres • It is possible to have mixed genres and it is possible to play creatively with text genres (changing or departing from norms). • The distinction between genre and register is useful: • There can be different registers for the same text type. E.g. within the genre of report there can be registers for company report, news report, weather report, book report, etc.

24. Practical

25. Practical • Read the following transcript. Whatcould you say about its register and genre? What features enable you to decide? • A Hello? • B Good morning, John. Tom. • A Good morning. That was quick. • B (Laughing) Well, these emails are fantastic things. • A How are you?

26. B Very well, thanks. I rang about er well just before I sent you that email and the lady said oh he’s not in to work yet. • A got in… • B (laughing) • A …just about when you called actually. • B Oh, really. I thought she was joking. I thought you were in work at sort of half past six every morning. • A. No, no, no. • How to teach Business English, p. 141

27. Register: informal, friendly, bantering/ good-humored. A and B seem to know each other reasonably well (but not so intimately that B knows A’s working hours). • Genre: opening section of phone call (probably, but not definitely, business-related).

28. Features: ritual language (hello, good morning, how are you, very well, thanks), small talk before getting down to the ‘real’ reason for the call, utterances not always particularly well-formed, and speakers changing direction mid-stream. • How to teach Business English, p. 150

29. Thank You.