A review of genre approaches within linguistic traditions

Abstract

This paper reviews three major approaches to genre analysis; Rhetorical Genre Studies (RGS), English for Specific Purposes (ESP) and Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). Based on the review, it is noted that RGS is an approach which regards genre as a form of social action involving analysis of genre through detailed accounts of the social and cultural contexts with an emphasis on how a genre fulfills its social purpose and actions. On the other hand, ESP is an approach which views genre as a communicative event characterised by their communicative purposes as well as rhetorical features where the discourse community acts as those which recognises and sanctions the acceptance of a genre. The final genre approach, which is SFL, perceives genre as the cultural purpose of texts, achieved through a genre's structural and realisational patterns where meanings are made within the genre. Overall, the ESP and SFL approaches share fundamental view that linguistic features of texts are connected to social context and function. Thus both of the approaches take on a linguistic approach in describing genres. RGS, in contrast, investigates genres through the study of society in which genre is being used thus taking an ethnographic approach to analysis of genres. This paper concludes with a discussion on the concept of genre presented in the various approaches and the possible emergence of other approaches in the study of genre.