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Genre-mixing in academic introductions
Pergamon
English for Specific Purposes, Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 181-195, 1997 © 1997The American University. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd All rights reserved. Printed in Great Britain 0889-4906/97 $17.00+0.00
PIh S0889-4906(96)00039-7
Genre.Mixing in A c a d e m i c I n t r o d u c t i o n s Vijay K. B h a t i a
Abstract--In the present-day competitive academic and professional climate, genres are seldom seen to maintain static values but have become vehicles for a more complex and dynamic exchange of information, resulting in constant mixing of a variety of somewhat independent generic values within the more standardized genres. This paper looks at introductory genres and their various realizations, conventionally used to introduce academic books, and variously named as introduction, preface,foreword, acknowledgmentand publishers blurb to investigate their nature, function and structure in the light of the present theory of genre analysis as discussed in Swates (1990) and Bhatia (1993). The main focus of the paper will be on the role of promotional intentions in the manipulation of generic conventions resulting in the mixing of generic values from the point of view of a utilitarian view of genre construction, interpretation and use. © 1997 The American University. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd
Genre analysis is the study of situated linguistic behaviour in institutionalized academic or professional settings, whichever way one may look at it, whether in terms of typifications of rhetorical action, as in Miller (1984), and Berkenkotter & Huckin (1995); regularities of staged, goal oriented social processes, as in Martin, Christie, & Rothery (1987) and Martin (1993); or consistency of communicative purposes, as in Swales (1990) and Bhafia (1993). Genres are essentially defined in terms of the use of language in conventionalized communicative settings. They are meant to serve the goals of specific discourse communities, and in so doing, they tend to establish relatively stable structural forms and, to some extent, even constrain the use of lexico-grammafical resources in expressing these forms. Swales (1990) :54) quite appropriately points out that "knowledge of the conventions of a genre and their rationale is likely to be greater in those who routinely or professionally operate within that genre rather than those who become involved in it only occasionally". He further goes on to point out that "these active members give genre names to classes of communicative events that they recognize as providing recurring rhetorical action". Although this may seem to be true to a large extent, it is hard to match it with the complex and ever-changing realities of the professional world. It is
Address all correspondence to: Vijay K. Bhatia, Department of English, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong (e-mail:[email protected]).
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interesting to observe that the statement is not entirely true of some of the most commonly recognized generic forms, the most prominent of which, probably, is what we know as academic introductions. The main purpose of this paper is to attempt to clarify the nature and function of introductions as used in academic books and to see what is common in a variety of its realizations across academic disciplines. This may help us to further understand the criteria for genre identification, its construction, interpretation and use in academic professional settings. Like many other popular terms of common currency, introduction has also been overly used in academic discourse, so much so that it often appears to represent different identities to different people. Conventionally, every educated person has some idea of what an introduction means; however, the real trouble starts when it comes to the identification of its various manifestations. It is almost like the notion of genre itself. We all understand what genre means and we can identify many of these genres relying on our conventional wisdom; however, we find a variety of procedures, some very different from the others, for their identification and use. I think part of the problem is the versatility of the concept itself, be it genre or introduction. Just as it is possible to posit genre at various levels of generalizations, so it is with introductions. At a fairly high level of generalization, it is possible to think of "academic introductions", which may be seen to form a colony of related genres (Fig. 1). These related genres can be identified in terms of a common communicative purpose of introducing an academic work, whether it is an aca-
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demic discipline, a book, a research article, a student essay, or a lecture. In all its various manifestations, an introduction has a single dominating fairly general function of introducing a written or spoken academic event. If we move further down the line and look at its more specific realizations which are more popularly known as "book introductions", we find at least two major, though very different, types. We can distinguish an introductory chapter of a book, which is considered an important part of the book itself, from the authors' introduction to the book, which is generally positioned outside the content of the book. At this level, we find a substantial difference in their communicative purposes. In the case of the introductory chapter of the book, its main communicative purpose is to introduce the first part of the book, which eventually is meant to establish the context in which the rest of the book is understood. In this respect, the introductory chapter forms a preliminary part of the content of the book. In the case of a book introduction, however, its main communicative purpose is much more complex. Its main function is "to introduce the book" often by discussing the general purpose of the book and its intended scope, often also giving a good description of the content of the book, combining this with positive aspects of the work. These book introductions typically occur outside the content of the book and are sometimes exploited by publishers to promote their product. It is these book introductions and their various manifestations that form the central focus of this paper. In the introductory pages of academic books one typically finds a number of introductory sections, some of which include preface by the author, preface by the editor,foreword, introduction, acknowledgement and, occasionally, preamble or prologue. Although, to a large extent, most of them share the same communicative purpose of introducing the book, some of them occasionally incorporate a number of other minor purposes too. In a small-scale survey (see the Appendix) based on information from twenty academics in two of the universities in Hong Kong, it was found that a majority (60%) was rather unsure of the differences between the three main realizations of academic introductions, namely introduction, preface and foreword. The remaining respondents (40%) thought that they represented significantly different genres. None thought that they were the same. When asked to indicate which one of these were likely to have considerable overlap, most (75%) thought that there was a significant overlap between introduction and the preface, and introduction and foreword but less so between preface and foreword. About 80% thought that preface and foreword were mutually exclusive. On the question of authorship, a majority thought that introductions and prefaces are more likely to be written by the author of the book and foreword by someone other than the author. There were some who thought prefaces are sometimes written by the publishers, perhaps through the editors. Finally, on the question of the main communicative purpose(s) of these various discourse forms, a great majority (about 90%) pointed out that introductions have an academic purpose, whereas a preface serves both academic as well as promotional purposes, and foreword is more likely to have a more
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dominant promotional purpose. On the basis of this survey, which seems to represent elements of conventional wisdom, one could distinguish preface, foreword, introduction, acknowledgement, along the following lines.
Preface To outline the general purpose and scope of the book, often indicating steps leading to the preparation of the book. (Communicative purpose (s) - academic as well as promotional).
Introduction To place the content of the book in the context of the field to which the book belongs, often outlining the work and advising readers how to go about the book. (Communicative purpose(s) - - mainly academic).
Foreword To comment on the book written by someone other than the author, generally a well-known scholar. (Communicative purpose(s) - - mainly promotional).
Acknowledgement To express gratitude to people who the author feels have helped in the preparation of the book. However, in actual practice, over the years, we have seen so much overlap in their communicative purposes that even the dictionaries find it difficult to distinguish them. Let me quote from the most recent and somewhat innovative dictionary what these terms are seen to incorporate.
Introduction: An introduction is the first part of a book in which the author Preface: Foreword: Preamble: Prologue:
tells you what the rest of the book is about. A preface is an introduction at the beginning of a book which explains why the book was written or what it is about. The foreword of a book is an introduction by the author or by someone else. A preamble is an introduction that comes before something you say or write. A prologue is a piece of text that is spoken or written at the beginning of a book in order to introduce it. (From Collins Cobuild English Language Dictionary, 1987)
One can see the degree of overlap in some of these commonly used terms, especially the way all these generic forms are explained in terms of the use of the lexical item introduce~introduction. Other dictionaries are no more
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illuminating. T h e r e are several features of these definitions which deserve some comment. All these introductory sections of academic books are typically positioned outside the content of the book as such, almost always in the beginning of the book. T h e r e are set conventions to n u m b e r pages in roman numerals rather than Arabic numbers. Most of them are short, although occasionally I have seen them going beyond seven to eight pages, complete with a list of references (Poynton 1989). T h e y invariably introduce the content of the book, telling the reader why the book has been written and what it contains. T h e y are generally written by the author or abstracted from his or her introduction. Sometimes it may be written by a well-known academic in the field or the editor of the series, if the book is published as part of the series, in which case it is generally called an editor's preface (exceptions are not uncommon, though; see Cook (1989) where we find the author's introduction and the series editor's preface both put under the introduction). From the above description of these closely related genres I have called academic introductions, it is clear that all of them, whatever names they are given, have at least one main communicative purpose in common, and that is to introduce the book. This rather surprising amount of overlap in the function and identification of academic introductions is not simply a typical characteristic of modern dictionaries, it is evident in modern practice too. One may find instances of introductions, prefaces, and forewords largely indistinguishable from each other. Let me take the following three instances of academic introductions, an introduction, a preface and a foreword.
Introduction Discourse analysis examines how stretches of language, considered in their full textual, social, and psychologicalcontext, become meaningfuland unified for their users.... (It then continues with the discussion of the)ield, indicating its importance for language teaching)This book aims to explain the theory of discourse analysis and to demonstrate its practical relevance to language learning and teaching. Section one examines..... Section two explores... (It then gives the description of the content of the book)There are several people I want to thank for their friendship and help.... (The introduction ends with acknowledgments) (Cook, 1989)
Preface It is arguable that the most crucialproblem at present facingforeignlanguage teaching syllabus designers, and ultimatelymaterials producers, in the field of language for specific purposes, is how to specify validlythe target communicative competence.... (The introduction attempts to establish a niche for the book)In the preparation of this book I was influenced at the macro-level by the sociolinguisticwritings of Dell Hymes and Michael HaUiday,and at a more micro-levelby the work of, in particular, Henry Widdowson, David Wilkins.... (Theintroduction ends with acknowledgements) (Munby 1978)
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Foreword This book, which is based on the teaching given in the Ordinary Course in Phonetics at Edinburgh University, is intended to provide an introduction to the subject as traditionally understood and practised in Britain: it deals...with phonetics as part of general linguistics .... (It begins by describing the book positively and establishing its orientation)My debt to the great phoneticians of the English speaking tradition- -Alexander Melville Bell, Alexander J. Ellis, Henry Sweet, Daniel Jones, Kenneth Lee Pike--must be apparent on nearly every page. I owe especial thanks to ...... (The introduction ends with acknowledgements) (Abercrombie 1967)
All the three texts display a remarkable degree of overlap in terms of their use of lexico-grammatical resources and structural interpretation. In all of them we find a major concern with introducing the content of the books, which includes establishing the field of study and establishing a niche in the relevant~elds of study. The other major concern that is common to all the three texts is the expression ofgratitude in terms of acknowledgements, which form an integral part of the texts, rather than an independent section of the book. In terms of their communicative purpose also, there seems to be a considerable overlap. However, all three of them have been given different generic rifles, which have been conventionally recognized and used with some degree of independent identification. This makes one think seriously about the conventional wisdom of giving the three texts different generic names. It is also possible that over a period of rime these historically somewhat distinct genres have come so close to each other that they seem to have lost whatever traditional distinctions they may have had at one time. As things stand today, it is more than evident that these three academic introductions and perhaps many more of this kind, for instance, Overview as in Johnson (1989), Editorial as in Brumfit (1984), About this book as in Kennedy & Bolitho (1984), To the reader as in Grellet (1981), and Viewpoint as in Gunderson (1991), to name a few, are instances of genre-mixing available in all possible permutations and combinations. There is another aspect of the development of academic introductions which prompts even more interesting discussion. As briefly mentioned earlier, the dictionary definitions suggest introducing academic work as the main communicative purpose of academic introductions. There is no mention of any other concern in dictionaries or in any other published literature. However, as Swales (1990) points out in the case of "Research Article Introductions" (RAIs), there is another subtle intention in writing RAIs, which can be identified as looking for readership, indirectly promoting research. In RAIs such promotional input is rather subtle, but in academic introductions, especially of the kind we have been discussing, the promotional input is increasingly becoming transparent and more direct and dominant, in some cases. This obvious concern on the part of the writer of the academic introduction to promote the book often results in the use of subtle linguistic strategies, e.g. an extensive use of adjectives to describe aspects of the book, which remind one of advertising. In the present-day
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practice, therefore, it is not uncommon to find a dual communicative purpose in academic introductions, to introduce the book and to promote it to the potential readers, who may be tempted to invest in the knowledge being offered. If we look at the present-day practice of writing academic introductions, we will find ample evidence of what might be the hidden agenda. As I see it, there is a clear indication of the fact that publishers use a socially recognized communicative purpose (i.e. introducing the academic work) and genres which are considered appropriate for the fulfillment of this purpose, to communicate private intentions (i.e. to promote the book), which conventionally were not considered part of the book introduction. This phenomenon of mixing "private intentions" with "socially recognized communicative purposes" is not a characteristic of academic introductions alone; it is widely used in other professional genres too, resulting in a mixing of genres. In newspapers, for instance, objective news reporting has long been regarded as a socially recognized communicative purpose of the genre of news reporting; however, we often find well-established news reporters giving what they think are legitimate slants to the events of the day, often mixing factual reporting with elements of argumentative writing. In the case of academic introductions, it is difficult to say to what extent it is contributed to by the author of the book and what exactly is the role of the publisher, because these introductions are always attributed to either the author, the series editor or some other established academic in the field. Viewpoints or introductions attributed to academics other than the author often have a very distinct and recognizable promotional flavour, which often reminds one of "celebrity endorsements" in advertisements. There is so much genre-mixing in academic introductions that one is often surprised by what one least expects in academic introductions. It is generally true that the acknowledgment is written by the author and the foreword by somebody else, whereas in the case of the preface and the introduction one may find relatively less obvious claims in terms of authorship. We therefore expect a foreword to be written by an academic other than the author, and the introduction written by the author(s); however, in practice, we may be surprised to find an introduction written by somebody other than the author (Tay 1993) and a foreword written by the author (Gimson 1970; Poynton 1989). Similarly, in terms of promotional effort one is least likely to find authors directly promoting their products and that is one reason why foreword, which is more likely to promote the work, is often written by a well-known academic, other than the author of the book. But, in present-day practice it is not difficult to find forewords, prefaces, even introductions with a clearly dominant promotional input, so much so that even the main purpose of introduction becomes secondary to this selling effort. The following instance of book introduction is a good example of this. Introduction The COBUILD approach to grammar is simple and direct. We study a large collection of English texts, and find out how people are actually using the
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V.K. Bhatia language. We pick the most important points....In this book we give explanations of the most important, frequent, and typical points of English grammar..., so that you can put the knowledge to use immediately....... Our first grammar book has been well received, and we are continuing full scale research on grammar in order to be more accurate and relevant to the needs of the teacher and student.I would be very glad to have your comments on this book,.. (Sinclair 1991)
In m o s t promotional and advertising genres, adjectives are used to describe and positively evaluate p r o d u c t s and therefore form the basis of selling p o w e r (see Bhatia 1993). T h e m o s t characteristic feature of this text is the p r e d o m i n a n t use of adjectives, in practically every s e n t e n c e of the text. Expressions, s u c h as the following, • • • • • •
The COBUILD approach to grammar is simple and direct. We pick the most important points... yon can be sure that... you are presented with real English the most important, frequent, and typical point of English grammar... This makes the book suitable both as a classroom text, and also for private study... • very easy and direct to understand... • necessary for clear understanding and accurate usage...
are typical of p r o d u c t description in promotional letters. In addition to that there are other indications of promotional input, especially the attempt to establish credentials (see Bhatia 1993 for detailed description of rhetorical m o v e s in promotional discourse). Our first grammar book has been well received, and we are continuing full scale research on grammar in order to be more accurate and relevant to the needs of the teacher and student. T h e final p a r a g r a p h e c h o e s a typical effort in promotional letters to solicit a response, considering the fact that the g r e a t e r part of promotional disc o u r s e is largely unsolicited. I would be very glad to have your comments on this book, especially on how useful you find it. This so-called introduction does not s e e m to be v e r y different from a typical promotional letter. In fact, it contains all the crucial ingredients which are likely to m a k e a typical promotional effort successful. O n e m a y be t e m p t e d to think that such a promotional input is very recent b e c a u s e of the intense competition in the publishing industry and the role of advertising in m o d e r n day business. It is true that such promotional c o n c e r n s have b e c o m e increasingly m o r e visible in r e c e n t times, but it would be inaccurate to say that t h e y w e r e completely absent s o m e 50 y e a r s ago. A r a n d o m selection of about 30 academic introductions f r o m b o o k s published in the first half of the c e n t u r y provided an interesting instance of such an introduction.
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Preface The American Management Association has felt for some time the need for bringing together in convenient handbook form not only a digest of the best of its own publications...That this tendency has gone too far is indicated by the opinion often expressed that it is extremely difficult to find men for promotion into positions of major managerial responsibility....The net result is an extremely difficult problem of coordinating different activities with a particular function...This "Handbook of Business Administration" will, to a considerable extent, meet this educational need by providing in a form convenient for study the fundamentals and the procedures of managerial policy and technique which may be put to use by business executives...It is our hope, too, that this "Handbook of Business Administration" will find its way into the hands of many business executives...Essentially the Handbook has been prepared to meet the needs of the following groups:l. Executives of general managerial ranks who ......... 2. Those major functional executives who .......... 3. Those business executives of... specialized responsibilities who ....... 4. Those specialized executives who ......... The contributors to the various sections of the Handbook have been carefully chosen as leaders in their respective fields.... (Donald 1931)
Very much like a typical promotional document, it begins by establishing the needs of a potential readership (a well-defined group of business executives) and then goes on to bring in a positive product description to suggest at least a partial fulfillment of such needs (see Bhatia 1993: 46-52, for a detailed description of this aspect of promotional writing). The interesting thing is that almost the whole of the preface is devoted to these two major moves. Also, like the example we had earlier of the introduction with similar promotional input, this one too relies on the use of positively evaluating expressions like "a digest of the best of its own publications", "a reasonably complete picture", "a form convenient for study", "contributors... have been carefully chosen as leaders", "contributions represent...the best in modem managerial policies", etc., some of which are often associated with the field of advertising. So this mixing of promotional input to introductory purposes is not entirely new in academic introductions, although it has become a lot more visible in the last few decades than ever before. This process of genre-mixing, especially for the expression of private intentions within the socially-recognized communicative purposes, does not seem to be an exclusive property of academic introductions alone; it is found more commonly in many other forms of professional discourse. Bhatia (1995) documents several instances of genre-mixing from advertising, news reporting, legal documents, as well as from bureaucratic communications. He explains, This dynamic complexity of professional communication is the result of several factors, including the ever-increasing use of multi-media, explosion of information technology, multi-disciplinary contexts of the world of work, increasingly competitive professional (academic as well as business) environment, and the overwhelmingly compulsive nature of promotional and adverrising activities. [Bhatia 1995: 1]
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Featherstone (1991) identifies the present-day world of work in terms of what he calls "promotional culture", where one finds most of the institutionalized genres, whether they are social, professional or academic, incorporating elements of promotion. Falrclough (1992:207) associates some of these changes with what he calls "commoditication" of institutional orders of discourse. Referring to such changes in discourse practices, he (Fairclough 1993:141) points out, ...there is an extensive restructuring of boundaries between orders of discourse and between discursive practices; for example, the genre of consumer advertising has been colonizing professional and public service orders of discourse on a massive scale, generating many new hybrid partly promotional genres...
As an instance of such a hybrid genre, Fairclough (1993) discusses the case of contemporary university prospectuses, where he highlights an increasing tendency towards marketization of the discursive practices of British universities. Bhatia (1995), in his discussion of genre-mixing in professional discourse, gives examples from several settings where he finds genre-mixing increasingly common. He also mentions several instances where one finds an increasing use of promotional strategies in genres which are traditionally considered non-promotional in intent, including book introductions, which are becoming increasing difficult to distinguish from publishers' blurbs. This mixing of generic resources, however, to introduce variation in genre construction, whether it is a deliberate mixing of communicative purposes, or a subtle exploitation of one generic context to communicate private intentions, is always considered to be tactically superior and hence must not be viewed as transgression of generic conventions. It tends to give considerable tactical freedom to expert members of the specialist discourse community to respond to novel situations on the basis of prior experience and past interactions, and the case of academic introductions seems to be no exception to this practice. In the preceding sections I have made an attempt to see some kind of order in the seemingly chaotic world of academic introductions, where, as a result of the changing realities of professional and academic contexts, conventionally accepted forms seem to have given way to a variety of innovations, exploitations, creativities in the form varied practices over the years. In the process, I have tried to raise several issues, although I may not have been able to resolve all of them. Some of the issues at stake are the following: Conventional Naming of Genres Although it is largely true that discourse communities give generic names to standardized and highly conventionalized communicative events, it may not necessarily be the case that such generic events continue to attract the
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same names. This raises several questions. First, to what extent genres, and therefore generic forms and conventions, can be exploited or taken liberties with, in order to introduce innovations to achieve more complex communicative purposes in response to novel communicative situations? Secondly, to what extent can one do it safely without opting out of the genre? Thirdly, are there any crucial boundaries? If so, how can these boundaries be defined?
Mixing and Embedding of Genres We may be tempted to move away from the notion of pure genres, although I am not sure if we have such a notion and consider the notion of genre mixing and embedding. Genre embedding can be distinguished from what I have called genre-mixing in the discussion of academic introductions here by looking at the nature and extent of involvement of one genre within the other. In genre embedding, for example, one often finds a particular generic form, it may be poem, a story or an article used as a template to give expression to another conventionally distinct generic form, as in the following advertisement for a job. WANTED DYNAMIC AND SPECIALIST SENIOR PRODUCT MANAGERS If you have lots of garment experience, this is the job for you If you are fashion conscious, this is the job for you If you are not afraid of hard work, this is the job for you If you are a team player, this is the job for you If you use your initiative, this is the job for you If you enjoy meeting and working with overseas buyers, this is the job for you Other generic forms, such as letters, articles, scientific reports, reviews etc. are also very common in advertising genres. (see Bhatia 1995 for a more detailed discussion of this). In principle, the notion of pure genres is very attractive and extremely useful for a number of pedagogical outcomes, in practice, however, it is unlikely to capture the complex communicative realities of the present-day professional and academic world. In order to account for these complexities, do we need to abandon the notion of pure genres (assuming that we have some such notion) altogether, or extend it to cover a range of genres in a specific domain and then look for generic
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patterns? If we take it a little bit further, we might need to establish criteria to determine what kinds of communicative purposes can be safely mixed or embedded without opting out of established generic boundaries? What kind of 'private intentions' are compatible with what kind of 'socially recognized communicative purposes'? (See Bhatia 1995 for a more detailed discussion of this point.)
Natural Development of Generic Forms. It is also possible to view such changes in generic forms as historical development of generic constructs. Berkenkotter & Huckin (1995) rightly regard genres as "inherently dynamic structures that can be manipulated according to the conditions of use". Since conditions of use do change over time, generic forms are likely to reflect such changes in their configuration interpretation and use. However, such changes are more likely to become visible and get established over a relatively long period of time. To conclude, genre theory needs to account for the complex communicative realities of the academic and publishing world. Since genremixing is very common in professional and academic communication, presentday genre theory must be able to account for genre-mixing and embedding, on the one hand, and to maintain generic integrity, on the other. On the face of it, it may appear to be a contradiction in terms; however, in practice, the two goals are complementary to each other. Bhatia (1995): 15) attempts to resolve this seeming contradiction when he emphasizes that ...conventionalized genetic structures are an essential prerequisite for an adequate understanding of the construction and interpretation of genres in professional and academic settings. The freedom to innovate, exploit or manipulate genetic resources and conventions is inevitably exercised within the broad framework of specific genetic boundaries... Any attempt to flagrantly flout genetic conventions is noticeably odd and will therefore be considered by the specialist community an undesirable communicative aberration.
Considered in this light, one of the main goals of genre theory is to account for genre-mixing and embedding in professional settings within the context of generic conventions associated with individual genres. In this sense genre analysis needs to be truly narrow in focus but broad in vision.
(Received I October1996) Acknowledgements--This is the revised version of the paper presented at the Penn State Conference on Rhetoric and Composition, at the Pennsylvania State University, USA (13-16 July, 1994). I would like to express my gratitude to John Swales for giving very insightful comments on the first version of the paper. I am also grateful to the two anonymous reviewers of the journal Englishfor Specific Purposesfor their suggestions.
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REFERENCES Abercrombie, D. (1967). Elements of general phonetics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Berkenkotter, C., & Huckin, N. T. (1995). Genre knowledge in disciplinary communication: Cognition~culture~power. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. Bhatia, V. K. (1993). Analysing genre: Language use in professional settings. London and New York: Longman. Bhatia, V. I~ (1995). Genre-mixing in professional communication--The case of private intentions v. socially recognized purposes. In P. Bruthiaux, T. Boswood & B. Du-Babcock (Eds.), Explorations in English for professional communication (pp. 1-19). City University of Hong Kong. Brumfit, C. J. (1984). Common ground: shared interests in ESP and communication studies, R. Williams, J. Swales & J. Kirkman (Eds.). Oxford: The British Council and Pergamon Press. Cook, G. (1989). Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Donald, W. J. (Ed.) (1931). Handbook of business administration. York, Pa: The Maple Press. Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and social change. London: Polity. Fairclough, N. (1993). Critical discourse analysis and the marketization of public discourse: the universities. Discourse and Society, 4 (2), 133-168. Featherstone, M. (1991). Consumer culture and postmodernism. London, Sage. Gimson, A. C. (1970). An introduction to the pronunciation ofEnglish. London: Edward Arnold (Publishers) and the English language Book Society. Grellet, F. (1981). Developing reading skills. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gunderson, L. (1991). ESL literacy instruction--A guidebook to theory and practice. New Jersey: Prentice Hall Regents. Johnson, R. K. (Ed.) (1989). The second language curriculum. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kennedy, C., & Bolitho, R. (1984). English for specific purposes. London: Macmillan. Martin, J. R. (1993). A contextual theory of language. In the powers of literacy-a genre approach to teaching writing. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press (116--136). Martin, J. R., Christie, F., & Rothery, J. (1987). Social processes in education: A reply to Sawyer and Watson (and others). In I. Reid (Ed.), The place of genre in learning." Current debates. Geelong: Deakin University Press, Australia. Miller, C. R. (1984). Genre as social action. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 70, 151-167. Munby, J. (1978). Communicative syllabus design. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Poynton, C. (1989). Language and gender: Making the difference. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Sinclair, J. (1991). Collins COBUILD students grammar. Glasgow: Harper Collins. Swales, J. M. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tay, Wan Joo, M. (1993). The English language in Singapore. Unipress, Centre for the Arts: National University of Singapore, Singapore. Vijay K. Bhatia is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at the City University of Hong Kong. He is best known for his work on genre analysis of professional discourse, especially in the contexts of law, journalism and business. Appendix
Sample Questionnaire UNDERSTANDING ACADEMIC INTRODUCTIONS In the introductory pages of academic books one typically finds a number of introductory sections, some of which include preface,foreword, introduction, acknowledgement and, occasionally, preamble or prologue. All these introductory sections of academic books are typically positioned outside the content of the book as such, almost always in the beginning of the book. Most of them are short, although occasionally we may see some longish ones as well. They invariably introduce the content of the book. I have put all of them under "Academic Introductions". One can see the degree of overlap in some of these commonly used terms. The purpose of this brief study is to investigate the individual perception of the overlap in some of them. Using your personal understanding and experience of the world of academics and publishing try to answer the following questions: 1. Would you call these academic introductions different genres? (It doesn't matter if you call them types, varieties, or registers etc.) DIFFERENT
SAME
NOT SURE
2. Do they have overlap? If yes, which of them have significant overlap? INTRODUCTION & PREFACE PREFACE & FOREWORD
YES YES
NO NO
3. Which of these are mutually exclusive? INTRODUCTION & PREFACE PREFACE & FOREWORD INTRODUCTION & FOREWORD
YES YES YES
4. Who is more likely to be the author of the following?
NO NO NO
Genre-Mixing in Academic Introductions Genre Introduction Preface Foreword
Author of the book Publisher
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Some other scholar
5. What is the primary function of each of these academic introductions? academic (introducing the content of the book) or promotional? If both, then tick both. INTRODUCTION PREFACE FOREWORD
PROMOTIONAL PROMOTIONAL PROMOTIONAL
ACADEMIC ACADEMIC ACADEMIC
English for Specific Purposes, Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 181-195, 1997 © 1997The American University. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd All rights reserved. Printed in Great Britain 0889-4906/97 $17.00+0.00
PIh S0889-4906(96)00039-7
Genre.Mixing in A c a d e m i c I n t r o d u c t i o n s Vijay K. B h a t i a
Abstract--In the present-day competitive academic and professional climate, genres are seldom seen to maintain static values but have become vehicles for a more complex and dynamic exchange of information, resulting in constant mixing of a variety of somewhat independent generic values within the more standardized genres. This paper looks at introductory genres and their various realizations, conventionally used to introduce academic books, and variously named as introduction, preface,foreword, acknowledgmentand publishers blurb to investigate their nature, function and structure in the light of the present theory of genre analysis as discussed in Swates (1990) and Bhatia (1993). The main focus of the paper will be on the role of promotional intentions in the manipulation of generic conventions resulting in the mixing of generic values from the point of view of a utilitarian view of genre construction, interpretation and use. © 1997 The American University. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd
Genre analysis is the study of situated linguistic behaviour in institutionalized academic or professional settings, whichever way one may look at it, whether in terms of typifications of rhetorical action, as in Miller (1984), and Berkenkotter & Huckin (1995); regularities of staged, goal oriented social processes, as in Martin, Christie, & Rothery (1987) and Martin (1993); or consistency of communicative purposes, as in Swales (1990) and Bhafia (1993). Genres are essentially defined in terms of the use of language in conventionalized communicative settings. They are meant to serve the goals of specific discourse communities, and in so doing, they tend to establish relatively stable structural forms and, to some extent, even constrain the use of lexico-grammafical resources in expressing these forms. Swales (1990) :54) quite appropriately points out that "knowledge of the conventions of a genre and their rationale is likely to be greater in those who routinely or professionally operate within that genre rather than those who become involved in it only occasionally". He further goes on to point out that "these active members give genre names to classes of communicative events that they recognize as providing recurring rhetorical action". Although this may seem to be true to a large extent, it is hard to match it with the complex and ever-changing realities of the professional world. It is
Address all correspondence to: Vijay K. Bhatia, Department of English, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong (e-mail:[email protected]).
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interesting to observe that the statement is not entirely true of some of the most commonly recognized generic forms, the most prominent of which, probably, is what we know as academic introductions. The main purpose of this paper is to attempt to clarify the nature and function of introductions as used in academic books and to see what is common in a variety of its realizations across academic disciplines. This may help us to further understand the criteria for genre identification, its construction, interpretation and use in academic professional settings. Like many other popular terms of common currency, introduction has also been overly used in academic discourse, so much so that it often appears to represent different identities to different people. Conventionally, every educated person has some idea of what an introduction means; however, the real trouble starts when it comes to the identification of its various manifestations. It is almost like the notion of genre itself. We all understand what genre means and we can identify many of these genres relying on our conventional wisdom; however, we find a variety of procedures, some very different from the others, for their identification and use. I think part of the problem is the versatility of the concept itself, be it genre or introduction. Just as it is possible to posit genre at various levels of generalizations, so it is with introductions. At a fairly high level of generalization, it is possible to think of "academic introductions", which may be seen to form a colony of related genres (Fig. 1). These related genres can be identified in terms of a common communicative purpose of introducing an academic work, whether it is an aca-
I ACADEMICINTRODUCTII ONS
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Figure 1. Variation in academic introductions
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demic discipline, a book, a research article, a student essay, or a lecture. In all its various manifestations, an introduction has a single dominating fairly general function of introducing a written or spoken academic event. If we move further down the line and look at its more specific realizations which are more popularly known as "book introductions", we find at least two major, though very different, types. We can distinguish an introductory chapter of a book, which is considered an important part of the book itself, from the authors' introduction to the book, which is generally positioned outside the content of the book. At this level, we find a substantial difference in their communicative purposes. In the case of the introductory chapter of the book, its main communicative purpose is to introduce the first part of the book, which eventually is meant to establish the context in which the rest of the book is understood. In this respect, the introductory chapter forms a preliminary part of the content of the book. In the case of a book introduction, however, its main communicative purpose is much more complex. Its main function is "to introduce the book" often by discussing the general purpose of the book and its intended scope, often also giving a good description of the content of the book, combining this with positive aspects of the work. These book introductions typically occur outside the content of the book and are sometimes exploited by publishers to promote their product. It is these book introductions and their various manifestations that form the central focus of this paper. In the introductory pages of academic books one typically finds a number of introductory sections, some of which include preface by the author, preface by the editor,foreword, introduction, acknowledgement and, occasionally, preamble or prologue. Although, to a large extent, most of them share the same communicative purpose of introducing the book, some of them occasionally incorporate a number of other minor purposes too. In a small-scale survey (see the Appendix) based on information from twenty academics in two of the universities in Hong Kong, it was found that a majority (60%) was rather unsure of the differences between the three main realizations of academic introductions, namely introduction, preface and foreword. The remaining respondents (40%) thought that they represented significantly different genres. None thought that they were the same. When asked to indicate which one of these were likely to have considerable overlap, most (75%) thought that there was a significant overlap between introduction and the preface, and introduction and foreword but less so between preface and foreword. About 80% thought that preface and foreword were mutually exclusive. On the question of authorship, a majority thought that introductions and prefaces are more likely to be written by the author of the book and foreword by someone other than the author. There were some who thought prefaces are sometimes written by the publishers, perhaps through the editors. Finally, on the question of the main communicative purpose(s) of these various discourse forms, a great majority (about 90%) pointed out that introductions have an academic purpose, whereas a preface serves both academic as well as promotional purposes, and foreword is more likely to have a more
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dominant promotional purpose. On the basis of this survey, which seems to represent elements of conventional wisdom, one could distinguish preface, foreword, introduction, acknowledgement, along the following lines.
Preface To outline the general purpose and scope of the book, often indicating steps leading to the preparation of the book. (Communicative purpose (s) - academic as well as promotional).
Introduction To place the content of the book in the context of the field to which the book belongs, often outlining the work and advising readers how to go about the book. (Communicative purpose(s) - - mainly academic).
Foreword To comment on the book written by someone other than the author, generally a well-known scholar. (Communicative purpose(s) - - mainly promotional).
Acknowledgement To express gratitude to people who the author feels have helped in the preparation of the book. However, in actual practice, over the years, we have seen so much overlap in their communicative purposes that even the dictionaries find it difficult to distinguish them. Let me quote from the most recent and somewhat innovative dictionary what these terms are seen to incorporate.
Introduction: An introduction is the first part of a book in which the author Preface: Foreword: Preamble: Prologue:
tells you what the rest of the book is about. A preface is an introduction at the beginning of a book which explains why the book was written or what it is about. The foreword of a book is an introduction by the author or by someone else. A preamble is an introduction that comes before something you say or write. A prologue is a piece of text that is spoken or written at the beginning of a book in order to introduce it. (From Collins Cobuild English Language Dictionary, 1987)
One can see the degree of overlap in some of these commonly used terms, especially the way all these generic forms are explained in terms of the use of the lexical item introduce~introduction. Other dictionaries are no more
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illuminating. T h e r e are several features of these definitions which deserve some comment. All these introductory sections of academic books are typically positioned outside the content of the book as such, almost always in the beginning of the book. T h e r e are set conventions to n u m b e r pages in roman numerals rather than Arabic numbers. Most of them are short, although occasionally I have seen them going beyond seven to eight pages, complete with a list of references (Poynton 1989). T h e y invariably introduce the content of the book, telling the reader why the book has been written and what it contains. T h e y are generally written by the author or abstracted from his or her introduction. Sometimes it may be written by a well-known academic in the field or the editor of the series, if the book is published as part of the series, in which case it is generally called an editor's preface (exceptions are not uncommon, though; see Cook (1989) where we find the author's introduction and the series editor's preface both put under the introduction). From the above description of these closely related genres I have called academic introductions, it is clear that all of them, whatever names they are given, have at least one main communicative purpose in common, and that is to introduce the book. This rather surprising amount of overlap in the function and identification of academic introductions is not simply a typical characteristic of modern dictionaries, it is evident in modern practice too. One may find instances of introductions, prefaces, and forewords largely indistinguishable from each other. Let me take the following three instances of academic introductions, an introduction, a preface and a foreword.
Introduction Discourse analysis examines how stretches of language, considered in their full textual, social, and psychologicalcontext, become meaningfuland unified for their users.... (It then continues with the discussion of the)ield, indicating its importance for language teaching)This book aims to explain the theory of discourse analysis and to demonstrate its practical relevance to language learning and teaching. Section one examines..... Section two explores... (It then gives the description of the content of the book)There are several people I want to thank for their friendship and help.... (The introduction ends with acknowledgments) (Cook, 1989)
Preface It is arguable that the most crucialproblem at present facingforeignlanguage teaching syllabus designers, and ultimatelymaterials producers, in the field of language for specific purposes, is how to specify validlythe target communicative competence.... (The introduction attempts to establish a niche for the book)In the preparation of this book I was influenced at the macro-level by the sociolinguisticwritings of Dell Hymes and Michael HaUiday,and at a more micro-levelby the work of, in particular, Henry Widdowson, David Wilkins.... (Theintroduction ends with acknowledgements) (Munby 1978)
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Foreword This book, which is based on the teaching given in the Ordinary Course in Phonetics at Edinburgh University, is intended to provide an introduction to the subject as traditionally understood and practised in Britain: it deals...with phonetics as part of general linguistics .... (It begins by describing the book positively and establishing its orientation)My debt to the great phoneticians of the English speaking tradition- -Alexander Melville Bell, Alexander J. Ellis, Henry Sweet, Daniel Jones, Kenneth Lee Pike--must be apparent on nearly every page. I owe especial thanks to ...... (The introduction ends with acknowledgements) (Abercrombie 1967)
All the three texts display a remarkable degree of overlap in terms of their use of lexico-grammatical resources and structural interpretation. In all of them we find a major concern with introducing the content of the books, which includes establishing the field of study and establishing a niche in the relevant~elds of study. The other major concern that is common to all the three texts is the expression ofgratitude in terms of acknowledgements, which form an integral part of the texts, rather than an independent section of the book. In terms of their communicative purpose also, there seems to be a considerable overlap. However, all three of them have been given different generic rifles, which have been conventionally recognized and used with some degree of independent identification. This makes one think seriously about the conventional wisdom of giving the three texts different generic names. It is also possible that over a period of rime these historically somewhat distinct genres have come so close to each other that they seem to have lost whatever traditional distinctions they may have had at one time. As things stand today, it is more than evident that these three academic introductions and perhaps many more of this kind, for instance, Overview as in Johnson (1989), Editorial as in Brumfit (1984), About this book as in Kennedy & Bolitho (1984), To the reader as in Grellet (1981), and Viewpoint as in Gunderson (1991), to name a few, are instances of genre-mixing available in all possible permutations and combinations. There is another aspect of the development of academic introductions which prompts even more interesting discussion. As briefly mentioned earlier, the dictionary definitions suggest introducing academic work as the main communicative purpose of academic introductions. There is no mention of any other concern in dictionaries or in any other published literature. However, as Swales (1990) points out in the case of "Research Article Introductions" (RAIs), there is another subtle intention in writing RAIs, which can be identified as looking for readership, indirectly promoting research. In RAIs such promotional input is rather subtle, but in academic introductions, especially of the kind we have been discussing, the promotional input is increasingly becoming transparent and more direct and dominant, in some cases. This obvious concern on the part of the writer of the academic introduction to promote the book often results in the use of subtle linguistic strategies, e.g. an extensive use of adjectives to describe aspects of the book, which remind one of advertising. In the present-day
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practice, therefore, it is not uncommon to find a dual communicative purpose in academic introductions, to introduce the book and to promote it to the potential readers, who may be tempted to invest in the knowledge being offered. If we look at the present-day practice of writing academic introductions, we will find ample evidence of what might be the hidden agenda. As I see it, there is a clear indication of the fact that publishers use a socially recognized communicative purpose (i.e. introducing the academic work) and genres which are considered appropriate for the fulfillment of this purpose, to communicate private intentions (i.e. to promote the book), which conventionally were not considered part of the book introduction. This phenomenon of mixing "private intentions" with "socially recognized communicative purposes" is not a characteristic of academic introductions alone; it is widely used in other professional genres too, resulting in a mixing of genres. In newspapers, for instance, objective news reporting has long been regarded as a socially recognized communicative purpose of the genre of news reporting; however, we often find well-established news reporters giving what they think are legitimate slants to the events of the day, often mixing factual reporting with elements of argumentative writing. In the case of academic introductions, it is difficult to say to what extent it is contributed to by the author of the book and what exactly is the role of the publisher, because these introductions are always attributed to either the author, the series editor or some other established academic in the field. Viewpoints or introductions attributed to academics other than the author often have a very distinct and recognizable promotional flavour, which often reminds one of "celebrity endorsements" in advertisements. There is so much genre-mixing in academic introductions that one is often surprised by what one least expects in academic introductions. It is generally true that the acknowledgment is written by the author and the foreword by somebody else, whereas in the case of the preface and the introduction one may find relatively less obvious claims in terms of authorship. We therefore expect a foreword to be written by an academic other than the author, and the introduction written by the author(s); however, in practice, we may be surprised to find an introduction written by somebody other than the author (Tay 1993) and a foreword written by the author (Gimson 1970; Poynton 1989). Similarly, in terms of promotional effort one is least likely to find authors directly promoting their products and that is one reason why foreword, which is more likely to promote the work, is often written by a well-known academic, other than the author of the book. But, in present-day practice it is not difficult to find forewords, prefaces, even introductions with a clearly dominant promotional input, so much so that even the main purpose of introduction becomes secondary to this selling effort. The following instance of book introduction is a good example of this. Introduction The COBUILD approach to grammar is simple and direct. We study a large collection of English texts, and find out how people are actually using the
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V.K. Bhatia language. We pick the most important points....In this book we give explanations of the most important, frequent, and typical points of English grammar..., so that you can put the knowledge to use immediately....... Our first grammar book has been well received, and we are continuing full scale research on grammar in order to be more accurate and relevant to the needs of the teacher and student.I would be very glad to have your comments on this book,.. (Sinclair 1991)
In m o s t promotional and advertising genres, adjectives are used to describe and positively evaluate p r o d u c t s and therefore form the basis of selling p o w e r (see Bhatia 1993). T h e m o s t characteristic feature of this text is the p r e d o m i n a n t use of adjectives, in practically every s e n t e n c e of the text. Expressions, s u c h as the following, • • • • • •
The COBUILD approach to grammar is simple and direct. We pick the most important points... yon can be sure that... you are presented with real English the most important, frequent, and typical point of English grammar... This makes the book suitable both as a classroom text, and also for private study... • very easy and direct to understand... • necessary for clear understanding and accurate usage...
are typical of p r o d u c t description in promotional letters. In addition to that there are other indications of promotional input, especially the attempt to establish credentials (see Bhatia 1993 for detailed description of rhetorical m o v e s in promotional discourse). Our first grammar book has been well received, and we are continuing full scale research on grammar in order to be more accurate and relevant to the needs of the teacher and student. T h e final p a r a g r a p h e c h o e s a typical effort in promotional letters to solicit a response, considering the fact that the g r e a t e r part of promotional disc o u r s e is largely unsolicited. I would be very glad to have your comments on this book, especially on how useful you find it. This so-called introduction does not s e e m to be v e r y different from a typical promotional letter. In fact, it contains all the crucial ingredients which are likely to m a k e a typical promotional effort successful. O n e m a y be t e m p t e d to think that such a promotional input is very recent b e c a u s e of the intense competition in the publishing industry and the role of advertising in m o d e r n day business. It is true that such promotional c o n c e r n s have b e c o m e increasingly m o r e visible in r e c e n t times, but it would be inaccurate to say that t h e y w e r e completely absent s o m e 50 y e a r s ago. A r a n d o m selection of about 30 academic introductions f r o m b o o k s published in the first half of the c e n t u r y provided an interesting instance of such an introduction.
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Preface The American Management Association has felt for some time the need for bringing together in convenient handbook form not only a digest of the best of its own publications...That this tendency has gone too far is indicated by the opinion often expressed that it is extremely difficult to find men for promotion into positions of major managerial responsibility....The net result is an extremely difficult problem of coordinating different activities with a particular function...This "Handbook of Business Administration" will, to a considerable extent, meet this educational need by providing in a form convenient for study the fundamentals and the procedures of managerial policy and technique which may be put to use by business executives...It is our hope, too, that this "Handbook of Business Administration" will find its way into the hands of many business executives...Essentially the Handbook has been prepared to meet the needs of the following groups:l. Executives of general managerial ranks who ......... 2. Those major functional executives who .......... 3. Those business executives of... specialized responsibilities who ....... 4. Those specialized executives who ......... The contributors to the various sections of the Handbook have been carefully chosen as leaders in their respective fields.... (Donald 1931)
Very much like a typical promotional document, it begins by establishing the needs of a potential readership (a well-defined group of business executives) and then goes on to bring in a positive product description to suggest at least a partial fulfillment of such needs (see Bhatia 1993: 46-52, for a detailed description of this aspect of promotional writing). The interesting thing is that almost the whole of the preface is devoted to these two major moves. Also, like the example we had earlier of the introduction with similar promotional input, this one too relies on the use of positively evaluating expressions like "a digest of the best of its own publications", "a reasonably complete picture", "a form convenient for study", "contributors... have been carefully chosen as leaders", "contributions represent...the best in modem managerial policies", etc., some of which are often associated with the field of advertising. So this mixing of promotional input to introductory purposes is not entirely new in academic introductions, although it has become a lot more visible in the last few decades than ever before. This process of genre-mixing, especially for the expression of private intentions within the socially-recognized communicative purposes, does not seem to be an exclusive property of academic introductions alone; it is found more commonly in many other forms of professional discourse. Bhatia (1995) documents several instances of genre-mixing from advertising, news reporting, legal documents, as well as from bureaucratic communications. He explains, This dynamic complexity of professional communication is the result of several factors, including the ever-increasing use of multi-media, explosion of information technology, multi-disciplinary contexts of the world of work, increasingly competitive professional (academic as well as business) environment, and the overwhelmingly compulsive nature of promotional and adverrising activities. [Bhatia 1995: 1]
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Featherstone (1991) identifies the present-day world of work in terms of what he calls "promotional culture", where one finds most of the institutionalized genres, whether they are social, professional or academic, incorporating elements of promotion. Falrclough (1992:207) associates some of these changes with what he calls "commoditication" of institutional orders of discourse. Referring to such changes in discourse practices, he (Fairclough 1993:141) points out, ...there is an extensive restructuring of boundaries between orders of discourse and between discursive practices; for example, the genre of consumer advertising has been colonizing professional and public service orders of discourse on a massive scale, generating many new hybrid partly promotional genres...
As an instance of such a hybrid genre, Fairclough (1993) discusses the case of contemporary university prospectuses, where he highlights an increasing tendency towards marketization of the discursive practices of British universities. Bhatia (1995), in his discussion of genre-mixing in professional discourse, gives examples from several settings where he finds genre-mixing increasingly common. He also mentions several instances where one finds an increasing use of promotional strategies in genres which are traditionally considered non-promotional in intent, including book introductions, which are becoming increasing difficult to distinguish from publishers' blurbs. This mixing of generic resources, however, to introduce variation in genre construction, whether it is a deliberate mixing of communicative purposes, or a subtle exploitation of one generic context to communicate private intentions, is always considered to be tactically superior and hence must not be viewed as transgression of generic conventions. It tends to give considerable tactical freedom to expert members of the specialist discourse community to respond to novel situations on the basis of prior experience and past interactions, and the case of academic introductions seems to be no exception to this practice. In the preceding sections I have made an attempt to see some kind of order in the seemingly chaotic world of academic introductions, where, as a result of the changing realities of professional and academic contexts, conventionally accepted forms seem to have given way to a variety of innovations, exploitations, creativities in the form varied practices over the years. In the process, I have tried to raise several issues, although I may not have been able to resolve all of them. Some of the issues at stake are the following: Conventional Naming of Genres Although it is largely true that discourse communities give generic names to standardized and highly conventionalized communicative events, it may not necessarily be the case that such generic events continue to attract the
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same names. This raises several questions. First, to what extent genres, and therefore generic forms and conventions, can be exploited or taken liberties with, in order to introduce innovations to achieve more complex communicative purposes in response to novel communicative situations? Secondly, to what extent can one do it safely without opting out of the genre? Thirdly, are there any crucial boundaries? If so, how can these boundaries be defined?
Mixing and Embedding of Genres We may be tempted to move away from the notion of pure genres, although I am not sure if we have such a notion and consider the notion of genre mixing and embedding. Genre embedding can be distinguished from what I have called genre-mixing in the discussion of academic introductions here by looking at the nature and extent of involvement of one genre within the other. In genre embedding, for example, one often finds a particular generic form, it may be poem, a story or an article used as a template to give expression to another conventionally distinct generic form, as in the following advertisement for a job. WANTED DYNAMIC AND SPECIALIST SENIOR PRODUCT MANAGERS If you have lots of garment experience, this is the job for you If you are fashion conscious, this is the job for you If you are not afraid of hard work, this is the job for you If you are a team player, this is the job for you If you use your initiative, this is the job for you If you enjoy meeting and working with overseas buyers, this is the job for you Other generic forms, such as letters, articles, scientific reports, reviews etc. are also very common in advertising genres. (see Bhatia 1995 for a more detailed discussion of this). In principle, the notion of pure genres is very attractive and extremely useful for a number of pedagogical outcomes, in practice, however, it is unlikely to capture the complex communicative realities of the present-day professional and academic world. In order to account for these complexities, do we need to abandon the notion of pure genres (assuming that we have some such notion) altogether, or extend it to cover a range of genres in a specific domain and then look for generic
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patterns? If we take it a little bit further, we might need to establish criteria to determine what kinds of communicative purposes can be safely mixed or embedded without opting out of established generic boundaries? What kind of 'private intentions' are compatible with what kind of 'socially recognized communicative purposes'? (See Bhatia 1995 for a more detailed discussion of this point.)
Natural Development of Generic Forms. It is also possible to view such changes in generic forms as historical development of generic constructs. Berkenkotter & Huckin (1995) rightly regard genres as "inherently dynamic structures that can be manipulated according to the conditions of use". Since conditions of use do change over time, generic forms are likely to reflect such changes in their configuration interpretation and use. However, such changes are more likely to become visible and get established over a relatively long period of time. To conclude, genre theory needs to account for the complex communicative realities of the academic and publishing world. Since genremixing is very common in professional and academic communication, presentday genre theory must be able to account for genre-mixing and embedding, on the one hand, and to maintain generic integrity, on the other. On the face of it, it may appear to be a contradiction in terms; however, in practice, the two goals are complementary to each other. Bhatia (1995): 15) attempts to resolve this seeming contradiction when he emphasizes that ...conventionalized genetic structures are an essential prerequisite for an adequate understanding of the construction and interpretation of genres in professional and academic settings. The freedom to innovate, exploit or manipulate genetic resources and conventions is inevitably exercised within the broad framework of specific genetic boundaries... Any attempt to flagrantly flout genetic conventions is noticeably odd and will therefore be considered by the specialist community an undesirable communicative aberration.
Considered in this light, one of the main goals of genre theory is to account for genre-mixing and embedding in professional settings within the context of generic conventions associated with individual genres. In this sense genre analysis needs to be truly narrow in focus but broad in vision.
(Received I October1996) Acknowledgements--This is the revised version of the paper presented at the Penn State Conference on Rhetoric and Composition, at the Pennsylvania State University, USA (13-16 July, 1994). I would like to express my gratitude to John Swales for giving very insightful comments on the first version of the paper. I am also grateful to the two anonymous reviewers of the journal Englishfor Specific Purposesfor their suggestions.
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REFERENCES Abercrombie, D. (1967). Elements of general phonetics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Berkenkotter, C., & Huckin, N. T. (1995). Genre knowledge in disciplinary communication: Cognition~culture~power. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. Bhatia, V. K. (1993). Analysing genre: Language use in professional settings. London and New York: Longman. Bhatia, V. I~ (1995). Genre-mixing in professional communication--The case of private intentions v. socially recognized purposes. In P. Bruthiaux, T. Boswood & B. Du-Babcock (Eds.), Explorations in English for professional communication (pp. 1-19). City University of Hong Kong. Brumfit, C. J. (1984). Common ground: shared interests in ESP and communication studies, R. Williams, J. Swales & J. Kirkman (Eds.). Oxford: The British Council and Pergamon Press. Cook, G. (1989). Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Donald, W. J. (Ed.) (1931). Handbook of business administration. York, Pa: The Maple Press. Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and social change. London: Polity. Fairclough, N. (1993). Critical discourse analysis and the marketization of public discourse: the universities. Discourse and Society, 4 (2), 133-168. Featherstone, M. (1991). Consumer culture and postmodernism. London, Sage. Gimson, A. C. (1970). An introduction to the pronunciation ofEnglish. London: Edward Arnold (Publishers) and the English language Book Society. Grellet, F. (1981). Developing reading skills. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gunderson, L. (1991). ESL literacy instruction--A guidebook to theory and practice. New Jersey: Prentice Hall Regents. Johnson, R. K. (Ed.) (1989). The second language curriculum. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kennedy, C., & Bolitho, R. (1984). English for specific purposes. London: Macmillan. Martin, J. R. (1993). A contextual theory of language. In the powers of literacy-a genre approach to teaching writing. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press (116--136). Martin, J. R., Christie, F., & Rothery, J. (1987). Social processes in education: A reply to Sawyer and Watson (and others). In I. Reid (Ed.), The place of genre in learning." Current debates. Geelong: Deakin University Press, Australia. Miller, C. R. (1984). Genre as social action. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 70, 151-167. Munby, J. (1978). Communicative syllabus design. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Poynton, C. (1989). Language and gender: Making the difference. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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V.K. Bhatia
Sinclair, J. (1991). Collins COBUILD students grammar. Glasgow: Harper Collins. Swales, J. M. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tay, Wan Joo, M. (1993). The English language in Singapore. Unipress, Centre for the Arts: National University of Singapore, Singapore. Vijay K. Bhatia is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at the City University of Hong Kong. He is best known for his work on genre analysis of professional discourse, especially in the contexts of law, journalism and business. Appendix
Sample Questionnaire UNDERSTANDING ACADEMIC INTRODUCTIONS In the introductory pages of academic books one typically finds a number of introductory sections, some of which include preface,foreword, introduction, acknowledgement and, occasionally, preamble or prologue. All these introductory sections of academic books are typically positioned outside the content of the book as such, almost always in the beginning of the book. Most of them are short, although occasionally we may see some longish ones as well. They invariably introduce the content of the book. I have put all of them under "Academic Introductions". One can see the degree of overlap in some of these commonly used terms. The purpose of this brief study is to investigate the individual perception of the overlap in some of them. Using your personal understanding and experience of the world of academics and publishing try to answer the following questions: 1. Would you call these academic introductions different genres? (It doesn't matter if you call them types, varieties, or registers etc.) DIFFERENT
SAME
NOT SURE
2. Do they have overlap? If yes, which of them have significant overlap? INTRODUCTION & PREFACE PREFACE & FOREWORD
YES YES
NO NO
3. Which of these are mutually exclusive? INTRODUCTION & PREFACE PREFACE & FOREWORD INTRODUCTION & FOREWORD
YES YES YES
4. Who is more likely to be the author of the following?
NO NO NO
Genre-Mixing in Academic Introductions Genre Introduction Preface Foreword
Author of the book Publisher
195
Some other scholar
5. What is the primary function of each of these academic introductions? academic (introducing the content of the book) or promotional? If both, then tick both. INTRODUCTION PREFACE FOREWORD
PROMOTIONAL PROMOTIONAL PROMOTIONAL
ACADEMIC ACADEMIC ACADEMIC