Media Discourse
Analysing Discourse
Chapter 4Genres and Generic StructureOutline of Textbook
This textbook has four main parts:-Part 1. Social analysis, discourse analysis,
text analysis

Part 2. Genres and Action

OPICT’SYADOTPart 3. Discourses and Representations
 Part 4. Styles and identities
Chapter 4 Outline
1. Introduction
 2. Genres and texts
 3. Pre-genres, disembedded & situated genres
 4. Analysing individual genres• Activity (+ Generic structure)• Social Relations• Communication Technologies

5. Dialogue and the public sphere 6. Arguments, assumptions and ideologies
 7. Narrative1. Introduction
 Genre= “The specifically discoursal aspect of ways of acting
and interacting in the course of social events”(NormanFairclough)= “a particular type or style of literature, art, film or musicthat you can recognize because of its specialfeatures”(Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary)2. Genres and texts
 There are various levels of text organization.

 Text-makers choose what meanings they want toexpress.
 These meanings are realized at the level of genres,discourses and styles.
 These get realized at the lower levels of semantics,grammar and vocabulary.

Levels of Text Analysis
Social Structures
External

Social Events
Actions and Social Relations
Identification of Persons
Representations of the world

BOTH ! !

Discourse (Genres, Discourses, Styles)
Semantics

Internal

Grammar and Vocabulary
Phonology (of speech) & Graphology (of writing)Realization

Social Practices

2. Genres and texts
 Genres

Realized by: Actional meanings and forms.
Examples: interview, news report, comedy, love letter.
 Discourses

Realized by: Representational meanings and forms.
Examples: police, counselling, omiai, news.
 StylesRealized by: Identificational meanings and forms.
Examples:reporter: veteran/junior/male/female/free.

2. Genres and texts
 Genre is primarily realized by the following features of texts:

 Text Level

The overall ‘generic’ pattern of organization of the text. [Ch4] The intertextuality of a text: how other ‘voices’ are included. [Ch4] Above Clause (= 節) Level

Semantic relations between clauses, sentences and paragraphs.
[Ch5]
 Formal grammatical relations between clauses and sentences. [Ch5] Clause Level

Types of exchange, speech function, grammatical mood [Ch6]

Genres and Research Themes Dialogue + Public Sphere Argument + Citizenship Narrative + Ideology of the News Media3. Pre-genres, disembedded
genres and situated genres
Types of Genre
Abstract

SpecificPre-genre

narrative, argument, description

Disembedded
genreinterview,
civic self-publishing infomercial

Situated genre

ethnographic interview

4. Analysing individual genres
Genres can be analysed in three ways:
1. Activity
What are people doing (discoursally)?



2. Social Relations
What are their social relations?

3. Communication Technology
What technology does the activity depend on?

4.1 Activity
 Genres are often defined (and named)according to the purpose of the activity.
 Some genres may have more than one

purpose.
 Different purposes may be hierarchicallyordered.

4.1.1 Generic structure
Scientific Paper• Title+• Abstract+• Introduction+• Methods+• Results+• Conclusion+• References.

Accident Report• Headline (summary)+• Lead Paragraph (summary)+• Satellites (details)+• Wrap Up (outcome)4.2 Social relations
 Genres, as forms of interaction, constitute socialrelations between interactants (social agents)
such as organizations, groups or individuals.

‘The pronouns of power and solidarity’Power Brown & Gilman (1960)

Solidarity



Example: Ethnographic Interview

4.3 Communication technologies
 The development of new communications technologies

goes along with the development of new genres.
 New technology and multimodal texts.

 There is a close relationship between:(i) the economic, political and social changes of new capitalism(ii) technological change (mediation via new communication technology)(iii) changes of genre / new genres.

5. Dialogue and the Public Sphere Ideal: Dialogue should be free and equal.
 Reality: Even informal chat is not equal.

Public Sphere (公共圏) = ‘the domain of social life in which people can engage

as citizens in deliberating (= thinking carefully) about
issues of social and political concern, in a way which canfeed into policy making’ ‘an effective public sphere can be defined in terms of

the quality of dialogue which takes place within it’

6. Arguments, assumptions, andideologies
 Stephen Toulmin defined arguments as having four parts:

Grounds:

the premises of the argument.

Warrants:

the things that justify the inference from theGrounds to the Claim.

Backing:

something that gives support to a warrant.

Claim: the conclusion of the argument.

6. Arguments, assumptions, andideologies
 When we try to analyse arguments, a common

problem is that parts of the argument may be onlyassumed, implied, taken for granted.
 Assumptions in texts are often questionable ordoubtful.
 Such assumptions are often ideological and arerelated to specific discourses which try to make theirview of the world seem like just ‘common sense’.

7. Narrative
Bal’s theory of narrative Fabula = the ‘material or content that is worked into

the story’, a ‘series of logically andchronologically related events’ Story = a fabula that is ‘presented in a certain

manner’ (time, characters, focalization, point ofview) Narrative text =The same story can appear invarious texts, with various narrators,using various different media.

‘Firemen tackle blaze’ report
Fabula
1. First, a fire broke out, (whichcaused damage until it was putout)

Story
1. Headline (3 – 1)
2. Lead Paragraph (2 – 1)

2. and then …workers wereevacuated from the building,

3. Second Paragraph (3 – 1)
3. and then …firemen tackled theflames, (and successfully putout the fire)
4. and then …the department wasrunning again the next morning.

4. Third Paragraph (Damage)
5. Wrap-Up Paragraph (4)News and Ideology
 News = creating stories out of fabula News is a form of social regulation

 News imposes narrative order on fuzzy reality

 Making news is not just a matter of reporting ‘thefacts’.

News Intentions
 Referential Intention= trying to make an accurate connection
between the story and the real events.
 Explanatory Intention= trying to make sense of the events byfocalizing them according to a certain pointof view.

Chapter 4 Outline
1. Introduction
 2. Genres and texts
 3. Pre-genres, disembedded & situated genres
 4. Analysing individual genres• Activity (+ Generic structure)• Social Relations• Communication Technologies

5. Dialogue and the public sphere 6. Arguments, assumptions and ideologies
 7. Narrative