A Corpus-Based Investigation of the Language and Linguistic Patterns of One Genre and the Implications for Language Teaching

Author(s): Alex Henry and Robert L. Roseberry Reviewed work(s): Source: Research in the Teaching of English, Vol. 30, No. 4 (Dec., 1996), pp. 472-489 Published by: National Council of Teachers of English Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40171553 . Accessed: 13/10/2012 03:11
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A Corpus-Based Investigation of the Language and Linguistic Patterns of One Genre and the Implications for Language Teaching
Alex Henry Universiti Brunei Darussalam Robert L. Roseberry Universiti Brunei Darussalam
Therehas been considerableinterest in using a genre-basedapproachto the teaching of language. Genre has been describedas a property of texts which allows them to be described as a sequence of segments, or "moves," with each move accomplishingsome part of the overall communicativepurpose of the text, while register can be thought of as the language and linguistic patterns of one particular genre. The purpose of this study was to find out whether the registersof different moves of one genre can be very differentfrom each other. A corpus of 44 typical examples of the genre, "Brief Tourist Information,"was created.A computerized concordancingprogramwas used to analyze the three moves, "Location,""Facilities/Activities," and "Description"in terms of discoursefunctions, length, reader address, modality, idioms, lexical phrases, and common lexical items. A comparison of the structures and lexical items of the three moves showed clearly that while they shared a few functions, for the most part they differedsubstantially. The results suggest that language educators should consider 1) basing instructional materialson corporaof texts in use, 2) teachingthe movestructureof genres and the concomitant move registers rather than the general register of the genre as a whole, 3) integrating the teaching of reading and writing, and 4) adopting a "purposeapproach"to the teaching of writing.

Recent years have seen an increasing interest in the teaching of language through a genre-based approach. Despite the different definitions of genre (see overviews by de Beaugrande, 1993; Leckie-Tarry, 1993), there has been sufficient agreement on what genre is, at least for teaching purposes, to enable the development of wide-ranging teaching projects based on genre (e.g., Hammond, 1987). However, there has been little research on whether the language and linguistic patterns of the various parts, or segments of a genre can be very different from each other. If this is the case, it would have clear implications for language pedagogy. To explore these questions, we undertook a study of the language and
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linguistic features of a number of examples of one particular genre, which we call "BriefTouristInformation."
Background

In a previous study (Henry & Roseberry,1995a),in which teaching materials were created on the basis of move patterns for students in our English as a Second Language (ESL)classes, we found that genre-based instructionresulted in improvement in achieving communicativegoals and in the students' ability to texture their writing. The study also noted an increasing ability of the students to produce texts which conformed to the allowable move structure.It did not, however, find that the approach increased their knowledge of relevant lexical items and phrases or improved their command of common, but important,language structures frequentlyfound in a given genre. To succeed in this would require the integrationof grammarand lexis into genre teaching. In an investigation concerned with reading strategies in management case studies (Henry & Roseberry,1995b),we found that in terms of lexis, what was importantfor language learnerswas not just the high frequencywords of the genre,but the lexis found in the most importantmoves of a particular text, especially the move "statingthe centralidea." The study suggested quite strongly that studying the language of a genre is not sufficientfor learningto read, comprehend,and write the genre, even when the genre moves are known. Instead,what appears to be needed is a focus on the language and linguisticpatternsof the individual moves. The language and linguistic patterns of a genre can be called its register,although various other interpretationsof this term exist (de Beau1993), including at least one sociolinguistic grande, 1993; Leckie-Tarry, and diachronicview (Ferguson,1994).By analogy, the language and linAlthough many guistic patternsof a move can be called the moveregister. studies of genre have at least referredto the kinds of language commonly found in the genre (see Biber,1988,for the most extensive study to date), no study thus far has investigated move registers, the closest being Swales' (1990,pp. 133-137) and Biberand Finegan's (1994,pp. 201-221) studies of a restrictedset of "linguisticfeatures"in the four main sections of research articles. The obvious importance of move register analyses for language teaching in general, and for an integrated approach to the teaching of reading and writing in particular,prompted us to undertake an extensive, corpora-basedstudy of several of the most common genres in written English. In the present study, we have followed a definition of genre similar to that of Swales (1990)and Bhatia(1993).Accordingto their view, genre is a formalpropertyof texts, allowing them to be describedas a sequence

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of segments, or moves,each of which is intended to accomplish some part of the total purpose of the genre. For example, Swales (1990) described three moves which can be identified in the introductionsof research articles:"establishingthe territory,""establishinga niche," and "occupying the niche." Together these moves enable an author to lay claim to an area not previously researched. In many genres moves often occur in a fairly fixed order, but Hasan (Halliday & Hasan, 1989) showed that moves occasionallyexhibit small variations in order and that some sets of moves may repeat iteratively. She furtherdemonstratedthat while some moves appearto be obligatory in certain genres, others may be optional. The Present Study The present study sought to investigate the following questions: How different are the registers of different moves of one genre, in this case a brief tourist informationtext, from each other? Can the registers of different moves of one genre utilize different structures?Can the registers of differentmoves of one genre use modality and possession differently? Can the registers of different moves of one genre use different kinds of vocabulary?And, can the registers of different moves of one genre exhibit different discourse functions? To provide data for analysis, we identified 44 examples of the genre "Brief Tourist Information."This working corpus represented a wide selection of tourist destinations throughout the world (e.g., Canada,the United States, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and South East Asia); it included only texts written in standard English. This choice of genre was considered relevantdue to the vast increasein tourismworldwide and especially here in SoutheastAsia. As tourism has expanded in recent years, there has developed an ever growing need for writers of effective promotional materials. An ability to understand this genre is likewise of interest to anyone who has to travel. Method Analysis of these 44 texts showed that all of them containedcertaintypes of information,which, following Hasan (Halliday& Hasan, 1989),Swales (1990),and Bhatia(1993),we referto as "obligatorymoves." Largenumbers of the texts contained other types of information,called "optional moves." The Appendix provides details of our analysis. To identify the different moves in a genre characterizedby different patterns of language, we identified the constituentmoves in each of the texts using the scheme we identified in our previous study. These moves

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are "motivation"(emotionalenticementto visit a place), "identification" (name of place), "location" (where it is), "explanation" (what it is), "shorthistory" (briefhistoricalbackground),"description"(what it contains that makes it an example of its kind), "facilities/activities" (conveniences, together with special fixtures not part of "description,"that give the visitor something special or interesting to do or that make the visitor's life more pleasant), and "directions"(how to get there). These moves tend to appear in the order listed; and identification,location, description, and facilities/activities are generally obligatory moves in this genre. Next, we constructed separate corpora for each move and calculatedthe average number of T-units (independent clauses together with their subordinateclauses) used to realize the move. With a computerizedconcordancingprogram,we then performedan analysis of each of the move corpora(see Figure 1). The analysis of each move corpus was based on the following procedure. First,we listed all the words which occurred in a certain move in the corpus and their frequency of their occurrence (see Table 1: "Facilities/Activities").To 7.4 resorts, Kauai offers more for you to enjoy. Hiking, kayaking, championship 8.6 unique characterand appeal. You can enjoy everything from sunbathing to 8.14 trade the city had with the Orient. Enjoy golf, tennis, horseback riding, 10.10 island national park, where you can enjoy open-air restaurants and calm 11.5 tennis. Just for fun, you can even enjoy a rollicking donkey polo match. island 16.4 a pace all its own. During the day enjoy all that a Caribbean 24.2 Enjoy the excitementat the Big Banana 25.5 see the night life of our cities or enjoy the serenityof the rainforest. 26.21 of London that is Hyde Park and enjoy the serenity while you feed the 28.4 Roman walls at Cardiff Castle and enjoy banquets that are a throw-back 30.2 Enjoy the exhilaratingview of the 33.3 holiday resort of Queenstown and enjoy the outdoor recreational 33.13 New Zealand's highest mountain. Enjoy the exhilaratingexperience of for Patterns the Verb"Enjoy." and 1: Figure Syntactic Lexical to The Note: numbers the left arethe textand line numbers.

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Table 1 of Occurrenceof Descriptorsfor "Facilities/Activities" Frequency Using the 69 Most FrequentlyFound Words in the Move
Word THE OF AND A BE TO AT IN YOU S FOR FROM CAN IT OR VISIT* WHERE BEACH BY TAKE* WATER WITH ALL Frequency 275 150 140 100 89 85 53 45 41 38 31 31 25 24 22 19 19 18 17 17 17 17 16 Word WORLD CITY FIND* ON SHOP* THIS ENJOY* CENTER ISLAND RESORT WHICH AS MANY PARK VIEW* ALSO FISH HAVE ONE RELAX* RESTAURANT THAT THROUGH Frequency 16 15 15 14 14 14 13 11 11 11 11 10 10 10 10 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 Word BEAUTY BOAT DAY FAME GOLF HERE HISTORY MUSEUM OPEN* OUT RIDE* SEA SEE* SKI* SNORKEL* CLIMB* CRAFT DIVE* FINE INTO MOST OFFER* WILL Frequency 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7

Note:*denotesverb

determine the characteristic linguistic featuresof the move, we extracted certainitems, for example verbs with their surroundingco-text from the corpus. This was done largely on the basis of patterns suggested by the frequency lists, such as the preponderanceof uninflected verb forms in Table 1, as compared to Sinclair's(1991,p. 143) list of the top 113 forms in which about 50% of the verbs are inflected. We then employed the computer to reveal the immediate co-text of words contributingto these possible patterns. For example, Figure 1 shows how the verb 'enjoy' is used within the move "activities/facilities."This enabled us to identify recurringsyntactic and lexical patterns in the move. From the small sample in Figure 1, we can see quite clearly not only that the verb "enjoy"was used most frequently in its imperative form, and with the modal "can,"but we can also identifythe two most common lexical frames and their paradigmatic variationsas shown in Table2.

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Table 2 The LexicalFramesand ParadigmaticVariationsof the Verb "Enjoy" Found in the Move "Facilities/Activities" frames Lexical [adj] enjoy [the] (noun) you can [even]enjoy [the](adj)(noun) variations Paradigmatic the the Enjoygolf,banquets, excitement, serenity, ... recreational the exhilarating view, the outdoor restaurants. for fun,you Youcanenjoyopen-air Just caneven enjoya rollicking donkeypolo...

By studying such lists, we were able to identify the lexical and gramthe maticalfeaturesthat characterize language used in each of the moves. These features included the full range of lexical phrases, from fixed idiomatic expressions, to the highly variable generalized frames identified by Nattinger and DeCarrico (1992, pp. 31^46) and their paradigmatic variations. Results We present our findings regarding three of the obligatory moves of the brief tourist information genre: "location," "facilities/activities," and is "description."The fourth obligatorymove, "identification," nearly alrealized by simply stating the name of the place being described. ways We contrastthe linguistic featureswhich characterizeeach of these three moves in order to show not so much that the registers are differentbut in what ways they differ and how these three registers are designed to fulfill quite different functions. The overt purpose of a brief tourist informationtext is to entice tourists to visit a place. Like all the moves in the genre, "location,""facilities/activities," and "description"contribute toward the promotion of that purpose. The functions of these three moves, however, are very different. "Location,"as its name suggests, functions to describe the location of a specific tourist destination in the most interesting way. "Facilities/activities"consists primarilyof actions things to do or seewhich are combined with modalities, location, time, possession, range, and provision. The subsidiary role of location within this move is a feature that we shall return to later. The primary notions and functions of the move "description"are description,possession, existence,and range. A computer-assisted analysis of the registers of the three moves All yielded only two similar linguistic characteristics: three are written

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predominantly in the present simple tense, and, generally the active voice is used. However, a few verbs, such as "locate,"favor the passive. In all other respects, these three move-registers are linguistically quite different from each other. "Location"is typically realized in one T-unit or a dependent clause; it contains no modalities or idioms, frequently employs distance terms and compass points, and is typically structured as one of three "lexical phrase frames" (cf. Becker,J., 1975;Nattinger & DeCarrico,1992)."Facilities/activities,"on the other hand, averages5 to 6 T-units, frequently uses imperative verbs, quantitativeadjectives,and the modalities "can" and "will," and makes use of a large number of lexical phrase frames, including some idioms. In addition, this move is characterizedby the frequent use of "you" and "your" and by possessives. The move "description"is realized in 3 to 4 T-units on average, uses verbs that express the notion of existence, makes infrequentuse of modals, and employs a full range of adjectives in pre- and post-modifying position (modifying nouns of natural features), constructed features, units of measure, and natural substance. In common with the "facilities/activities" move, the reader is addressed by "you" and "your" and frequent use is made of possessives.
Facilities/ActivitiesMove

Examining the moves more closely, we see that the "actions"function of "facilities/activities"is most commonly realized by the verbs shown in Table 3. These three verbs appear in this move in more than onequarterof all the texts in the corpus. Other common verbs which realize this move include "see," "visit," "do," "relax,""venture,""watch," "explore,"and "catch,"in order of frequency.These verbs also occur in more than one lexical phrase frame. Instructionaimed at increasing competence in the writing of this genre could focus on one or more of such frames and their concomitantlexicalizations. The modalitiesused in this move registerare restricted "can,"which to appearsin this move in 38%of the texts in the corpus, and "will,"which appears in 24%."Will" and "find" almost always occur together, as in where you will find Britain'smost prestigious . . ." "Knightsbridge, We mentioned above that "location,"which is one of the moves examined here, is also found in the "facilities/activities"move, where it is realized primarilyby the prepositions "at," "in," and "from,"and also by "where" and "here," and by the verb "located."Except for the last two, each of these items is represented in this move in at least 25%of all the texts in our corpus. Some of these items, such as "from,"appear in more than one lexical phrase frame: (distance) (noun: place), as in "43 km from the Park Headquarters,and (viewed/seen) (noun: place), as in "seen from the visitors' gallery." Like location, time is also

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Table 3 Three Most Common Verbs Used To Realize the Move "Facilities/ The Activities" and Their LexicalFrames
VERB(%of texts in which verb is found) take (29%)

LEXICAL FRAMES a [adj](noun) to the opportunity

time to (verb)(noun)to you ing by _ en from find (29%) you will are found can be found found __ enjoy (26%) (noun) [the][adj] you can [even] [the] (adj)(noun) all that a

EXAMPLE Take a fascinating journey Take the opportunityto gamble... Take time to taste... Hire a water taxi to take you around... by taking a tranquilboat ride paradise taken from the jungles of... You'll find water-skiing, parasailing... Here are found open-air sulfur baths... Interestingantiquitiescan be found... The rich exhibits found in the National Art... Enjoy the exhilarating view... You can enjoy open-air restaurants... During the day enjoy all that a Caribbeanholiday...

prominent in this move and is indicatedby prepositions("at,""in")and time nouns ("night,""year,""day," "time," "weekend"). Possession,as indicatedby '"s,"is found in this move in almosthalf of the texts in the corpusand attachesto place names ("CoffHarbour's eighty restaurants"), generalplace nouns ("thearea'sfacilitiesinclude . . ."), and the participantsthemselves ("sportsman'sparadise").Rangeis indicated in about one fifth of the texts by the preposition "from,"already noted in connectionwith its use as an indicatorof location in this move ("every taste from Souvlaki to burgers").And the preposition "for" is used in this move in more than a third of the texts to indicate provision ("calm and clear for pleasant swimming"). The functionrange is found in 19%of the texts and is realized through "from" in the lexical frame (noun: usually sport) to (noun: usually as in the example "from snorkeling to windsurfing." sport)

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Provision is an importantfunction of this move. It is realized in 36% of the texts by the lexical frame [adj/noun] for [adj] (Ving/noun) as in the examples "for doing nature study" and "ideal place for a family outing." Because this move typically consists of several T-units,clause connections play an importantrole. The most frequent coordinatingconnector is "or," which appears in this use in 21%of the texts. "Where"provides subordinating connection in one-third of the texts; and "which" and "that"are the most frequentembedding signals at 24%and 14%respectively. Cohesion between adjacentT-units is achieved primarilythrough "this" (31%)(". . . life is sweet on Barbados.This easygoing island . . .") and "also" (17%)(". . . waterskiingand boating. Also availableare . . ."). But "here" and "another"also figure prominently as cohesive ties. discourseconTo createa friendlypersonaltone, the reader-addressed sists mainly of "you," found in 38%of the texts in the lexical frame (will (not)/can)(verb),and "your"in 14%of the texts, in the frame(verb) (noun). Examples generatedby these frames include: where you can literally dance . . . , where you'll find relics; and rest your feet, explore your new and exciting. . . . A striking feature of this move is the frequent use of idioms. In addition to those already mentioned in connection with "take"in Table3, others such as "watch the world go by," "catchlong-runninghits," "lose yourself in . . . ," "dance the night away," and "rechargeyour batteries," are among those that contributeto the tone and enticementof this move. The most frequently used words in this move include "you," action verbs, modals, entertainment targets (e.g. "museum," "windsurfing," "shop," etc.), and a small set of quantitativeadjectives ("all," "many", "most," "some").
LocationMove

The "location" move, unlike the "facilities /activities" move, is largely confined to three lexical phrase frames and is rarelylonger than a single T-unit.The lexical phrase frames are 1) noun- staticverb- prepositional phrase(s),as in "Damai Beachis about 20 km from Kuching;"2) present and past participle forms of the verb with a prepositionalphrase, as in "Situated approximatelyhalfway between Sydney and Brisbane,Coff's Harbour. . .;" and 3) adverbialphrases of location without a verb, as in "Less than 27 km from BandarSeri Begawan,MuaraBeach. . ." The first of these occurs in this move in a full 39%of the texts in the corpus, with the other two occurringin 25%and 11%of the texts, respectively. The static verbs most often used in lexical phrase frame 1) are "locate," "lie," "be," "situate," and "sit." The prepositional phrases used

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in all three frames are restrictedprimarilyto the prepositions "on," (occurringin a third of the texts), "in," "from,"and "between." The most common vocabularyof this move consists largely of location words (i.e., "east," "right,""towards"),geographicalfeatures (i.e., "waters," "beach," "hills"), constructed features (i.e., "park," "state," "city"),and measuring terms ("kilometers").
Description

The main function of the description move is to describe, and this is accomplished on average in 3.7 T-units. Description is achieved largely through noun phrases containing one or two adjectival and/or nounadjunctpremodifiers.Adjectivalpremodificationin this move follows the typical patterns for standard English, as shown in Table 4 based on the classificationof Chimombo (1986, p. 9). In the corpus of this move, all classes of adjectivaland noun-adjunctpremodifiersare used, except for ordinal numbers.Table4 shows the most common adjectives,appearing in at least 10%of the texts in the corpus of this move, listed in order of frequency,and their collocates. Superlativeadjectivesalso play an importantpart in the realizationof the descriptionfunction and are found in 25%of the texts in the corpus. Examples include: the best planned of all Australia'scapital cities . . . , the biggest in the Alps . . . , ranging from the bluest blues to the greenest greens Making use of adjective strings is another technique employed by writers of this genre for description. In 10%of the texts in this corpus, adjectives and adjectival participles, when used as complements, are grouped in twos or threes in the lexical phrase [is/are] (adj) [adj] [and] [adj]. Examples of this include: warm, relaxing and beautiful . . . , are short and mild . . . , are calm and clean . . . , is cosmopolitanand sophisticated. feature of the nouns found in this move is reference A characteristic naturaland constructedfeaturesof the landscape.Naturalsubstances, to living things, and units of measure are also prominent.Among the nouns used only once or twice in this move throughout the genre, there is also a prominent set of abstract nouns, apparently serving to enhance the beauty and attractivenessdescribedin the move. Table5 shows the most common nouns, all of which appear in at least three texts, in order of frequency. feature Post-modificationof the noun phrase is another characteristic of this move found in 45%of the texts. Table 6 shows how post-modification is commonly realized. Along with pre- and post-modificationof the noun phrase, another common featureof this move is parallel,coordinatednoun phrases,such

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Table 4 The Most Common Adjectives and Their Collocates Found in the Move "Description"
Adjectives spectacular Collocates beaches, scenery, alpine mountain mountains, glacier, coastal drive, coastline, ranges, High Country sand beaches (4), sandy beaches fine powder beaches, (2) washed houses beaches (2), golden beaches, scenery, waters waters (2), mountain air tropicalwaters, Category opinion

white

color

beautiful clear unique

opinion texture /condition opinion

characterand tangle of mews, and beautiful scenery, appeal, Australiancity, wildlife tracts, rugged Outback, expanse of parkland,rock formations, space of the Outback sands, sand beaches, islands, vegetation, waters and white sand, beaches jungles,

vast

size

golden tropical

color place of origin

as the following: Sabah'scharm,grandeur,excitement and sheer variety have to be seen to be believed; a wonderland of crocodiles, water buffaloes, bird life, cascading waterfalls and dramaticrocky escarpments. This linguistic feature appears in 14%of the texts. Possession in this move refers primarily to place names, generic places, and the tourist. The two most common indicators of possession are "its," which occurs in 25%of the texts and '"s," found in 20%.Examples include: each with its unique characterand appeal; a world of its own; its 363 white sand beaches; the city's huge seawall; a vacationer's paradise;Switzerland'smain attraction. Existence is primarily realized through the verb to be, especially be and the occasional use of "there is/are." Other common verbs that

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Table 5 Most Common Nouns Found in the Move "Description"

Nouns beach, mountain,water, sand, island, river, coastline, sea, glacier,lakes city, park, village, country,garden, resort,streets, town, houses, temple, walkway mile, area, feet, kilometer ice, rock flower, trees, plant, wildlife world, life, paradise,attraction,scenery temperature Category naturalfeatures constructedfeatures unit of measure naturalsubstance living things abstractions climate

express notions closely related to existence are "stretch (from, for, beyond, along)," and "surround"or "surrounded(by)." Rangeor extent usually refersto the size or diversity of the landscape. The most commonly used lexical frame is [range/stretch] [from/through] (NP) to (NP) and this frame is found in 11%of the texts in the corpus. Examples include: ranging from the bluest blues to the greenest greens, from the world of spectacularalpine glaciers at 13,000 feet to subtropicaltemperatures. As this move usually consists of 3 to 4 T-units, clause connectorsare an important linguistic feature of the move. In this move coordinating and subordinating,including embedding, are all frequent.The most frequent coordinatingand subordinatingconnectorsare "and," "but,"and "yet," and "where," and "as" respectively. Embedding is most often achieved using "that,""which," and "who." When addressing the reader,14%of the texts in this corpus utilize the pronouns "you" or "your." Examplesinclude: as far as you can see, as you'll see for yourself, naturally sculptured coastlines that stretch beyond your imagination. The most frequent words of this move are the nouns and adjectives listed above, verbs expressing existence, and "you." Idiomatic expressions are not common, but many adjectivesappear almost always in the company of one specific noun such as pristine (beach), exotic (orchids, flora), sandy (beaches).

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Table 6 Post-Modification of the Noun Phrase LexicalFrame (%of texts in which the frame is found) in [the] (noun: often "world") (20%) (verb+ed) [by/with, etc.] (16%)

Examples the largest flower in the world, ...clearwaters in the world, unique wildlife in the lush outway rain-forests... sugar-spunsand - kissed by the Caribbean...,Five-acreisland filled with quaint shops, 100 miles of coastline surrounded by... streets that reflect...,the gentle river that meanders through...,sculpturedcoastlinesthat stretch beyond...

that (+ clause) (9%)

Discussion It is evident that although the three obligatorymoves of this genre contain some similar functions, the actual move registersof "location,""facilities/activities," and "description"contrast strongly with each other. Table 7 reviews some of the main differences that we have noted. It is clear from this table that, in general, the different moves exhibit 1) different structures,2) different uses of modality and possession, 3) different kinds of vocabulary,and 4) generally different discourse functions. The analysis also suggests that the teaching of different moves requires different linguistic emphases. The teaching of "location" would require an emphasis on a relatively few static verbs, prepositional phrases, and adverbs for location. Vocabulary items would focus on location words, geographical features, constructed features, and measuring terms. In order to effectively write the move "facilities/ activities," students would have to learn to use action verbs, specific idioms, clause connectors (especially "or"), the active use of the modals "can" and "will," and how to create an informal, friendly tone by addressing the reader using "you" and "your." In addition to action verbs and modals, the vocabulary taught would focus on entertainment targets and a small set of quantitative adjectives. In contrast,effective teaching of the move "description" would emphasize pre- and post-adjectival modification of noun phrases, including the use of superlatives, coordinated noun phrases, the rather restricted number of verbs that ex-

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Table 7 Main ContrastingFeaturesof "Location,""Facilities/Activities,"and "Description"

FACILITIES/ ACTIVITIES action (+ modalities), location, possession, range, provision, time 5-6 T-units "you," "your" in 52% of the texts "can," 38% "will" 24% of the texts 's (43%) many phrase frames many "you," action verbs, modals, entertainment targets, quantitative adjectives

MOVE Discourse Functions

LOCATION location

DESCRIPTION description, possession, existence, range

Length Reader Address

1 T-unit or less (none) (none)

3-4 T-units "you," "your" in 14% of the texts "can," 5% "will" 7% of the texts its 25%, 's 20% many phrase frames few wide range of adjectives particularly those expressing opinion and texture/condition; nouns of natural features, constructed features, units of measure, natural substance; verbs expressing existence; "you"

Modality

Possession Lexical Phrase Frame Idioms Words

(none) 3 phrase frames none location words, geographical features, constructed features, measuring terms

press existence, modals, coordinating and subordinating connectors, and embedding. Vocabulary items would include the large number of adjectives and nouns that enable the move to fulfill its primary function, description.

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The above analysis also strongly suggests that there is a naturalorder for teaching these three moves: "location," "facilities/activities," followed by "description."Location, which is the sole discourse function of the "location move," is also an important function in the "facilities/activities" move. Many of the same structuresand vocabulary are used in both moves to realize this function, and so teaching this move first would prepare learnersto express location in "facilities/activities." Some of the most common vocabulary of the move "location" geoand measuring terms could graphical features, constructed features, also be used by learnerswhen reading and producing "description."By the same token the teaching of the possessive with 's, the use of "you"/"you," and clause connectors in the move "facilities/activities" would to some extent prepare learnersfor the move "description."
Implicationsfor Pedagogy

The students who would benefit from the results of the type of analysis demonstratedin this study, or from carryingout such an analysis themselves, fall into several categories:Intermediateto advanced ESLor EFL students; ESP (English for Special Purposes) learnerstaking courses related to written forms in business or the professions; native speakers taking business and general English courses in high schools; and undergraduatestaking courses in genre analysis, registeranalysis, or stylistics. In any genre-basedapproach to language learning, it is probablyimpossible to separatereading and writing. Studentscan learnthe language of a discourse function only by reading and studying it. They must do this in preparationfor writing the moves and, ultimately, the genre. For genres that are read by learners(e.g., abstracts)ratherthan written,reading strategies alone (based on macrostructuring) may suffice. But if the writing of these genres is to be learned as well, it can only be learnedin conjunctionwith reading. The reading and writing approach to genre-basedlanguage learning also suggests a modificationof some existing approachesto writing. Because many elements of current pedagogical approaches to writing instruction apply mainly to academic essays rather than to targeted professional genres, approachesbased on structuringinformation,writing topic sentences, and constructingintroductionsand conclusionsmay actually impede students who are trying to learn professionalgenres. For teachers, the move register approach to the learning of reading and writing has, among others, the following importantimplications. Teachthe Move StructureBeforethe Language.By first presenting the macrostructure of the text, the instructor is applying the researched principles of Ausubel (1968)and van Dijk and Kintsch(1983).According to these researchers,"advance organizers"and "macrostructures" pro-

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vide a foundation on which to build the language of a text, thus aiding in the learning of the linguistic forms involved. In our earlier study we showed how knowledge of the move structure acts as an advance organizer. It Genre. may well be the case that difficultyin learninga particulargenre may be influenced by discursive as well as grammaticalconcerns. It seems reasonable,therefore,that teachersconsider the structuringof the discourse, and not just the grammar. As mentioned earlier, "facilities/activities" contains location as one of its discourse functions. If students have alreadylearnedthe structuresand lexicalnotationsof the less complex "location"move, they should be able to transferthis information to the correspondingdiscourse function of the "facilities/activities" move. A similarpoint of view, this time concerningresearchreportwriting, is put forward by Jacoby, Leech, and Holten (1995, p. 356), who ordered their genre-basedsyllabus according to "the cognitive and rhetoricaldemands that each subsection of the researchreportmade on our students." as The theGenre a Whole. analysis we presented earliershows how vastly different the move registers of two moves of a single genre can be. Students must be given the opportunity to see how language can be used to realize specific discourse functions,and how these functionscan combine effectively to accomplishthe purpose of the move. The relationship between language and discourse function is largely lost if the entire register is taught as a whole, ratherthan as individual move registers. texts. This study has emphasized (especially in the "facilities/activities" move) the importanceof such idiomaticity(see Sinclair,1991).Following our procedureenables teachersto identify the idioms found in the genre, making the teaching of this rather difficult area of language learning specific and achievable.Contrastthis method, for example, with the traditional method of using a dictionaryof idioms, which probablywould not include many of the commonest idioms, such as the idiomatic uses of "take." Teachthe Grammar the Word.As Sinclair (1991, p. 104) points out, of evidence from corpus linguistics "casts grave doubts on the wisdom of postulatingseparatedomains of lexis and syntax."The method described in this paper stresses the importance of teaching the grammar of the word and of the lexical phrase, ratherthan general syntacticpatterns.It is easy to see that the paradigmaticsubstitutes,indicated by the corpus, do not fit the general patterns. This method emphasizes the fact that
Teachthe Idioms Identifiedin a Genre. Idioms are a crucial part of many Teach the Languageof Each Individual Move Rather than the Languageof for Apply a "Best Order"Approach Teachingthe Move Registersof a Given

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1996 in of Research the Teaching English, December 36,

words can have their own grammar,and it makes learnersaware of this fact.
Implicationsfor Research

This paper has shown how relatively straightforwardcomputer-based analytical techniques can provide not only essential information for teaching purposes, but also real data on which current models of language descriptionand productioncan be tested and modified. Restricted corpora of specialized texts can be easily compiled, scanned into computer files, and analyzed using relatively low-priced scanninghardware, optical characterreading programs, and concordancing programs. As Flowerdew (1993) has observed, and as we have found in our own research, these specialized corpora are, in many cases, more useful than the existing multi-million-wordcorporain use for teaching specific genres. By focusing on a single genre, we found patternsthat were obscured in the unfocused collections that comprise the major corpora. Further researchon other genres might bring to light other, equally less visible patterns of use to teachers and researchers. References
A view.New York:Holt, RineAusubel, D. (1968).Educational psychology: cognitive hart & Winston. de Beaugrande,R. (1993).'Register'in discourse studies: A concept in searchof a theory. In M. Ghadessy (Ed.),Register and (pp. analysis: Theory practice 7-25). London:Pinter. Becker,J. (1975). The phrasal lexicon. In R. Schank & B. Nash-Webber(Eds.), Theoretical issuesin naturallanguage processing (pp. 70-73). Boston:Bolt, Beranek & Newman. use Bhatia, V. (1993).Analysinggenre:Language in professional settings.London: Longman. acrossspeech writing.Cambridge,U.K.:Cambridge and Biber,D. (1988).Variation University Press. variation within medical research Biber, D., & Finegan, E. (1994). Intra-textual articles.In N. Oostdijk& P. de Haan (Eds.),Corpus-based research language into (pp. 201-221). Amsterdam,Neth.: Rodopl. in Chimombo, M. (1986). Workbook discourse analysis(mimeo). Zomba, Malawi: University of Malawi. van Dijk, T., & Kintsch,W. (1983).Strategiesof discourse comprehension.London: HarcourtBraceJovanovich. Ferguson, C. (1994). Dialect, register, and genre: Working assumptions about In conventionalization. D. Biber& E. Finegan(Eds.),Sociolinguistic perspectives on register (pp. 15-30). New York:Oxford University Press. Flowerdew,J. (1993).Concordancingas a tool in course design. System,21, 231244. context,and text:Aspectsof language Halliday, M., & Hasan, R. (1989).Language, in a social-semiotic Oxford,U.K.:Oxford University Press. perspective.

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Hammond,J. (1987).An overview of the genre-basedapproachto the teaching Reviewof Applied of writing in Australia.Australian 10, Linguistics, 163-181. R. of teaching approach. Henry,A., & Roseberry, (1995a).An evaluation a genre-based Manuscriptsubmittedfor publication. EAPvocabfor Henry, A., & Roseberry,R. (1995b,November). Strategies selecting ulary. Paper presented at the English for Specific Purposes Seminar,Johor Bahru,Malaysia. Jacoby,S., Leech, D., & Holten, C. (1995).A genre-baseddevelopmentalwriting course for undergraduateESLscience majors.In D. Belcher& G. Braine,G. and (Eds.), Academic Essayson research pedagogy writing in a secondlanguage: (pp. 351-373). Norwood, N.J.:Ablex. H. Leckie-Tarry, (1993).The specificationof a text: Register,genre and language and (pp. 26analysis:Theory practice teaching. In M. Ghadessy (Ed.), Register 42). London:Pinter. and Oxford, J. teaching. phrases language Nattinger,J., & DeCarrico, (1992).Lexical U.K.:Oxford University Press. collocation. concordance, Oxford,U.K.:OxfordUniversity Sinclair,J. (1991).Corpus, Press. and Swales, J. (1990). Genreanalysis:Englishin academic research settings.Cambridge, U.K.:CambridgeUniversity Press.

Appendix: Analysis of Brief Tourist Information Texts

Moves Present An analysis of 20 tokens of this genre from airlinemagazines,newspapers,tourist informationleaflets, and guidebooks revealed the following: Obligatory moves Identification(1):Name of X. Location(L):Locationof X (but not instructionson how to get there). Description(D): Descriptionof what X contains or has that makes it an example of its type (e.g., clean, white sand on a beach/species of wildlife in a park). Facilities/Activities (F):Those featuresnot included in 'Description'that provide the tourist with something extra or unusual to do. Optional moves Explanation(E): Informationwhich explains what X is (usually omitted if the identificationis sufficient). How to get there (T):Instructions,however vague, on how to get there. BriefHistory (H): Briefhistory of X. Motivation (M): Reasons for going to X that make it seem unique or highly desirable.Usually stated in emotive, quasi-poeticterms (e.g., Escapeinto a world of pure white beaches and clear blue water). Allowable Move Order Using the conventions of Hasan (cf. Halliday & Hasan, 1989, pp. 63-65), the following move order was identified:(M) [ [I L] (E) A (H) A D A [(T) F]]. If M is present, it is at the beginning or the end of the text. The other moves are I and L in either order, followed or preceded by E, if present. The remaining moves are optional H followed by D, followed by a combinationof optional T and F in either order.