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Analysis of written discourse
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| Analysis of written discourse. Different patterns of texture are associated with different types of
texts. News paper articles, for example, tend to favor particular kinds of cohesive devices and are struc- tured in a conventional way with a summary of the main points in the beginning and with the details coming later. To understand why such textual conventions are associated with this type of text, however, we need to understand something about the people who produce and consume it and what they are doing with it. The study of the social functions of different kinds of texts is called genre analysis [2]. The notion of genre in discourse analysis goes beyond examining the conventional structures and features of different kinds of texts to asking what these structures and features can tell us about the people who use the texts and what they are using them to do. Vijay Bhatia, drawing on the work of John Swales, defines genre as a recognizable communicative event characterized by a set of communicative purposes identified and mutually understood by members of the community in which it occurs [4]. Speaking of business discourse study, the matter of genre is crucial. Kazakhstani linguists L.S.Duy- sembekova and Z.K.Salkhanova [5] distinguish business writing as a genre, and consider it from this viewpoint. One of the most significant researches was done by S.K.Erezhepova who viewed business discourse as a separate genre and made a pragma linguistic analysis of Kazakh and Russian business communications. She explained the similarity by the fact that most Kazakh texts are not original, but translated from Russian [6].
It should be clear by now that at the center of the concept to genre is the idea of belonging. We produce and use genres not just in order to get things done, but also to show ourselves to be members of particular groups and to demonstrate that we are qualified to participate in particular activities. Genres are always associated with certain groups of people that have certain common goals and common way to reach these goals. Doctors use medical charts and prescriptions to do the work of curing people. Solicitors use con- tract sand legal briefs to defend people’s rights. Business people use their own materials (charts, tables, statistical analysis) to negotiate with potential partners or clients. These different genres do not only help the people in these groups get certain things done; they also help to define these groups, to keep out people who do not belong in them, and to regulate the relationships between the people who do belong. Another important point texts promote is the relationships they create between the people who are communicating and between communicators and what they are communicating about, what Halliday calls the interpersonal function of language [7]. We construct relationships through words we choose to express things like certainty and obligation (modality in language). The traditional priest or minister, for example, typically says “you may now kiss the bride”, rather than “kiss the bride!”, constructing the action as a mat- ter of permission rather than obligation and constructing himself or herself as someone who, while having a certain power over the participants, is there to assist themindoingwhattheywanttodorather thantoforcet- hemtodothingstheydonotwanttodo. In this matter the research of FarizaM.Norwho deals with formal letters in the workplaceis worth con- sidering [8]. They analyze the variations of formal-informal structures between representatives of Arab and
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