ABSTRACT
Recent work in genre theory indicates a strong shift of emphasis from text to context, which has encouraged three interrelated developments. First, the analysis is becoming increasingly multidisciplinary, in that specifi c disciplinary concerns and methodologies are getting refl ected in analytical frameworks, thus integrating professional and disciplinary practices with discursive practices of the professional and disciplinary communities. This integration of discursive and professional practices has made genre analytical insights more relevant and acceptable to the disciplinary and professional communities, which is also a useful development for applications of the theory, especially in English for Specifi c Purposes (ESP) and Professional Communication practices. Second, as a consequence of this increasing contextualization of genre analysis we notice more attention devoted to the complexities of professional genres rather than to a convenient selection of ideal examples of such genres for the design of ESP practice. This has encouraged genre theory to take note of different forms of appropriation of linguistic resources within and across generic domains, giving rise to mixing, embedding, and bending of professional genres (Bhatia 2004), thus highlighting the importance of interdiscursivity in genre theory. Finally, to support the study of these concerns, it has become necessary for genre theory to go beyond a textual analysis of linguistic data in order to incorporate a multidimensional and multi-perspective framework for the analysis of academic, professional, institutional and other workplace genres. This has prompted researchers (Smart 1998; Swales 1998; Bhatia 2004) to enrich their methodological frameworks by integrating ethnographic, sociocognitive, institutional and other multi-perspective analytical measures, in addition to textual analytical procedures. In this chapter, I would like to illustrate these developments by analysing a selection of corporate disclosure genres, especially those written by corporate chairmen to their shareholders, reporting and interpreting fi nancial and corporate performance. In doing so I would also highlight the implications of such analysis for the future development of genre theory arguing in favour of a shift towards critical genre analysis.
