ABSTRACT
Although we often identify and conceptualize genres in pure forms, in the real academic and professional world they are often seen in hybrid (mixed and embedded) forms. We often do this by identifying the communicative purposes they serve. Collect and analyse at least one example illustrating each of these hybrid forms (see Bhatia, 1995 and 1997). Swales (1990) claims that society has given typical names to most of the conventionalized genres. Collect at least one example of the genres which has a misleading, ambiguous or in any way problematic name given to it. Genres often cut across disciplinary boundaries, in that they are more or less similar in various disciplines, such as textbooks and research articles. Find one example each of the academic and professional genres that are typical of the discipline, which do not overlap across disciplines. Berkenkotter suggests that genre ‘evolves’ over a period of time. Collect two examples of the same genre from two different time periods separating at least 20-30 years, and see if they show any development or changes over the period (see Bazerman, 1988 for a more detailed account). Berkenkotter (this volume) mentions ‘genre sets’ and ‘systems of genre’. How can one distinguish them? Read Devitt (1991) and Bazerman (1994) and Bhatia (2004) for more details.
