Nick and I were, again, chewing over the differences between Martin and
Hasan on this subject of genre. I ended up reacting to something Nick said
in the following manner, the morniing after I sent in my latest note to
xmca in response to Judy's/Carol's comments.
Is this anywhere close to being an accurate summary of the debate??:
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Hasan seems to associate genre with "context of situation" whereas Martin
associates it with "context of culture". She seems to follow Halliday who
does not distinguish between "context of situation" and "context of
culture". Halliday, according to what I think (??) I understand of Hasan
in section 5.2 of "The conception of context in text" does not follow
Martin's complex "level/strata/plane" structure. It appears that Martin
has innovated here with his complex notion of levels -- and it is this
innovating that has allowed him to place genre at a higher level (than
register) in the analytic system, and thereby to see genre as some sort of
analytically independent linguistic structure. The upshot seems to be that
Hasan sees genre as reflecting context ( the metafunctions mirror
field/tenor/mode), but no more than does register. This is PROBABLY why
Hasan concentrates on the use of the term "genre" to describe the staging
or cohesive aspect of text in her section of Halliday/Hasan's "Language,
context, and text" (1985), without the need to hypothesize some special
"independent" status for the concept of "genre".
I can't help wondering if the main motivation for Martin's splitting off of
genre as an independent level of analysis has to do with his interest in
developing a useful instructional tool for the writing project in
Australia. I know, from experience, that using broad lingusitic models to
provide a focus for student instruction seems to allow a teacher to dance
very gracefully and successfully back and forth between articulate and
intuitive forms of linguistic knowing. Martin's conception of genre as a
"staged, goal oriented, social process" would be a good instance of just
such an instructional model.
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The struggle to understand continues.
--glenn
Glenn D. Humphreys
P.O. Box 11
Echo Bay, Ontario
Canada, P0S 1C0
Telephone: (705) 248-1226
Internet: glenhump who-is-at soonet.ca
Fax (Phone/Email to arrange fax transmission): (705) 248-1226