Purpose and Genre

It has been argued (Kress & Knapp, 1992) that the generic structures of texts are determined by the purposes of these texts. What does this idea actually mean?

Let us take a text type with which we are all familiar, instructions (or the procedural genre). The purpose of procedural texts is to tell someone how to do something, as in recipes and instruction leaflets. This purpose gives rise to the particular form of procedural texts -- they have to make clear what it is you are doing or making, what materials you need to achieve this aim, and the steps you need to take to reach a successful conclusion. It would not make it easier to achieve the purpose if, for example, the instructions were given first, then you were told the list of materials you needed at the end of the instructions, and finally you were told what it was you were making. The schematic structure of a procedural text helps achieve its purpose. It typically consists of the following steps:

You will be aware of such a structure in recipes and other instructional texts. You may not have been explicitly aware of this structure, but if you examine procedural (how to) texts, you will see that on the whole they follow the pattern outlined above. You will also be using a similar generic structure when you give any spoken instructions. If you imagine giving instructions to a class at the beginning of a session, you might say something like this:

  1. Today we're going to finish writing our stories, (goal)
  2. so you'll need your jotters, pencils, line guides, and best paper. (materials)
  3. When you've got those sorted out, get on and see if you can finish your first draft. Then you can share it with your writing partner or with me and discuss any alterations you think need to be made. Don't forget to check spelling at the end. OK, off you go. (instructions)
It is highly unlikely that you consciously planned to use, or were even aware of using, this schematic structure, but your purpose (to tell the children what to do) meant that you automatically used the appropriate structures -- using such a structure came naturally. When we look at how the schematic structure of a text helps it achieve its purpose we are considering its genre.

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Reading Online, www.readingonline.org
Posted May 1998
© 1998-2000 International Reading Association, Inc. ISSN 1096-1232