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Abstract
Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to account for the genre characteristics of non-linear, multi-modal, web-mediated documents. It involves a two-dimensional view on genres that allows one to account for the fact that digital genres act not only as text but also as medium.
Design/methodology/approach - The theoretical framework of the article is the Swalesian genre theory used in academic settings all over the world to investigate the relationship between discourse and social practice and to teach genre conventions to students of language and communication. Up till now most genre research has focused on the characteristics of "printed" texts, whereas less has been done to apply the genre theory to digital genres.
Findings - The article discusses the characteristics of digital genres, notably the media constraints that have a significant effect on the production and reception of digital genres and suggests an extension of the Swalesian genre model that takes the digital characteristics into account.
Research limitations/implications - The suggestion for a revised genre model is not based on an extensive empirical study of various types of web sites. The observation is restricted to a limited number of commercial web sites.
Originality/value - The article proposes new insights into the concept of genre adapting traditional models of genre theory to web-mediated texts. A revised two-dimensional genre model incorporating media elements into the concept of genre thus takes account of the particular characteristics of the navigation and reading elements of web-mediated genres.
Keywords Digital storage, Worldwide web, Hypertext Markup Language
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Since its introduction in the 1980s, the concept of genre has been a matter of considerable discussion in research communities throughout the world. In Australia systemic functional linguists such as Martin (1992) and Eggins (1994) have used the concept to complement the Hallidayan notion of register, in America the seminal work of Miller (1994), Bazerman (1994), Swales (1990), and Yates and Orlikowski (1992) have contributed to a wider understanding of the concept of "genre" by denning the concept, introducing models suitable for performing genre analyses, and not least capturing the complexities of genre systems and genre development. And finally, in Hong Kong Bhatia (1993) has paved the way for the practical application of genre theory by...