Martin’s Genre Theory and its Methodological Implication for Chinese History Discourse Analysis

1、Martins Genre Theory and its Methodological Implication for Chinese History Discourse Analysis(12th DA Conference, Tongji Uni. Nov. 2010),Wang Zhenhua Shanghai Jiaotong University 王振华 上海交通大学外国语学院 ,Preface,Issues in Japanese History textbook 1953: the Right Wing historians do not acknowledge invasion

2、 into Asian countries in WWII. 1982: distorts historical facts; uses enter 进入 instead of invade 侵入；侵略 1986: another revision of the textbook by the Right Wing historians.,2001: 6 versions published by different presses in 4 of 6 versions of History, no figure (300,000) of the slaughtered people in t

3、he Nanjing Massacre mentioned. 2 of 6 changed “the Nanjing Massacre” into “the Nanjing incident”. 5 of them cancelled “slaughtering”, “burning, and “looting”三光政策。 Besides, all use “emancipating“解放” and “bring benefits to“造福” instead of invading Asian countries,著名历史学家家永三郎ie naga sabu ro（年月日逝世）就 是这样一位

4、充满正义感的日本人，他起诉日本政府对他编写的高中历史教科书提出不合理修改要求，开始了他与右翼历史观长达多年的斗争。日本文部省在审定 历史教科书时，曾要求执笔者家永三郎对日本史一书中的处记述进行修改和删除。例如对“南京大屠杀，文部省要求加入日军的行为“发生于混乱之中”、 并要求删去关于日军“强奸中国妇女”的内容。此外，文部省还要求删除有关七三一细菌部队的记述。家永三郎对此举不服，并于年状告文部省。这场针对 “教科书审定违宪”的诉讼得到了多名历史学家的支持，并且迅速影响到了出版界、法律界、政界，后来演变成了一场有关日本历史观的大论战。(www.XINHUANET.com),Questions we

5、 may ask:,Do the Japanese Right Wing historians reconstruct the history faithfully? Why? Why the Ministry of Education forced 家永三郎ie naga sabu ro to add “occurred in chaos”“发生于混乱之中 to the Nanjing Massacre? Why is “comfort women” used for “sex slaves for Japanese soldiers in WWII”? - All these may ha

6、ve to do with their ideology for example, academic research articles, letters of application for employment, recipes, and so-called service encounters in which customers interact with shopkeepers in order to purchase goods.,-Language studies perspective,J Swales Perspective A genre comprises a class

7、 of communicative events, the members of which share some set of communicative purposes. (1990:58),-SFL perspective,J. Corbett (2006) Systemic-functional linguists employ genre as part of their project to relate language use to its social context, in particular, the context of culture. Register anal

8、ysis assumes that textual features can be predicted because texts vary conventionally in relation to three situational variables; namely, field (subject matter), tenor (relationship between participants in the interaction), and mode (whether the text is written or spoken). These situational variable

9、s did not deal with why the text might have been written or spoken.,J. R. Martin (1992, 1997; Martin 2008:5),“Social because we participate in genres with other people” (2003/2007:7), “writers shape their texts for readers of particular kinds” (2008:5) “Goal-oriented because we use genres to get thi

10、ngs done” (2003/2007:7), “we feel frustrated if we dont accomplish the final steps.” (2008:5) “staged because it usually takes us a few steps to reach our goals” (2003/2007:7-8; 2008:5),Martins genre “flags the way in which most genres take more than a single phase to unfold, the sense of frustratio

11、n or incompletion that is felt when phases dont unfold as expected or planned, and the fact that genres are addresses (i.e. formulated with readers and listeners in mind), whether or not the intended audience is immediately present to respond. In these terms, as a level of context, genre represents

12、the system of staged goal-oriented social processes through which social subjects in a given culture live their lives. (Martin 1997),-summary of genre perspectives,Literature: - a type, a finite schema capable of potentially infinite suggestion; formed by conventions; identified by its own distincti

13、ve patterns in premise, plot, structure, character, worldview, style, and conventions. - also, a genre is a type, class, or category of presentation that shares distinctive and easily identifiable features.,Language studies: - Bakhtins speech genres: concrete oral and written utterances by participa

14、nts in the various areas of human activity; specific conditions and goals; the selection of lexical, phraseological, and grammatical resources, and their compositional structure. Each separate utterance is individual, each sphere in which language is used develops its own relatively stable types of

15、these utterances.,John Swales: a class of communicative events, the members of which share some set of communicative purposes . SFL: Martin: types of texts; a staged, goal-oriented social processes.,We endorse Martins idea, for it Focuses on function; Not only answers the question why the text might

16、 have been written or spoken (because a text is asocial process with goal), But also tells us how the goal-oriented social process is configured (staged) We endorse Bahktins idea, for it Concerns the conditions and goals of language in use; Concerns the language itself: thematic content, style, and

17、compositional structure, i.e. the selection of lexical, phraseological, and grammatical resources, and their compositional structure.,Main Types of Genre,Stories Reports Explanations Arguments ,2. Martins matrix for text analysis: SF Linguistics based; Genre driven,function/stratum matrix for text a

18、nalysis (Martin 2009),instantiation,individuation,realisation,3. Martins approach to history discourse,- Recounts,- typologically(serial time to episodic time),recount genres topology.(Martin and how well the historical facts are reconstructed; The intention (goal) of the author; The view point , st

19、ance, value, belief of the author.,Text analysis 对汉语历史语篇研究的方法论启示.doc,5. Conclusion,Different types of genre of history discourse are different in choosing historical evidences, in organizing the stages, in structuring the prosody. These differences reflect the historians view point and stance toward

20、s a certain historical event. Hence there are different historical conclusions and different history schools. (recall the issue of history textbook mentioned at the beginning) Genre analysis is a complementary approach to the historical approach in the history discourse analysis.,Bibliography,Silver

21、blatt, A. 2007. Genre studies in Mass Media: A handbook. Armonk, New York & London: M. E. Sharpe. Rosmarin, A. 1985. The Power of Genre. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Corbett, J. 2006. Genre and Genre Analysis . In K. Brown (editor-in-chief), Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2

22、nd edition). Armsterdam, Boston: Elsevier. Martin, J. R. & D. Rose (2008). Genre Relations: Mapping culture. London: Equinox. Martin, J. R. (1992). English Text: System and structure. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Martin, J. R. (1997). Analysing genre: functional parameters. In F Christie & J. R. Martin (eds.). Genre and Institutions: Social Processes in the Workplace and School. Lon