Discourse
is frequently studied from the prespective of register or genre. Discourse
registers usually reflect the level of formally or informality of an instance
of discourse or its degree of technical specificity versus general usage. A
genre on the other hand, is a culturally and linguistically distinct form of
discourse such as narrative (e.g, a story), exposition (e.g, a research
report), procedural discourse (e.g, a recipe), and so on3.
According
to Swales (1981, 1985, 1990) and Bhatia (1993), “a genre is a recognizable
communicative event characterized by a set of communicative purpose(s)
identified and mutually understood by the members of the professional or academic
community in which it regularly occurs” (Bhatia, 1993:13). Both authors
emphasize the communicative purpose of the text as the most important features
related to genre. It is this communicative purpose that shapes the genre and
gives it internal structure.
Register,
as already mentioned, reflects the degree of formality of the particular text
by using a characteristic set of lexical and grammatical features that are
compatible with the particular register. A lower register is represented by the
use of more colloquial (orate) and everyday-type vocabulary and fewer complex
grammatical forms while a higher register requires the use of lexical items
that are professional or academic in nature along with denser grammatical
structures, resulting in more literate spoken or written text.
