Omani Efl Students Used Language In Weblogs

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

 Introduction

This study has investigated how a group of Omani EFL students used language in weblogs. I adopted a bottom-up approach to data analysis to find out if there is a relation between the elements of the context of situation, and the social purpose of the weblog-texts (that is at the level of clause and beyond it). The first section of this chapter provides an overview of the main findings of the analysis of the linguistic features of language used in weblog 1-- comprising the field, tenor and mode through which the register of the discourse is realized. The field of the weblog was determined through examining processes and circumstances; the analysis of the tenor of this weblog is discussed around three main areas containing clause types, Subject types and Modality; the Mode of weblog 1 is explained through looking at the element of THEME in the clauses.

I then discuss the results of the genre/s analysis of the whole weblog and each text individually. The next section explores the limitations and implications of the present study. Finally, the last section offers some suggestions for further work and research.

Overview of the main findings

The TRANSITIVITY analysis showed that the field of this weblog is the weblog-writer’s external experience of the world. I came to this conclusion after noting the frequent use of material processes to express actions and happenings, and relational processes to identify and explain the things and people involved in activities, as well as the circumstances to add where and when things occurred. The tenor of the total weblog suggests a weak relationship between the audience and the weblog-writer. This issue has made weblog 1 rather monologic like the written form of the language. However, the analysis of the mode of this weblog implies that it is more speech-like than written form of language. The findings of genre analysis indicates that weblog 1 has a diary-like genre, with the content concerned with the weblog-writer’s life-experience and emotions; examining the genres of each text within this weblog supported the same issue and represented some embedded genres within the dominant genre in some cases.

To answer the first research question posed in this study, ideational, interpersonal and textual analyses were carried out. The findings of these analyses are discussed below.

I. To what extent can my students’ weblogs be conceptualized as a register?

I. a. The field of weblog 1

To find out about the field of weblog 1â€"that is the subject matter and actions that the lexico-grammatical features of language express in discourse (Halliday and Matthiensen, 2004) -- the angle of representation was examined through TRANSITIVITY analysis. This involved the analysis of the processes and circumstances used in weblog-texts. Overall, the analysis showed that the author presents the world as consisting of people and places (locational circumstances accounted for 61% of the total circumstances) along with particular attributes (relational process accounted for 35.6% of all processes) as well as “predominantly tangible, physical actions”(Eggins 2004: 335) (materials processes accounted for 35.6% of all processes). The mental states of the people, their feelings and thoughts, she writes about, including herself are not highlighted (mental process only accounted for 15.6% of all processes). Also, other processes, behavioral, verbal and existential, played little role in construing the field of this weblog.

 

 

I. a.1. Processes used in the texts

 

 One of the findings of this study is that the weblog-writer has used a large number of material and relational processes (Table 4.7 TRANSITIVITY analysis). The author’s frequent choice of material processes illustrates her outer experience of the world, containing happening and actions. Such process types, according to Eggins (2004: 335), are “predominantly tangible, physical actions”. Also, the choice of relational processes contributed to representing attributes of the people, places and objects helped identify them and showed the author’s attitude and feelings toward them. As a result, examining the processes used in each weblog-text indicates that Weblog 1 is concerned with happenings, describing how and where they occurred and who were involved in.

 

I.a.2. Circumstances in the texts

 

The analysis of the data also showed the author construed the circumstantial information in the weblog texts through setting the location (61% of the total circumstances), accompaniment and matter (accounted for 9.5% each of all the circumstances) and manner (8.4% of the total circumstances) (Table 4.8 Circumstances). The rest of the used circumstances are of low frequency in weblog 1. What is striking is the large frequency of the circumstance of location; this type of circumstance indicates how an author situates “events in time and space, noting where, when and how long took place” (Eggins, 2004: 337).  Using this type of circumstantial information contributed to construing the experiential meanings of the total weblog.

 

The whole process of the TRANSITIVITY analysis unfolded the content and purpose of Weblog 1 as a whole along with the author’s intention, which is giving information. Therefore, it can be suggested that the field of this weblog portrays how and where incidents happened or actions were done as well as describing and identifying things and people involved in the processes.

 

These findings have all been based on what is happening in the whole weblog; however, this finding can raise an issue when looking at each text in this weblog. This is because looking at each text individually may give a different picture of the field. As the analysis showed, the number of material and relational processes is equal in Weblog 1. However, the frequency of relational processes in more than half of the texts, 5 out of 8 texts, is much higher than the material processes-- Texts 1, 2, 4, 6 and 8 (Table 5.1 Material and Relational processes in each text).

Table 5.1 Material and Relational processes in each text

 

Text 1

Text 2

Text 3

Text 4

 

Text 5

Text 6

Text 7

Text 8

PROCESS-TYPE

Percent

N=2

Percent

N=20

Percent

N=48

Percent

N=22

Percent

N=29

Percent

N=28

Percent

N=52

Percent

N=24

Material

0.00%

0

10.00%

2

52.10%

25

36.40%

8

48.30%

14

25.00%

7

28.80%

15

37.50%

9

Relational

100.00%

2

45.00%

9

33.30%

16

40.90%

9

20.70%

6

39.30%

11

32.70%

17

41.70%

10

This suggests that the weblog-writer focused heavily on describing and identifying things in her weblog. Thus, it can be said that the result extracted from the analysis of the whole weblog is rather qualitative than quantitative.  This is the point that deserves a close attention when determining the field of the discourse in the virtual environments of Weblog, Twitter and Facebook, which contain a large number of texts or messages.

 

I.b. The tenor of Weblog 1

156 clauses were used in weblog 1 comprising 149 indicative and 6 imperative clauses. 99.3% of the indicative clauses is declarative and only 0.66% of the clauses is interrogative. The lack of imperative and interrogative clauses, as a means of interactivity between the weblog-writer and audience, indicated a weak tenor in this Weblog; This can be due to the nature of weblog through which interactants are spatially and temporally apart from one another. This issue can affect their communication and weaken the relationship between weblog-writers and their audience. Also, analyzing the modality of the weblog-texts showed that this weblog-writer did not create a strong stance or position against her readership in the texts. Examining the comments also indicates the infrequent contact and non-affective involvement between the audience and the weblog-writer. The tenor of this weblog was investigated through the clause types, Subject, Finite, and Modality presented below.

I.b.1. Clause types

 

The analysis of the Mood elements, which according to Martin (2000: 281) has the purpose of positioning “speakers in relation to listeners as stating, questioning, commanding or exclaiming”, shows a high frequency of non-elliptical declarative clauses. Eggins (2004: 332) explains this feature as a typical characteristic of written mode of language, when the feedback between the writer and the audience is absent. Therefore, the prevalence of declarative clauses suggests that this weblog is informative rather than interactive, which means that it lacks the immediate and direct contact between the weblog-writer and reader. Consequently, it can be suggested that the language produced in this weblog is monologic since the interaction between the author and the audience is not highlighted in the texts. However, it can be argued that every text is interactive; in fact, the term monologic does not deny the potential interactivity that each weblog-text may have. As Halliday(1987) believes, interaction is an essential characteristic of any type of discourse. He writes , “Text is the means of exchange of meaning among societal members in the context of situation” (1987: 4). The same issue is echoed by Webster (2009: 7) wiring, “ by means of my “text”, I participate in an act of interpersonal exchange, communicating my sense of my own identity, my world view, my interpretation of experience”. Thus, the term monologic refers to the way meanings are exchanged between the speaker and the audience. In other words, texts, weather monologic or dialogic, come to existence when transferring information, which can lead to direct or indirect interaction. This issue makes it hard to claim that this weblog contains a solid monologue language.

For instance, in this weblog, most of the texts may seem monologic when looking at the type of clauses, but other linguistic features in the text can build up a relation between the reader and the author, which are worth looking at. As the analysis showed, in a less distinctive manner, the imperative and interrogative clauses signified the construction of power relation between the author and audience (Text 5 and 7).The weblog-writer projects a question in one of her texts--Why do I think we are the best? Using such a language resource, according to Thompson (2001: 61) is called “the voice of the reader-in-the-text” generated by “assigning speech roles” to the writer and readers (Thompson 2001: 59). By posing the question, the weblog-writer assigns her readers the role of a questioner and creates an expectation of an answer; simultaneously, she assigns herself the role of an answerer, which creates a dialogueâ€" a dialogue through which she prepares the ground for expressing her arguments. All of this shows how the weblog-writer brings the readers’ voice to the text, creates their position and shares her stance with them. In some of the imperative sentences, the weblog-writer assigns a role to herself as the source of command and brings the readers to the discourse; although there is not an overt response from the readers, this can contribute to the interactions between the weblog-writer and her audienceâ€"for instance, If anyone saw a fight, should stop it not sit and watch. Although the instances of such linguistic patterns are scarce in this weblog and have a minor role in constructing the interpersonal meanings, they can still affect the exchange of meanings and establish a relationship between the weblog-writer and her audience (Table 5.3 Modality). 

I. b.2. Subject types

 

To understand the role of Subject in construing the interpersonal meanings in the texts in this weblog, three types of Subject was selected and investigated comprising first person plural pronoun, inclusive, (we) and the second person pronoun (you). These are the linguistic features through which the weblog-writer addresses the audience and engages with her readership.

 

The weblog-writer expresses something of her relationship with the audience by using the second person pronoun ‘you’ and its derivations in this weblog (once in Text 2--hope u all get a chance to visit it--and Text 3-- you can say I'm a boring person). This creates an instance of the dialogic mode of language, where the speaker and the audience are involved in a face-to-face conversation.

In fact, the weblog-writer makes her text interactive by “bringing the reader’s view” (Thompson 2001: 58) to the surface of the discourse-- you can say I'm a boring person but its OK with me because in the weekend i change my routine. She states the reader’s opinion through the use of second person pronoun and signals her different point of view with the conjunction but and provides a reason for her proposition by the use of because. Such linguistic features are the interactional resources that “involve the reader collaboratively in the development of the text” (Thompson 2001: 59). The weblog-writer also suggested the same point in her interview; she said she used ‘you’ “to attract people or the reader”. Her choice of the first person plural inclusive ‘we’ also implies how the weblog-writer pulls the audience into the text and involves them in the discourse. She uses this strategy to seek for support and solidarity in establishing her opinions and giving suggestions ( Text 5-- if one of them past away we'll feel bad about it and we wont forgive our selves). This linguistic choice reinforces the interactional aspect of this weblog. Although such choices are not prevalent in weblog-texts, they still contribute to the construction of tenor in the texts. This shows how the author’s choice can influence the written mode of language, involve the readers in the discourse and create a relationship with them. This is in line with Ye ( 2010: 146), who writes that the use of the second person pronoun and first person plural pronoun make the discourse dialogic, show solidarity and create a relation between the speaker and audience.

 

I.b.3. Finite

 

From Halliday and Matthiensen’s (2004: 116) categories of Finite, Temporal and Modal Finite Operators, the weblog-writer’s choice of Temporal Finite Operators is significant(accounting for 84.5% of the total of the Finite types). This weblog-writer used this type of operator carrying tense to refer to the time of discourse; the used of this linguistic feature helped her to limit the proposition in texts to be able to argue about. The author makes relatively few uses of Finite modal operators (accounting for 12.7% of the total Finite types). She has chosen not to make her judgment of the likelihood of something explicitly (See Halliday and Matthiensen (2004: 116 supra). Therefore, the overall result of the analysis of Modality, in this weblog, suggests that the weblog writer did not construe any strong authorial voice and position in her weblog.

 

However, this might be different when examining modality in each text individually (Table 5.2 Modal types); in fact, the weblog writer voiced her and the readers’ opinions about the expressed issue with modal probabilities and obligations in some texts (Text 5), which makes the weblog interactive.

Table 5.2 Modal types

 

Text 1

Text 2

Text 3

Text 4

Text 5

Text 6

Text 7

Text 8

Total number of FINITE-TYPE

Percent

N=2

Percent

N=15

Percent

N=35

Percent

N=14

Percent

N=19

Percent

N=18

Percent

N=37

Percent

N=15

MODAL-TYPE

Percent

N=1

Percent

N=2

Percent

N=1

Percent

N=1

Percent

N=5

Percent

N=2

Percent

N=3

Percent

N=3

modal-probability

100.00%

1

0.00%

0

100.00%

1

100.00%

1

40.00%

2

0.00%

0

100.00%

3

0.00%

0

modal-usuality

0.00%

0

0.00%

0

0.00%

0

0.00%

0

0.00%

0

0.00%

0

0.00%

0

0.00%

0

modal-obligation

0.00%

0

100.00%

2

0.00%

0

0.00%

0

60.00%

3

0.00%

0

0.00%

0

0.00%

0

modal-readiness-inclination-ability

0.00%

0

0.00%

0

0.00%

0

0.00%

0

0.00%

0

100.00%

2

0.00%

0

100.00%

3

Using modal obligations, the weblog-writer felt obliged to express her view explicitly in some texts; through this type of modal, she gave little space for the audience’s opinions and sometimes established her point with respect to her audience’s view. This is in line with Martin and Rose (2003: 50), who state that modality “opens up a space for negotiation, in which different points of view can circulate around an issue, a space perhaps foe mediation and possible reconciliation”. In other instances, she comments on the issues proposed in the texts and involves the reader in evaluating the situations through the use of modal possibility and probability and inclusive pronoun we-- If one of them past away we'll feel bad about it and we wont forgive our selves (Text 5). The choice of the modal probability also shows she evades an explicit assertion when giving her point of view about an issue, especially when the readers’ opinion might be different-- Some people dont have manures, they put bad comments that may hurt peoples feeling. the weblog-writer avoids the use of modal obligations not to assert her opinion to the readers. This is in accordance with Thompson (2001: 63) arguing the use of modal probability may signals that “ the writer needs to avoid making categorical assertions about the reader’s thoughts, feelings and beliefs”. The presence of such modals suggests that the weblog-writer tried to communicate with her assumed readers, involved them in the discourse in/directly and guided them through the discourse as the texts unfold. However, as my analysis showed the instances of such linguistic features are not prevalent in this weblog. Thus, considering the findings in Mood analysis in weblog 1, it can be said that the author created boundaries between herself and her readers through the use of non-elliptical declarative clauses, the scarcity of the second person pronoun and inclusive first person plural pronoun as well as a low level of authority and power relations. Therefore, the lexico-grammatical choices that realize the interpersonal meanings in this weblog construct a weak personal tenor and functionally this weblog is giving information to the audience.

 

I. c. Mode of weblog 1

The analysis of the textual metafunctions of the weblog-texts suggests that the mode of this weblog contains the linguistic features that are the characteristics of speech and written language. On one hand, weblog has a textual nature, is not face-to-face or context dependent and lacks the immediate feedback, like the written mode of language. Also language in this weblog is used to reflect not “as an action” (Eggins, 2004: 94), like the written mode of language. On the other hand, it can be said that it is spontaneous in a sense that the weblog-writer did not polish her language and the lexis is casual and no technical terms or “prestige lexis” (Eggins, 2004: 94) have been used in the texts. Analyzing the THEME of the clauses produced in weblog-texts also suggested the same points.

 

I.c.1. THEME

 

Another finding of this analysis is the frequent choice of the topical THEME in the clauses of the weblog texts (accounting for 62.3% of the total). This suggests a tendency to present new information in the second section of the clauses, as if the writer is involved in a face-to-face spontaneous communication.

 

This analysis also suggests that textual THEMES are relatively few in this weblog, 36.2% of the total THEMES, signifying the structural relation among the clauses in the weblog-texts; this resulted in producing long sentences that are rare in the written mode of language. In addition, due to the presence of clause complexes, with complex themes, and the prevalence of unmarked topical THEME/Subject in this weblog, (accounting for 83.3% of the total topical THEME) to compare with marked topical THEMES (with 9.0% of the total), it can be suggested that Mode of the language in this weblog is more like speech than writing. This is consistent with Wattles and Radić-Bojanić (2007: 54) ‘s investigation claiming that the presence of textual THEMES indicates “coordinate clauses” which are “typical for spoken communication”.

As the analysis showed this weblog has a hybrid mode; this means it contains the characteristics of speech and written mode of language. This result is in line with the findings of Piriyasilpa’s (2009: 352) analysis of online discussions. He writes, “Online discussions include combined features of both spoken and written language, reflecting a hybrid nature of the communication this way”.

 The THEME analysis was also helpful in trying to identify the dominant genre in weblog 1, which will be discussed in the next section. In weblog 1, the weblog-writer used various pronouns at the thematic/Subject position due to the various demands of discourse. Interestingly, the analysis shows the frequent use of the first person pronoun in the thematic position in weblog texts, portraying the weblog-writer’s main concern when constructing her inner and outer world in discourse. This is consistent with Scheidt’s (2009: 16) definition of diary weblogs “[…] whose posts explore their producer’s inner terrain and life as it is lived it in the first person”. Similarly, Herring, et al (2004: 1) claim that blogs are “individualistic, intimate forms of self-expression”. Lomborg (2009) also refers to another issue that the visible first person pronoun in a weblog can signify its autobiographical type. The weblog-writer also provided an interesting point in her interview about choosing the linguistic feature ‘I’ in the Subject position in her weblog texts and the influence of the cultural conventions in her discourse. She said, “It is not really likely for Arabs to use ‘I’ a lot because they find it rude […] I use ‘I’, it depends on the text but I like to express my feelings so I use I […] I like to write in my blog because it is more comfortable to write”. This shows how the virtual environment of weblog can affect the mode of writing and can give the weblog-writer the opportunity to go beyond the socio-cultural boundaries and produce texts that might be far from what is expected in reality. The presence of the first person pronoun in weblog 1 can lead to the hypothesis that this weblog has a diary-weblog genre, which is discussed in the following section.  

  

To examine the social purpose of the texts in weblog 1, the framework of my analysis was based on work by Martin (1992) and Rose and Martin (2012). This study also progresses by the findings in previous investigations on genre by Coffin et al (2005) and Piriyasilpa (2007 and 2009). Through examining the “context of electronic conferencing”, Coffin et al (2005:  471) specified the structure and functional stages “of argumentation”. Their finding stages of argument along with their sub-stages, that is “Argument stage consists of Claim and Evidence” as well as “Argument prompt” are used in my data analysis (emphasized as original).

 

II. To what extent can my students’ weblogs be conceptualized as a genre or an emergent genre?

 

To tackle this question, the purpose, stages and discourse community were analyzed. To understand the genre of weblog 1, the genre of the whole weblog and each text was investigated. The first element, which can flag the genre of this weblog, is its purpose discussed below.

II.1.a. The purpose of the genre in weblog 1

 

 The analysis of the texts in weblog 1 suggests that the social purpose of this weblog is to portray the weblog-writer’s life and her inner and outer experience of the world. Also, it showed the existence of various genres in this weblog, comprising Text 1 (self-introduction), Text 2, exposition genre (Al-Qurum Natural Park), Text 3, personal recount genre (my dailey routine), Text 4, narrative genre (Speaking Test), Text 5, exemplum genre (STOP FIGHTING!!!) , Text 6, argument genre (pros and cons of the blogspot), Text 7, exposition genre (The Best Family I could Get!), and Text 8, exposition genre (My life ).The existence of various genres in this weblog with the focus of giving information about the author’s life seems in line with the definition of  “personal journal” or “weblog diary” given by Scheidt (2009: 15-16); She writes, “the written entries” in weblog diaries or personal journals  “explore terrain internal and personal to the writer-his emotions, her point of view, their description of what happened in their lives today”. In the interview also the weblog-writer said, “this weblog is all about me because it is easy to talk about myself, because I know every thing about myself […] I wrote about my family to tell people how great my family is and how much I love them”. This characteristic of weblog 1 is in accordance with Herring et al.’s (2004: 1) claim that blogs have a strong tendency to be “individualistic, intimate forms of self-expression”. The weblog-writer refers to the same issue when talking about her weblog, “ I like to write in my weblog because in my assignments I can’t express my feelings because it must be formal”. This is in accordance with McNeil’s (2003: 29) point of view writing, “web diaries focus on the quotidian and personal, foregrounding the diarist’s experience and emotions”.

This macro-genre, the genre of the total weblog, has been constituted through the micro-genres, the genres of each texts, individually; in other words, the stages through which each genre unfolds scaffold the genre of the whole weblog. Focusing on the genre of each text and examining the stages of genre/s of each text could help to define the purpose of each text; Text 1 as an instance of self-introduction genre has the purpose of introduction. Text 2 is an sample of exposition genre with the purpose of arguing for a point of view-- where the weblog-writer provides her reasons why Al-Qurum Natural Park is the place to relax and enjoy. Text 3 is an instance of the recounting genre reporting the daily eventsâ€"through which the weblog-writer provides information about what she does during the day sequentially. Text 4, an exemplar of the narrative genre, has the purpose of resolving a complicationâ€"the weblog-writer explains her fear from taking the speaking test and her solution at the end. Text 5 is an exemplum genre with the purpose of judging a behaviorâ€"the weblog-writer explains a scene of fighting in the street and gives her judgment and evaluation of being violent. Text 6 is an instance of discussion genre with the purpose of discussing two or more points of view; in this text, the weblog-writer discusses the positive and negative points of weblog writing. Texts 7 and 8 have, as an example of exposition genre, with the purpose of arguing for a point of view; in Text 7 the weblog-writer provides her views and reasons why she thinks she has the best family and in Text 8, she gives her points of view about her life. As stated previously, the purpose of the main genres in texts is consistent with Rose and Martin’s (2012:  130) definitions (see Chapter of analysis). However, in some cases, the lexico-grammatical choices in the stages of the genres dominating the texts showed the characteristic of other genres, which serve other purposes. This means there is a deviation of some stages from the generic stages of particular genres to other ones, when the texts unfold.  This caused a disruption in the expected flow of discourse in some texts and led hybrid genres emerge, in Texts 5, 6, 7 and 8 (see Chapter of analysis). This finding is addressed in the following section, explaining the stages through which texts unfold.

 

II.1.b. Stages of the genres

 

 Genre hybridity

 

As the genre analysis suggested, this weblog consists of different types of genres --self-introduction, narrative, exemplum, exposition and argument. The stages of the produced texts are generally consistent with the stages of these genres defined by Rose and Martin (2012), Martin (1996) and Coffin et al (2005) in literature; however, in some cases, texts do not follow the linear pattern of genre stages and the author switched from one genre to another. For instance, the author inserted the Salutation stage to the beginning of the self-introduction genre (Text1); this stage is reported as a stage in business letter such as tax computation letters (Flowerdew and Wan, 2010) and an optional stage in electronic messages  (HAYATI et al., 2011). Piriyasilpa (2009), refers to Salutation as a means to relate to the audience; thus, the insertion of this stage to the self-introduction genre increases the interactivity between the author and her readership. Text 5, an instance of Exemplum genre, would be expected to end with a Coda defined by Rose and Martin (202: 130); however, it ends with the author’s evaluation of the issue. In Text 6 as an example of Argument genre, the author fuses the stages of two different genres Reinforcement and Recommendation; in Text 7 as a text of Exposition genre is combined with Self-introduction genre; Text 8 as a sample of Exposition genre also turns to the Exemplum genre in the middle.

This shows a disturbance in the conventional flow of stages of the texts and resulted in constructing some embedded genres. Switching from stages of one genre to another in weblog 1 does not support Tabbada’s (2011: 3) point of view that “Stages are the constitutive elements of a genre, which follow each other in a predetermined fashion, specific to each genre”.

 

Genre hybridity might reflect a range of factors such as the impact of situation, the reflection of controlling the situation, the effect of discourse community, the influence of communicative purposes, adjusting the prior knowledge and the role of audience. The section below gives an overview of these issues.

 

The impact of situation on genre construction

Genre is the response to a socio-cultural demand (Miler 1984) or in other words, “a response to situation” (Coe and Freedman 1998:  42). Devitt (1993: 578) explains, “As our constructions of situations change and new situations begin to recur, genres change and new genres develop”. Considering these views, it can be implied that the genre variations in weblog 1 can be because of being under the influence of the situation they are situated in; in other words, the virtual environment of weblog can create a specific situation which may lead hybrid genres to emerge; this is due to the fact that different situations with different communicative purposes demand different needs. This is in line with Martin and Eggins (1997: 232) stressing, “each text appears to carry with it some influences from the context in which it was produced. Context, we should say, gets ‘into’ text by influencing the words and structures that text-producers use”. Therefore, the influence of the situation can cause hybrid genres to emerge; this issue can imply that the outcome of such a process, the text, can carry some specific characteristics of the situation where the discourse is happening.

 

 Constructing situation

Although there is a lot about the impact of the situation on the schematic structures of genre, the link between genre and situations is reflective. A genre is to some extent generative of the situation and can create and control the situations throughout the discourse; Santini (2009:  140) refer to “the tragi-comedy” or “mass media” where the genre hybridity or a combination of genres is prevalent. She stresses that this issue can be also found “in an open environment” such as web” (ibid:  140). This raises the issue that the function of the text in its immediate situation can influence the stages through which it unfolds. Tabbada’s (2011:  249) underlines the same point writing, “The staging appropriate for a text is a result of the function of the text in a given situation. The broad term “function” encompasses two different aspects:  the communicative purpose of the text and its social function”. Thus, it can be suggested that the schematic structures of genres can be shaped based on their particular functions, which in turn will shape the situation, through changing its structures; this may lead to generate a new situation to achieve the purpose of the discourse.  Therefore, one of the reasons of the genre hybridity in weblog 1 can be the author’s deliberate choice to change the situations through using a combination of genres to make meanings and transmit information effectively. 

 

However, it is true to say that there is a mutual interaction between genres and situationsâ€"since “each constructing and responding to other in a semiotic interchange” (Devitt 1993:  580). Coe and Freedman (1998: 41) refer to the similar issue pointing out, “genre is now understood rather as the functional relationship between the structure and situation”. This means each of them can cause the other to change or emerge, trying to function and be established in a discourse community to pursue one purpose, which is communication.  Whether genres are used differently to manage and organize the situations, or it is the situations which control genres is beyond the scope of this study, and would need detailed exploration as a separate issue.

 

 The effect of the discourse community on genre

Swales (1990) points out that organizing genre to meet their purpose can signify the features of the discourse community that the author is involved in. In other words, discourse community where the genre is constructed, shared and interpreted can also affect the linguistic features and eventually the schematic structures of genre. This means that being and functioning in a discourse community demands a particular way of language use; the particular discourse that the community members share. This leads to the hypothesis that producing hybrid genres in weblog 1 can be the result of a conventional practice in the community she belongs to, helping her to achieve the shared communicative purposes.

This hypothesis would need to be investigated through a large corpus of texts from various weblog-writers in a community. 

You have treated discourse community separately from purpose and staging, as if it was less important than them. Why is this? Many writers believe discourse community is central to genre

 

The influence of the communicative purposes of genre on its schematic structures

Swales’ (1990) believes that genres are mainly constructed for communicative purposes. He emphasizes that communicative purposes form “the rationale of the genre”; the rationale through which “the schematic structure of the discourse” is shaped (ibid:  58). Therefore, the disruption in the schematic structures of genres in weblog 1 can reflect the influence of their communicative purposes in each stage of the text.

Bhatia (2002: 10) also refers to the notion of purpose and genre hybridity. He states

Although in much of genre analysis, we identify textual artefacts in terms of pure genre analysis, in practice, we often find them in mixed or embedded forms, either because they are designed to achieve a mix of communicative purposes […] or to communicate ‘private intentions’ within the context of ‘socially recognized communicative purposes’.

 

This supports Swales’ point of view that purpose is critical in shaping genre/s. Analyzing the weblog-texts in this study indicated that each schematic structure, constituting the genre/s, has a particular purpose. This is in accordance with Piriyasilpa (2007a) who refers to the functional purpose of the schematic structures of genres and how the author moves from one stage to another to fulfill the purpose of the text. In this analysis, the author’s move from the stage of constructing interpersonal meanings to the stage responsible for creating experiential meanings is noticeable. In Text 1, salutation as the first stage contributes to the interpersonal metafunctions of the text. The second stage, giving personal information, adds to the experiential meanings, through using relational processes and the first person pronoun and its derivation. The same issue can be seen in Text 7; through using an argument prompt, the author tried to stimulate readers’ thought on the issue she wrote about. This signals a shift from experiential meaning to interpersonal meaning to engage the audience and then to the experiential meaning again to give her opinion and evidence. Such shifts make these texts dialogic to some extent. This implies that the environment of weblog, with its dynamic nature, persuaded the author to go beyond the formal conventions of written genres and construct a hybrid genre. This is consistent with the findings by Coffin and Painter et al. (2005:  478) writing that the argumentation genre can be affected “by the mode of communication”. As a result, it is rather hard to associate some of the texts in this weblog to a specific genre. This issue can be found in speech where the discourse genre does not belong to a particular genre.  This is in line with Chandler’s (1997:  2) view, that “in any medium the generic classification of certain texts can be uncertain or subject to dispute”.

 

With a different view, scholars such as Askehave (1999: 21) argue that communicative purposes cannot be considered “as genre determinant ” mainly; however, as discussed above, analyzing the texts in weblog1 shows that purpose plays an important role in genre construction. This study may not support Askehave’s (1999) point of view but it does not contradict it either. This means that looking at the schematic structures may not be sufficient to interpret the intention and purpose behind genre variations within a text. Carrying out interviews will be valuable to have a better view of the weblog-writer’s purpose behind the chosen schematic structures; since this is the weblog-writer who owns the text and knows what was going on in her head when using the language.

  

Adjusting the prior Knowledge

One of the reasons of genre hybridity in weblog 1 can be the result of adjusting the writers’ background knowledge of genres with the new environment-- their knowledge of genres can be the combination of what they learned before, in their school previously, and their understanding of what they were exposed to in their writing classes. This means that drawing on her previous knowledge of genres, the weblog-writer tried to adjust her discourse, through resorting to the linguistic and functional potentials of other genres, to make it fit and legitimate in the dynamic virtual environment of weblogâ€"the process that can lead to genre hybridity and eventually emerging a genre. In other words, the weblog-writer is aware of the fact that another genre is in practice among the community members in weblog; that is why she manipulates her knowledge of genres through embedding and adopting new linguistic features and conventions, which will affect the schematic structures and the purpose that the genre serves. This is inline with Santini’s (2007: 4) point of view stating that there are “three forces interacting” in the dynamic environment of web  “what we bring from the past (reproduces genres), what is new or adapted to the new environment (novel genres and adapted genres), what is going to emerge and is not fully formed yet (emerging genres)”. However, how the prior knowledge of genres is modified and a new genre emerge and how this new genre will be accepted and how long it should be practiced by a community to be named as a genre requires a thorough investigation, which is out of the scope this study.

 

 The role of audience

 

Another noteworthy finding in this investigation is the role of audience in constructing the schematic stages of genres in weblog 1. Text 6 was a practice assigned by the writing teacher to make the students ready for the final exam. The genre and stages through which this text is produced are clearly consistent with the argumentative genre in literature; this can raise the issue that the sense of audience, the writing teacher, and the purpose (final exam) obliged the author to stick to the conventional steps when producing this text. This echoes Thompson’s (2001: 59) claim writing, “one area directly affected by audience awareness is the way which the text is organized and the organization is signaled”. The weblog-writer organizes the stages of her text to fulfill the purpose of the Argument genre; in the Thesis she sets the background and expresses her intention explicitly-- In this essay i would love to write about the pros and cons of weblog. She gives her points of view, provides the reasons through conjunctions, so and because, and signals their sequence by the use of internal conjunctions, firstly and moreover. She also flags out the last stage of her text, Re-inforcement of Thesis, by the help of a concluding phrase, To sum up. However, in other texts, the author shows her freedom to blur the boundaries of genres in her weblog texts (Text 7 and 8). This is in accordance with Ivanič (1998) who notes that sometimes people write for the interest of their audience, which affect their lexico-grammatical choice and the style of their writing. This issue also highlights the interactivity of the weblog diary, which is in line with McNeil’s (2003: 29) point of view that “web diaries respond to the needs and interests of both writer and reader”. As a result, this analysis signifies that purpose and audience can have a greater impact on shaping the schematic stages of genre of a text than the mode of communication.

 

 This is inline with Puchmann ( diary or megaphone: 4 ) writing that audience have “ significant influence on both a post’s topic and tone, particularly regarding what is deemed relevant and stylistically appropriate and what is not”

II.1.c. The discourse community in weblog 1

This analysis could not indicate any specific discourse community in weblog 1. This is due to fact that the author’s lexico-grammatical choices in the texts do not refer to any particular community in a specific field or indicate an emerging community. However, it can be argued that weblog is not limited to the weblog-writer’s textual entries. Weblog provides the weblog-writer with “affordances” (Myers, 2010: 21) such as links and comments that connect him or her with the outer world. Considering this issue, the hyperlinks and received comments were examined in terms of who and how often they interacted with the weblog-writer.

The analysis showed there are 11 Hyperlinks and 7 comments in weblog 1which might show the community that the weblog-writer is involved in. However, inspecting the hyperlinks and comments in weblog 1 suggested that only a small number of the members in the hyperlink list were engaged with the weblog-writer through writing comments and other comments were form the audience outside. Interestingly, the weblog-writer reacted on only some of the comments and ignored others; this can signify how the weblog-writer selected the members of the community she wished to be in contact with.

Swales (1988: 211) stresses, “discourse communities are centrifugal”, that is, certain people belongs to a certain group following particular conventions and discourse. To find out if this weblog has a specific type of audience, the frequency of the readers’ interactions with the weblog-writer is examined. The results noted that only two of the audiences visited the weblog three times and others left the weblog after their first visit. Such irregular and infrequent reactions to the received comments do not support and sustain the connection among the members. Thus, investigating the comments indicated that this weblog does not separate a particular group of audience to be named discourse community.

This might raise the issue of whether looking at comments and links in a weblog is sufficient to recognize its community. The audience of weblog is not restricted to those who reflect on weblog entries and write comments. What makes the concept of discourse community of weblogs uncertain is the point that people can lurk by leaving no comments. As Puschmann (2012: 90) writes, “blog readers can lurk without indicating that they have even received a message, and the blogger can likewise claim not to have addressed anyone in particular with her thoughts”. McNeil (2003: 36) calls these lurkers “ Read-only” audiences “ sine they take in personal stories of the diarist without revealing anything of themselves, and without accepting the community membership being offered them”.

Therefore, it might be suggested that communication or the frequency of interactions in weblog cannot be the requisite of belonging to its discourse community. In other words, there might be an invisible community in weblog 1 and not traceable through the links and comments on the surface of weblog.

Another way of investigating the discourse community in weblog can be examining the similar language features among the active members. For instance, although the limited comments in weblog 1 show little interactions between the weblog-writer and the visitors, the language used in comments share the characteristics of informal chats with some ellipsis and unconventional orthography along with some emoticons. This can imply that the language of the social group active in this weblog has a similar speech like register. This is consistent with Swales (1988: 211) who writes, “a discourse community is composed of those who share functional rules that determine the appropriacry of utterances”. What the characteristics of the language used in comments are and why this type of register is encouraged and developed among the interactants in weblog 1 deserves a deeper investigation which is beyond the scope of this study. 

 

 

III. The relation between the linguistic features of the texts with their genres

The analysis suggested a tentative relation between the lexico-grammatical choices and the social purpose of the texts-- register and genre. Three texts share the same field which is giving information about happenings and activities. This was construed through the choice of the relational and material processes as well as the location circumstances; the tenor of the same texts was realized through the instantiation of declarative clauses and Finite (tense) constructing a low level of interactivity between the weblog-writer and readers; the mode of these texts was construed by the author’s choice of topical THEME, which resembled the speech mode of language in these texts. All of these choices could scaffold the construction of the social purpose of these texts, which is realized as exposition genre. In other words, it seems that there is an interdepdent relation between the linguistic features of the context of situation and the social purpose of these texts. This is in line with Eggins (2004:  58) writing, “[a] genre comes about as particular values for field, tenor and mode regularly co-occur and eventually become stabilized in the culture as ‘typical’ situations” (emphasized as in original). The same issue can be noted in Nunan’s (2008) opinion about genre; he stresses that each genre should share:   “a common communicative purpose”, a similar “overall structure” and the same “grammatical and lexical features” (ibid:  57). However, the certainty of this finding should be checked in a wider context with more data; this can be also valuable to find out about the discourse community of the constructed genre in weblogâ€"since the constructed genre can signify its own discourse community.

 

 Limitations: 

One of the main limitations of this study is related to the generalizability of the findings to a larger population. The data is limited to three weblogs and participants were selected from one college that is a drawback of this study. This means that the findings might differ in a bigger cohort of weblog texts and a broader context of EFL learners. Therefore, the genre and register constructed in these three weblogs cannot represent Omani EFL learners’ language use in the same context. Engaging the research in a large online context with a large number of participants can improve this drawback. However, this analysis has its own strength; as limiting the number of the samples made the researcher to produce a thicker description of data.

Implications

 

This study suggested the value of systemic functional grammar as a tool to understand the relation between the social purpose and linguistic features of EFL students’ texts in weblog.  This can be useful for language practitioners and learners both; providing the learners with genre knowledge and linguistic patterns can help them understand and achieve the social purpose of discourse. Making the students aware of the social purpose of texts can help them recognize the field of the discourse and choose appropriate lexico-grammatical choices to achieve that purpose. For instance, language teachers can provide the learners with an explicit knowledge of constructing their experiences in the world by introducing the process types, their particular participants and the necessary circumstances. Teachers can draw the learners’ attention to interacting with the audience through their type of clauses, declarative, imperative and interrogative clauses, and the types of Subject and Finite needed in their text. The awareness such factors can be valuable to show how particular genres require particular Subject and tense. Raising the learners’ awareness in how to organize the information in the clauses and how to join them to be coherent and logical will help them produce a more effective text. For instance, teaching the students about the social purpose of Argumentative genre, the types of processes, participant and circumstances it needs as well as creating a stance and position through using Modal Finite along with the internal and external conjunctions to make it coherent will give the leaners a better insight into this genre. Weblog can provide the learners with an appropriate

Introducing the non-threatening environment of weblog to the curriculum of writing courses also can change the EFL-learners’ approaches to learning writing skills and persuade them to write more. This can engage the learners with one another and the teacher through which they can share their ideas and experiences and reflect upon what they wrote. This may lead to a collaborative learning which learners can get benefit from. In addition, anonymity in the virtual environment of weblog can help the learners, especially shy learners, write about what they desire without the stress of being judged or corrected.

Further suggestions and work

 

Based on my observation, I noticed that some of the Arab EFL students use both Arabic and English language in their weblog-texts. In fact, the student-writers’ weblog-texts is an amalgamation of Arabic phrases and English patternsâ€"for instance, Alhamedellah, I passed the exam. Their language shift from the foreign language to their mother tongue makes their discourse vary in terms of linguistic features and language patterns. Why weblog-writes resort to their mother tongue to express themselves and how this affects their discourse in weblog is not explored in this study and needs investigation.

One of the areas that has not been investigated in this research is the cohesion and coherence of weblog-texts. As this research examines the use of language in student-writers’ weblog texts, studying cohesion and coherence will give a better insight into how EFL weblog-writers organize their texts and construct textual meanings throughout the discourse.

 

The thematic development of the discourse also deserves a thorough investigation as it can show how the texts are organized and developed when unfold. One of the findings in this study was the prevalence of textual THEME and long sentences in the texts. Drawing on my own experience among Arabic speakers, I think the frequent use of textual THEME can be because of the influence of L1 in L2. It is due to the fact that Arabic speakers tend to link their clauses continuously when engaged in a dialogue. This issue requires more investigation when looking at the choice of THEMES in clauses constructed by Arab EFL learners.

 An area that needs more investigation is the way student-writers used evaluative language to present their judgments and emotions. This area is under the category of appraisal theory in systemic functional grammar, which was not touched in this study.

 

 The issue that needs exploring is to find out about the EFL student-writers’ language in their assignments in comparison with their language in their weblog; in other words, to look at the texts with the same field but different mode and tenor. This can provide a better picture of how the channel of information and the relation with the audience can affect student-writers’ language.  It can also help the student-writers understand the difference between the linguistic features of written and spoken language when writing.

One of the areas which needs investigation is to find out if weblog-writing can be used as an scaffolding technique to improve the Arab EFL student-writes’ writing skills. As some of the writing-classes are mostly teacher-centered and still limited to pen and paper, specifically in the context of this study, weblog may provide the students with a relaxed learning setting to be able to practice not only what they learn in their writing classes but also they can build up their vocabularies and language patterns as well as extend their knowledge of genres through reading other websites and getting feedback from their audience. This can be valuable to examine if weblog-writing can lead to a learner-centered writing class through which students can develop their creativity, motivation and originality.

 

Another point worth looking at, along with the genre and register of the texts in weblog, is what weblog offers the weblog-writers and how weblog-writers make use of them to produce their texts. Drawing on my experience of teaching Arab student-weblog-writers, I noticed that most of the students used photos related to their texts to clarify or elaborate on what they wrote; even in one case, the student-writer wrote just one sentence to set the setting of her texts and then narrated her stories through photos. It seems that non-linguistic features of weblog have a critical role in constructing both the discourse and the writers’ identity and self-expression in weblog. This calls for a multimodality analysis that this study was not concerned with.  

 

 Conclusion

This research showed that genre and register analysis provides a valuable lens for understanding the texts born online in the environment of weblog. The register analysis helped to find out about the weblog-texts linguistic features and their functions in the context of situation they are operating. It was also useful to know how the weblog-writers’ linguistic choices can shape the schematic structures of the stages through which texts unfold; the stages which scaffold and constitute the social purpose, genre/s, of the weblog-texts.

This study showed

Writers, just as much as speakers, are constantly responding to actual or imagined utterances from others” (Thompson 2001: 62)

The functionality of weblog has made its digital texts differ form the conventional texts on paper;

Despite the public nature of weblog, weblog can turn to be very individual where weblog-writes choose their own way to transmit information. Their choice is the result of their understanding of the context, along with all the capacities it offers, they are involved in and awareness of the readership. This can influence their language produced in their weblog and lead to generating texts that share the characteristics of various genres. For this reason, it is rather hard to fixed boundaries for genres produced in weblog.

Due to the wide and variable audience of weblog, the notion of discourse community in weblog is rather fluid and hardly can be associated to particular group.

Drawing on the capabilities of weblog

the individualistic way of transforming information is weblog-writers choose the

63: Noriko Iwamoto a text should not always be oriented towards uncovering examples of deviant linguistic patterns ; it can be used beneficially for clarifying characteristics and meanings in any

text 􏱼 whether conventional or nonconventional features 􏱼 including literary and nonliterary ones.