A Genre-based Approach To State Leaders' Speech

Recent years have seen growing interest in the study of genre, an area that has a lot to offer to the development of translation studies.However, how to define a genre has long been a controversial issue in linguistics. Different linguists view genre from different perspectives. Hasan holds that the specific values of the context of situation are decisive in defining a genre. Martin points out that the context of culture is closely associated with the definition of genre.Aimed at exploring the definition of genre, eight speeches delivered by state leaders in domestic universities are chosen and analyzed based on Hasan's and Martin's models.Results of the analysis show that state leader's speech is a 'genre complex' and genre definition is determined by both the context of situation and the context of culture. This paper further suggests that combining the strong points of the model of Hasan, which focuses on studying the relationship between a genre and the context of situation and the model of Martin, which pays more attention to the relationship between a genre and the context of culture, would provide a better explanation of the notion of genre both in theory and in the practice of text analysis.Based on this explanation, this paper goes further to explore the significance of genre study for translation. It is argued that genre analysis will help a translator better understand differences among text types and relationships among text, context of situation and context of culture, In this way, the translation produced will not only embody the features of the genre to which a text belongs but also fit into the situational and cultural context.