A Genre Analysis Of English Business Conference Addresses

Recent work in linguistics has extended the study of genre beyond the literary domain.According to Bhatia (1993), genre in non-literary domain is a recognizedcommunicative event characterized by a set of communicative purposes identified andmutually understood by the members of the professional or academic community inwhich it regularly occurs. It is highly structured and conventionalized with constraintson allowable contributions in terms of their intent, positioning, form and functionalvalue.The study intends to explore the conventional generic structure of English businessconference addresses based on Bhatia's genre analysis approach. After more than fiftybusiness conference addresses were analyzed, the following move structure has beenfound out: Address the audience — Express gratitude for invitation and honor toattend the conference / Express honor to have someone special attend the conference /Express thanks to the organizer or audience for their time — Introduce theconference topic or aim — Detailed explanation of the topic — Express hope andadvocate — End with thanks.After exploring the generic structure of business conference addresses, the study hasalso analyzed the addresses from a microscopical aspect such as repetition,conjunction and textual marker in order to find out how the conference addressesachieve coherence. By finding out the above conventions of the business conferenceaddresses, the study expects to give some insights for conference address writers andconference interpreters in the conventions especially macro structure of businessconference addresses.