A Systemic-Functional Approach To The Genre Of Weblog

The webiog, or blog as it is most often called, is a new type of electronic discourse that has attained widespread popularity, yet it has not been systematically studied as a genre from a linguistic perspective.This thesis conducts a genre analysis of the weblog within the theoretical framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). It applies an SFL-based genre model to the analysis of the generic features of the weblog, which is nowadays most typically represented by 'journal biog.' Based on sample analyses of a number of journal blogs, the thesis arrives at the Generic Structure Potential and Contextual Configuration of the weblog, revealing salient features of this genre at the strata of context and semantics. It is found that the prominence of the weblog's generic structure lies in its format while the weblog's contextual features are highlighted by the interconnectivity and interaction between different weblogs.The present study also uses the same genre model to compare the genre with its offline and online antecedents to determine whether the weblog constitutes a new genre. Results show that although the weblog bears some resemblance to its offline antecedent—paper diary, and its online antecedent—personal home page; crucial distinctions between the weblog and its antecedents in their generic structures and contextual configurations overwhelm their similarities, thus distinguishing the weblog as a fundamentally new genre of computer-mediated communication.As the genre model applied in the present study yields clear and convincing results in analyzing the weblog and comparing it with other genres, the systemic-functional approach proves instrumental in studying dynamic and interactive genres of computer-mediated communication in the Internet era.