Genre Analysis Of Company Introduction In A Job Advertisement

Compared with other discourse analyzing approaches, genre analysis can further explicate the functional characteristics of different language forms. It extends the discourse analysis from describing the linguistic features to explain them, considering the social factors as well as the psychological factors. This approach can not only reflect the communicative purposes embedded in the discourse, but also expound the linguistics skills the writer uses to achieve these purposes. Moreover, because communicative purpose is the determinative element of a genre, it makes the discourse belonging to the same genre share similar schematic structures, which will further influence the contents and language styles of the discourse.After confirming that company introduction in a job advertisement could be regarded as a promotional genre, the author first studies the contextual configuration (CC) of the subject. According to its conclusion, it further identifies the communicative purposes this genre sets out to achieve. Within the frameworks of the Swales and Bhatia, it then comes to analyze the different moves of company introduction, basing on the 40 samples randomly selected from Fortune 500 in 2007. Finally, based on Hasan's model, it probes into the generic structure potential of company introduction by identifying its obligatory and optional moves.The major findings of the study show that, as a promotional genre, company introduction in a job advertisement serves other communicative purposes apart from the basic persuasive purposes. These communicative purposes include: to persuade for further reading, to deliver corporate power, to enhance the appropriate readers' interest, to expand reputation, etc. The communicative purposes determine the structural pattern of this genre largely, which can be typically classified into five specified moves: Headlines, Establishing credentials, Describing business, Listing advantage, Confirming invitation. The moves of "Headlines" and "Establishing credentials" are obligatory, i.e. they are essential for the generation of this genre text. The other three optional moves are responsible for the variety of the texts and help writers meet different needs in different situations. In practical terms, the insights gained from the study have potential value in improving writing competence of ESP learners. Theoretically, the present study may provide some useful tip for the later, possibly more sophisticated research of genre texts from various professions.