The Genre Analysis Of The New York Times Book Review

In the past several decades, the cultural communication between China and English speaking countries has been enhanced. More and more books published in the western countries have been introduced to China and some Chinese best-sellers also seek publication abroad. Book review serves as an important means to introduce and select books. Though some researches have been made on book reviews, they remain in the technical or academic circle, such as the genre analysis of book review of linguistic journals. The New York Times Book Review, which focuses more on literary books, remains the most authoritative in the learned and intellectual field. The research of The New York Times Book Review will help find the macro-structure and the micro-linguistic strategies of this genre. Meanwhile, this research is conducive to book review reading and writing teaching in the field of English for Specific Purposes (ESP).The theoretical framework of the thesis is divided into two aspects: First, the move analysis in the macro-structural analysis, which is based on the theory of Swales and Bhatia. It involves dividing texts into chunks by shifts in emphasis which Swales calls "moves". Each move is then examined so as to establish a pattern of moves which represent the genre of the text. In terms of the specific move analysis process, this thesis follows the theory of Bhatia who put forward a 7-step model of genre analysis, which focuses on the comprehensive investigation of any genre. Second, the micro-linguistic strategy analysis is conducted in three levels. The grammatical level analysis is based on the theory of meta-function. In Halliday's theory of the fundamental functions of language, he has lexico-grammar divided into three meta-functions. The three meta-functions: ideational, interpersonal and textual functions of The New York Times Book Review are analyzed by Transitivity analysis, Mood analysis and Thematic analysis. The lexical level analysis is based on the theory of lexical density and etymology. The graphological level analysis is based on the on the theory of graphology in the field of stylistics.According to the popularity of the different genres in The New York Times Book Review and the researcher's partiality, 12 reviews belonging to fiction and 18 non-fictions form the corpus. The analysis of the data is mainly carried out in two phases. In the first stage, the researcher presents the description of the generic structure by examining the overall textual organization of each review in the corpus and establishes the obligatory and optional moves. In the second stage of the study, the author identifies the micro-linguistic strategies applied in selected political reviews through the analysis of three meta-functions and by investigating the roles some stylistic factors play.Through the macro-structural analysis, the basic organization of a 9-move structure of The New York Times Book Review is established based on Bhatia's model. The functions of 9 moves and their steps are presented in details. According to the occurrence rate of each move, Move 4 is determined to be the only optional move and other moves to be obligatory moves.In terms of the analysis of micro-linguistic strategies, at the grammatical level, three meta-functions are presented through transitivity analysis, mood analysis and thematic analysis. The result of lexical density calculation and etymological analysis all prove that The New York Times Book Review is a high formal genre. At the graphological level, some stylistic strategies as illustration and marking are found to be prominent in certain moves. Based on the result of the macro-analysis and micro-analysis, the situational context of The New York Times Book Review is summarized.According to the findings of the research, the researcher finally puts forward the pedagogical suggestions for a four-stage book review writing program and the limitations of the study.