Same Genre, Different Discipline: a Genre-Based Study of Book Reviews in Academe

Abstract

Genre analysts attempting to map down the repertoire of genres used in academe have fostered reading and writing pedagogies in English for Academic Purposes (EAP). Although book reviews can potentially offer novice academic writers opportunity to get started in the academic debate, researchers have neglected the genre due to its unremarkable character as reference literature. With the objective of contributing to the definition of a key short genre which has received little attention from specialists, this paper presents the analysis of the information organisation of sixty academic book reviews in chemistry, economics, and linguistics. The analysis revealed that, although book reviews show regularities in information, content and form, some variation occurs in terms of how reviewers realise evaluation and description moves across disciplinary boundaries. Variation can be associated with these reviewers’ tendency to respond to specifics in the epistemological organisation of their respective fields, regarding object of study, commonly adopted methodologies, and literary tradition. The results not only suggest existing connections between text and context, but also indicate that discursive practices in the disciplines have to be considered in EAP teaching in order to help learners develop more critical and effective reading and writing competencies in accordance with their field of study.