Critical reflections on genre analysis

Genre Analysis of academic and professional texts has traditionally been the focus of much of ESP (English for Specific Purposes) inspired language descriptions. The emphasis in this form of analysis was, and still continues to be, on the use of text-internal linguistic resources, in particular, on the use of formal and functional properties of language, especially analysis of rhetorical “moves” with relatively limited focus on context or text-external resources, which play an important role in the socio-pragmatics of academic and professional genres. This paper is an attempt to critically reflect on a general overview of this approach to the analysis of professional genres, while at the same, extending the scope of the construction, interpretation and use of professional genres by focusing on the academic and professional “practices” that most academics and professional experts are engaged in as part of their daily routine within what Bhatia (2010) calls “socio-pragmatic space” in which such professional genres invariably function.