Title: The media genre of the personal account: rhetorical and linguistic construction of the socio-cultural setting
Source document: Brno studies in English. 2017, vol. 43, iss. 1, pp. [33]-52
Extent
[33]-52
-
ISSN0524-6881 (print)1805-0867 (online)
Persistent identifier (DOI): https://doi.org/10.5817/BSE2017-1-2
Stable URL (handle): https://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/137084
Type: Article
Language
License: Not specified license
Notice: These citations are automatically created and might not follow citation rules properly.
Abstract(s)
Genre studies are of high relevance to media discourse in general and women's magazines discourse in particular if one considers their pervasiveness in our lives. This study presents a genre analysis of the personal account, endemic in women's magazines. The paper identifies the generic structure of the personal account and the rhetorical strategies of its textual implementation. More specifically, it focuses on the rhetorical strategies of the first element of the generic structure, the Summary and Orientation move, and on its most conspicuous linguistic features. The paper examines how the conventions of the move participate in the construction of the socio-cultural setting of the personal account. The study utilizes personal accounts from The Cosmopolitan, which was chosen due to its global international status and general thematic orientation.
References
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[2] Bednarek, Monika (2006) Evaluation in Media Discourse: Analysis of a Newspaper Corpus. London: Continuum.
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[4] Bhatia, Vijay (2004) Worlds of Written Discourse – A Genre-Based View. London and New York: Continuum.
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[12] Ferguson, Marjory (1983) Forever Feminine: Women's Magazines and the Cult of Femininity. London: Heinemann.
[13] Figueiredo, Debora (2009) 'Narrative and identity formation: an analysis of media personal accounts from patients of cosmetic plastic surgery'. In: Bazerman, Charles, Adair Bonini and Debora Figueiredo (eds.) Genre in a Changing World. Fort Collins, CO: WAC Clearinghouse, 255–276.
[14] Hermes, Joke (1995) Reading Women's Magazines. Cambridge: Polity Press.
[15] Labov, William (1972) Language in the Inner City. University Park: University of Pennsylvania Press.
[16] Levinson, Stephen (1983) Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[17] Machin, David and Thornborrow Joanna (2003) 'Branding and discourse: The case of Cosmopolitan'. Discourse and Society 14(4), 453–471.
[18] Martin, James (1985) Factual Writing: Exploring and Challenging Social Reality. Geelong, Vic.: Deakin University Press.
[19] McCracken, Ellen (1993) Decoding Women's Magazines: From Mademoiselle to MS. London: Macmillan.
[20] Miller, Carolyn (1994) 'Genre as social action'. In: Freedman, Aviva and Peter Medway (eds.) Genre and the New Rhetoric. Bristol: Taylor and Francis, 23–42.
[21] Rubin, Herbert (2005) Qualitative Interviewing: The Art of Hearing Data. Beverly Hills: Sage.
[22] Segal, Judy (2007) 'Breast cancer narratives as public rhetoric: Genre itself and the maintenance of ignorance'. Linguistics and the Human Sciences 3(1), 3–23.
[23] Swales, John (1990) Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[24] Tomášková, Renáta (2009) 'Communication Strategies in Women's and Men's magazines'. In: Hopkinson, Christopher, Lenka Sedlářová, Renáta Tomášková, Sirma Wilamová and Gabriela Zapletalová (eds.) Communication Strategies in Texts and Talk. Ostrava: Faculty of Arts, University of Ostrava, 75–129.
[25] Urbanová, Zuzana (2012) 'Direct and indirect forms of representation in the discourse of newspaper reports: Less frequent phenomena'. Brno Studies in English 38(1), 39–54. | DOI 10.5817/BSE2012-1-3
[26] Whinship, Janice (1987) Inside Women's Magazines. London: Routledge.
[27] Yakhontova, Tatyana (1997) 'Bakhtin at home and abroad'. JAC: A Journal of Composition Theory 17(1), 83–94.
[28] Cosmopolitan US July 2014. Available from http://read-magazines.com/brand/cosmopolitan (accessed on 20 August 2015).
[29] Cosmopolitan US September 2014. Available from http://read-magazines.com/brand/cosmopolitan (accessed on 20 August 2015).
[30] Cosmopolitan US March 2015. Available from http://read-magazines.com/brand/cosmopolitan (accessed on 20 August 2015).
[31] Cosmopolitan US April 2015. Available from http://read-magazines.com/brand/cosmopolitan (accessed on 20 August 2015).
[32] Cosmopolitan US May 2015. Available from http://read-magazines.com/brand/cosmopolitan (accessed on 20 August 2015).
[33] Cosmopolitan US September 2015. Available from http://read-magazines.com/brand/cosmopolitan (accessed on 22 December 2015).
[34] Cosmopolitan US November 2015. Available from http://read-magazines.com/brand/cosmopolitan (accessed on 22 December 2015).
[35] Cosmopolitan US December 2015. Available from http://read-magazines.com/brand/cosmopolitan (accessed on 22 December 2015).
[36] Cosmopolitan UK January 2007: 103–113. Print.
[37] Cosmopolitan UK April 2007: 98–100. Print.
[38] Cosmopolitan UK July 2007: 121–122. Print.
[39] Cosmopolitan UK August 2007: 167. Print.
[40] Cosmopolitan UK March 2008: 114. 124–125. Print.
[41] Cosmopolitan UK May 2008: 77–78. Print.
[42] Cosmopolitan UK June 2008: 123. Print.
[43] Cosmopolitan UK August 2008: 90. Print.
[2] Bednarek, Monika (2006) Evaluation in Media Discourse: Analysis of a Newspaper Corpus. London: Continuum.
[3] Benveniste, Emile (1971) 'The nature of pronouns'. In: Problems in General linguistics. Translated by Mary Elizabeth Meek. Miami: Miami University Press, 217–222.
[4] Bhatia, Vijay (2004) Worlds of Written Discourse – A Genre-Based View. London and New York: Continuum.
[5] Bruner, Jerome (2004) 'Life as narrative'. Social Research 71(3), 691–710.
[6] Caldas-Coulthard, Carmen Rosa (1994) 'On reporting reporting: the presentation of speech in factual and factional narratives'. In: Malcolm Coulthard (ed.) Advances in Written Text Analysis. London: Routledge, 295–308.
[7] Caldas-Coulthard, Carmen (1996) '"Women who pay for sex. And enjoy it": Transgression versus morality in women's magazines'. In: Carmen Caldas-Coulthard, Rosa and Malcolm Coulthard (eds.) Text and Practices: Readings in Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge, 250–270.
[8] Cameron, Deborah (2005) 'Language, gender, and sexuality: Current issues and new directions'. Applied Linguistics 26(4), 482–502.
[9] Chovanec, Jan (2003) 'The uses of the present tense in headlines'. Theory and Practice in English Studies, Volume 1. Brno: Masaryk University, 83–92.
[10] Craviotto del-Teso, Marisol (2006) 'Words that matter: Lexical choice and gender ideologies in women's magazines'. Journal of Pragmatics 38, 2003–2021. | DOI 10.1016/j.pragma.2005.03.012
[11] Darian, Steven (2003) 'The language of quantifying'. In: Steven Darian Understanding the Language of Science. Austin: University of Texas Press, 201–250.
[12] Ferguson, Marjory (1983) Forever Feminine: Women's Magazines and the Cult of Femininity. London: Heinemann.
[13] Figueiredo, Debora (2009) 'Narrative and identity formation: an analysis of media personal accounts from patients of cosmetic plastic surgery'. In: Bazerman, Charles, Adair Bonini and Debora Figueiredo (eds.) Genre in a Changing World. Fort Collins, CO: WAC Clearinghouse, 255–276.
[14] Hermes, Joke (1995) Reading Women's Magazines. Cambridge: Polity Press.
[15] Labov, William (1972) Language in the Inner City. University Park: University of Pennsylvania Press.
[16] Levinson, Stephen (1983) Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[17] Machin, David and Thornborrow Joanna (2003) 'Branding and discourse: The case of Cosmopolitan'. Discourse and Society 14(4), 453–471.
[18] Martin, James (1985) Factual Writing: Exploring and Challenging Social Reality. Geelong, Vic.: Deakin University Press.
[19] McCracken, Ellen (1993) Decoding Women's Magazines: From Mademoiselle to MS. London: Macmillan.
[20] Miller, Carolyn (1994) 'Genre as social action'. In: Freedman, Aviva and Peter Medway (eds.) Genre and the New Rhetoric. Bristol: Taylor and Francis, 23–42.
[21] Rubin, Herbert (2005) Qualitative Interviewing: The Art of Hearing Data. Beverly Hills: Sage.
[22] Segal, Judy (2007) 'Breast cancer narratives as public rhetoric: Genre itself and the maintenance of ignorance'. Linguistics and the Human Sciences 3(1), 3–23.
[23] Swales, John (1990) Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[24] Tomášková, Renáta (2009) 'Communication Strategies in Women's and Men's magazines'. In: Hopkinson, Christopher, Lenka Sedlářová, Renáta Tomášková, Sirma Wilamová and Gabriela Zapletalová (eds.) Communication Strategies in Texts and Talk. Ostrava: Faculty of Arts, University of Ostrava, 75–129.
[25] Urbanová, Zuzana (2012) 'Direct and indirect forms of representation in the discourse of newspaper reports: Less frequent phenomena'. Brno Studies in English 38(1), 39–54. | DOI 10.5817/BSE2012-1-3
[26] Whinship, Janice (1987) Inside Women's Magazines. London: Routledge.
[27] Yakhontova, Tatyana (1997) 'Bakhtin at home and abroad'. JAC: A Journal of Composition Theory 17(1), 83–94.
[28] Cosmopolitan US July 2014. Available from http://read-magazines.com/brand/cosmopolitan (accessed on 20 August 2015).
[29] Cosmopolitan US September 2014. Available from http://read-magazines.com/brand/cosmopolitan (accessed on 20 August 2015).
[30] Cosmopolitan US March 2015. Available from http://read-magazines.com/brand/cosmopolitan (accessed on 20 August 2015).
[31] Cosmopolitan US April 2015. Available from http://read-magazines.com/brand/cosmopolitan (accessed on 20 August 2015).
[32] Cosmopolitan US May 2015. Available from http://read-magazines.com/brand/cosmopolitan (accessed on 20 August 2015).
[33] Cosmopolitan US September 2015. Available from http://read-magazines.com/brand/cosmopolitan (accessed on 22 December 2015).
[34] Cosmopolitan US November 2015. Available from http://read-magazines.com/brand/cosmopolitan (accessed on 22 December 2015).
[35] Cosmopolitan US December 2015. Available from http://read-magazines.com/brand/cosmopolitan (accessed on 22 December 2015).
[36] Cosmopolitan UK January 2007: 103–113. Print.
[37] Cosmopolitan UK April 2007: 98–100. Print.
[38] Cosmopolitan UK July 2007: 121–122. Print.
[39] Cosmopolitan UK August 2007: 167. Print.
[40] Cosmopolitan UK March 2008: 114. 124–125. Print.
[41] Cosmopolitan UK May 2008: 77–78. Print.
[42] Cosmopolitan UK June 2008: 123. Print.
[43] Cosmopolitan UK August 2008: 90. Print.