Chapter 7. Interactions with readers through online specialised genres

specificity or adaptability?

Francisco Yus | Universidad de Alicante

Success in written academic communication depends on the presence of elements related to author-reader interactions which supplement propositional information in the text, help readers reach the intended interpretation and shape the author’s identity. But is this claim equally valid for online genres? This new environment demands an adaptation of the role of authors, texts, and readers concerning (a) a re-structuring of texts to fit the margins of the screen; (b) a new type of non-linear structure, with no specific reading sequence, which often blurs authorial intention; (c) a new type of reader that does not read in a linear way, but often engages in multi-tasking, is used to processing small chunks of text and often browses without a predictable reading sequence; and (d) a new context of text processing. This chapter addresses these qualities of electronic genres and their implications. For that purpose, 4 different academic texts will be analysed: (1) an academic printed journal uploaded online without variations, Computers in Human Behavior; (2) an online journal, First Monday; (3) several entries of a specialised native discourse on the Internet: Second Life New World Notes; and (4) a popular native online discourse, the technology blog by The Guardian.

Published online: 10 July 2014
https://doi.org/10.1075/ds.23.09yus

References

Efimova, Lilia

2004 “Discovering the iceberg of knowledge work: A weblog case”. Paper presented at the Fifth European Conference on Organisational Knowledge, Learning, and Capabilities (OKLC 2004), Innsbruck.

Ewins, Rory

2005 “Who are you? Weblogs and academic identity”. E-Learning 2 (4): 368–377.

Gil-Salom, Luz, and Soler-Monreal, Carmen

2009 “Interacting with the reader: Politeness strategies in engineering research article discussions”. International Journal of English Studies, Special Issue, 175–189.

2011 “Introduction to the panel Interpersonality in Written Specialised Genres ”. 12th International Pragmatics Conference. Manchester, U.K. July.

Hyland, Ken

2008a “Persuasion, interaction and the construction of knowledge: Representing self and others in research writing”. International Journal of English Studies 8 (2): 1–23.

2008b “Disciplinary voices. Interactions in research writing”. English Text Construction 1 (1): 5–22.

2010 “Constructing proximity: Relating to readers in popular and professional science”. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 9: 116–127.

Livnat, Zohar

2012 Dialogue, Science and Academic Writing. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Mortensen, Torill, and Walker, Jill

2002 “Blogging thoughts: Personal publication as an online research tool”. In Researching ICTs in Context, Andrew Morrison (ed), 249–279. Oslo: Intermedia.

Sperber, Dan, and Wilson, Deirdre

1995 Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell.

Weigand, Edda

2009 Language as Dialogue. Sebastian Feller (ed). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

2010 Dialogue – The Mixed Game. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Yus, Francisco

2010 Ciberpragmática 2.0. Nuevos usos del lenguaje en Internet. Barcelona: Ariel.

2011 Cyberpragmatics. Internet-Mediated Communication in Context. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Cited by

Cited by other publications

Sancho Guinda, Carmen

2019. In Emotion in Discourse [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 302], ► pp. 357 ff.

Sancho Guinda, Carmen

2019. In Engagement in Professional Genres [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 301], ► pp. 1 ff.

Sokół, Małgorzata

2019. In Specialized Discourses and Their Readerships [The M.A.K. Halliday Library Functional Linguistics Series, ], ► pp. 101 ff.

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 26 december 2020. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.