6

CHAPTER II

LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter comprises five main sections:

Genre and Genre Analysis
Promotional Prints Typically Used in the Tourism Industry
Tourist Text Analyzed in the ESP Genre Analysis
English in the Brochure Produced in Thailand
Related Research

Genre and Genre Analysis

Since the early 80’s applied linguists and language teachers, especially those who are
concerned with the teaching of ESP, have shown a great deal of interest in genre analysis as an
approach to the analysis of written and spoken discourse (Holmes. 1997 : 322). This interest in
genre analysis has increased in parallel with pedagogical concerns, in particular the need to
provide satisfactory models and descriptions of academic and scientific texts, and to develop the
ability in non-native speaker students to understand and to produce them.
The concept of genre has been a central issue in language teaching and learning
especially in the field of English for Specific Purposes (ESP). The notions of genre tend to
emphasize the importance of social situations in which the genre occurs and of communicative
purposes of the genre. Martin (1985 : 250 quoted in Swales, 1990) states that “genres are how
things get done, when language is used to accomplish them”. Genre can also be viewed as “the
staged purposeful social processes through which a culture is realized in a language” (Martin and
Rothery. 1986 : 243 quoted in Swales. 1990). Similarly, (Miller. 1984 : 151 quoted in Swales,
1990) suggests that “a rhetorically sound definition of genre must be centered not on the substance
or form of discourse but on the section if is used to accomplish”. From these definitions, it can be
seen that the concept of genre does not only focus on the study of language but also attempts to
relate language of a particular text to the context or situation in which it occurs. Thus, in genre


 7

analysis, apart from the language used in a genre, genre analysis need to take into account features
of situation including the reader, the writer, their relationship, and the communicative purpose of
the text.
In ESP, a well-known theory of genre analysis is that of Swales (1990). He particularly
stresses the role of communicative purpose in genre analysis. Swales states that “a genre
comprises a class of communicative events, the member of which share some set of
communicative purposes” (Swales. 1990 : 58). He points out that the communicative purpose
provide the rationale of the genre, which determines the choices of content and style and the
structure of the genre. In his book ‘Genre Analysis’, Swales offers a view concerning the role of
communicative purpose on the consideration of genre:
Communicative purpose has been nominated as the privileged property of a genre. Other
properties, such as form, structure and audience expectations operate to identify the extent to
which an example is prototypical of a particular genre (Swales. 1990 : 52).
According to Swales, communicative purpose is the major factor to identify text genre,
while other factors can be used to determine the text’s prototype. Any major changes in the
communicative purpose are likely to provide a different genre whereas minor changes can assist
in distinguishing sub-genres. As a consequence, in ESP, changes in form or structure would not
necessarily create a new genre.
Communicative purpose is, in fact, the defining feature by which a genre such as the
academic article is distinguished from other genres and by which the consideration of genre is
distinguished from the consideration of register. The use of genre in ESP or applied linguistics is
thus distinct from its use in literary criticism, where a particular genre, for example a tragedy, a
comedy or a novel, is distinguished by its form (Dudley-Evans. 1986 quoted in Couthard. 1996 :
217).
In the light of a genre-based approach to text analysis, the emphasis has been particularly
given to the nation of moves. Move analysis is a way to investigate the overall structure of a text.
According to Swales, a text can be viewed as comprising a series of moves or segments of a text,
which contribute to an overall communicative purpose of the text. Swales also stresses the notion


 8

of steps by pointing out that writers have rhetorical options from which they can choose to realize
the communicative intentions of a move. This way of looking at texts has proved valuable in the
academic field. Hyland (2002 : 78) suggests that kind of analysis has yielded useful information
about the ways texts are constructed and the rhetorical contexts in which they are used, as well as
providing valuable input for genre-based teaching.
The following is an example of an identification of moves and steps. One of Swales’
seminal works, which contributes to the teaching of writing in tertiary level is analysis of
organizational structure of the introduction to academic research articles. His study reveals the
following moves and steps:

Move 1 Establishing a territory

Step 1 Claiming centrality
and/or
Step 2 Marking topic generalizations
and/or
Step 3 Reviewing items of pervious research
Move 2 Establishing a niche
Step I A Counter-claiming
or
Step IB Indicating a gap
Step IC Questioning-raising
Step ID Continuing a tradition
Move 3 Occupying the niche
Step IA Outlining purposes
or
Step IB Announcing present research
Step 2 Announcing principal finding
Step 3 Indicating RA structure


 9

Despite its great value to the field of language teaching and learning, the move approach
may not be suitable for every genre. Flowerdew and Dudley-Evans (2002 : 413) state that for
some types of text such as abstract or essay, a move approach seems to be less valid. Flowerdew
and Dudley-Evens point out that “a move approach is valid for the limited and short genres with a
focused number of rhetorical options available to the writer of the genres” (Flowerdew and
Dudley-Evens. 2002 : 199).
Another view regarding the move approach to genre analysis is that of Bhatia (1993 :
145). Bhatia’s definition and concepts of genre follow that of Swales (1990 : 64). Concerning the
analysis of move structure, Bhatia points out that each move of a genre serves a communicative
intention that helps fulfill the overall communicative purpose of the genre. However, regarding
this kind of analysis, Bhatia tends to emphasize the psycholinguistic aspect of genre description.
He thinks that Swales “underplays psychological factors, thus undermining the importance of
tactical aspects of genre construction, which play a significant role in the concept of genre as a
dynamic social process, as against a static one” (Bhatia. 1993 : 16). Bhatia suggests that these
psychological aspects involve individual rhetorical strategies used by the writer to achieve the
purpose of the genre. He divides strategies or what Swales calls ‘steps’ into discriminative and
non-discriminative strategies. According to Bhatia, non-discriminative strategies “do not change
the essential communicative purpose of the genre”, whereas discriminative strategies “tends to
vary the nature of the genre significantly” and “sometimes helps one to distinguish genres from
sub-genres within them” (Bhatia. 1993: 112).
In this conclusion, This mainly presented definitions of genre and concepts of genre
analysis in the filed of English for Specific Purposes, which best-known feature seems to be that
of Swales (1990). He focuses the notion of communicative purposes which was firstly proposed
by Tarones (1987). The communicative purpose is a way to distinguish genres. He also stresses
the notion of move and step as a way to observe the overall organizational structure of a text.
Specific genres are recalled by members of a specific discourse. In genre analysis, Bhatia (1993)
stresses the socio-cultural aspects in analyzing text discourse in order to understand how and why
genres are produced by members of a discourse community. He initiates using genre analysis in
other kinds of text than academic genres.


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Promotional Prints Typically Used in the Tourism Industry

The aim of this section is to offer some background knowledge concerning promotional
print particularly brochures used in the tourism industry. In this section, types and main functions
of promotional print, product offered in the print and similarities between advertisements and
promotional brochures are discussed in detail.
The first to be discussed in this section is types and main functions of promotional print
used in tourism. As shown in Appendix A, brochures used for promoting tourist attractions are
one of the promotional prints used in the tourism industry. Other types of promotional print
include tour operators’ brochures, historical brochures, hotel brochures and car rental brochures.
According to Middleton (1988 : 92), marketing print performs a wide range of function in
tourism. Promotional function is evident in various types of brochures such as those provided by
tour operators, which aim to stimulate customers and motivate them to buy. In the book
‘Marketing Tourism Places’, Ashworth and Goodall (1990 : 147) give a view supports that of
Middleton: they suggest that the purpose of tour operators’ brochures is not simple to inform but
to persuade potential customers to purchase. In other words, “their persuasive role is usually more
important than their informative one”.
In addition to the promotional function of brochures, Middleton (1988) suggests that
brochures can also perform a product substitute role in the racks of distribution outlets, such as
retail travel agents. The concept of the product in travel and tourism could be discussed in relation
to the view presented by Kotler (1984 quoted in Middleton. 1988 : 67). Kotler points out the
marketing managers should think about the product in three levels: the product does not include
only tangible formal products but on core product and augmented product. In tourism, tangible
product refers to the formal offer of the product. On the other hand, the core product in tourism
comprises the value or benefits that the visitors would obtain. According to Middleton, this value
or benefit could be expressed in the brochures in words and pictures to motivate readers to take
actions such as to visit the attraction or to buy a tour package. Examples of core product in the
example above are relaxation, rest and fun. The last type of product is augmented product, which
refers to the value added to tangible product offers to make them more attractive. Taking the same
example, souvenirs offered to visitors on arrival could be viewed as augmented product.


 11

In sum, the discussion above shows that the product offered by a tourist attraction and
included in the promotional brochures may involve both tangible product and intangible product
such as value or benefits which visitors would be obtained when visit the attraction.
The last issue to be discussed concerning promotional print is the view that brochures is
comparable to an advertisement. Middleton suggests that the role of brochures to “identify needs,
demonstrate in pictures and words the image and positioning of products and organizations, and
carry the key messages” could be viewed as acting “in the same way as advertising” (Middleton.
1988 : 99). A similar view is also given by Klein (1990 : 89). He particularly points out that “a
brochure is actually just a long ad in a slightly different format” (Klein. 1990 : 124).
Although a brochure tends to give more details of a product or service being promoted,
Klein (1990 : 89) suggests that the two texts are similar in many ways. First, he points out that an
advertising headline, carrying a powerful sales message is comparable to the cover of a brochure,
which must also do a strong selling job. The idea of Middleton (1988) and Maas (1980 as cited in
Middleton, 1988 : 79) tends to support this view. Middleton (1988) states that the appeal and
appearance of the front cover, especially of items displayed in self-service racks, are crucial in
attracting people to pick up and read the print items. Maas also offers a similar view:
The cover of brochure is just like the headline of a print advertisement: four out of five
people never get beyond it. For these readers, you must get your selling message across
on the page (or waste 80 per cent of your money).
(Maas, 1980 quoted in Middleton. 1988 : 179).
According to Klein (1990 : 89), another similarity between an advertisement and a
brochure is the use of photographs and drawing (particularly those on the cover of a brochure).
These graphics play an important role in identifying the product, its function, and the benefits that
the customers would gain from the product. In addition, like an advertisement, a brochure
generally contains details of major benefits or advantages of the product and a request for action.
In conclusion, the discussion above gives some background knowledge of the
promotional print particularly brochures used in tourism. Several points can be made from the


 12

discussion. First of all, promotional function seems to be a major function of promotional print
particularly brochures used in the tourism industry. In addition, a brochure can also perform a
product substitute role. The product promoted in the brochures may include not only tangible
product but also value or benefit that visitors would obtain from visiting the tourist attraction.
Finally, the role of the brochures could be viewed as being similar to that of advertising. The
cover page of a brochure is comparable to the headline of the print advertisement.

Tourist Text Analyzed in the ESP Genre Analysis

According to the words of the renowned genre pioneer, Vijay K. Bhatia, (1991 : 114)
says that sub-genres of promotional genres include advertisements of various kinds (e.g.
newspapers, magazine, or radio), company brochures of various types, and even certain types of
publicity brochures very often used by tourist organizations to promote places of tourist
attractions. The tourist brochure is composed with the same main communicative purpose to
promote places of tourist attraction and persuade readers to pay a visit. Therefore, the sub-genre
seems to have a number of shared characteristics, and many of them use overlapping linguistic
features in much the same way. In genre analysis, the tourist text has usually been studied in two
main aspects; move analysis, and linguistic features.

1. Move analysis
One of the competent analysis on move structure of tourist brochure is the study
conducted by Iborra and Garrido (2001 : 247). Following the pattern of moves by Swales (1990:
48), they investigated the moves in tourist brochures. The studied brochures were derived from
the Tourism Information Centres of the countries where English was the first language. In their
study, Iborra and Garrido (2001 : 213) divided the brochures into moves as follows:
Move 1: General description (Image of the destination, location, main
attractions, main historical events)
Move 2: Places to visit (Museums and art galleries, well-known buildings,
historic sites, Excursions to the surroundings, shopping centers)


 13

Move 3: Historical background (Important past events which took place in the
destination)
Move 4: Summary/Conclusion (A final call for visitors)
Move 5: How to get there (Means of transport, communication networks)
Move 6: For further information (Telephone or address to make enquires)
Move 7: Accommodation (Recommendation to stay in destination)
Move 8: Location within the area
Move 9: Landscape description of the area
Move 10: The newest attraction (Detailed explanation of one attraction in
particular)

Iborra and Garrido (2001 : 204) found that only move 1 and move 2 were obligation
moves because these moves appeared in all the brochures analyzed. They started that the order of
the moves had a great influence in achieving a communicative purpose. For example, in order to
get attraction from the readers, the ‘General description’ was always the first move. Move 2 could
come after it or was separated by other moves. They suggested that the order of the moves
depended on the relevance of the information within the whole text.
Another research on moves occurred in tourist text is that of Vimonnant (2003). She
investigated the genre of tourist brochures, focusing on those produced and distributed in the
United Stated of America. She conducted genre-based analysis of Swales (1990) on the tourist
brochures which were written in English only to identify the prototypical structure, position of
moves and prominent linguistic features of the brochures. The brochures used in her study were
gathered from travel agencies and car rental services in San Francisco in a month.
Boonchayaanant (2003 : 141) provided the moves and steps of the tourist brochure in the
following order of occurrence.
Move 1: Identifying the Attraction
Step 1: Stating the Name of the Attraction
And/or
Step 2 : Inviting Readers to visit


 14

Move 2: Attracting Readers

Step 1: Highlighting Outstanding Points
And/or
Step 2: Claiming Superiority
And/or
Step 3: Offering Main Things to See and Do
And/or
Step 4: Giving Locating Information
And/or
Step 5: Giving Information on Operation Time
And/or
Step 6: Giving Contact Information
Move 3: Describing the Attraction
Sub-move 1: Motivating Readers to Visit the Attraction
Step 1: Inviting Readers to Visit
And/or
Step 2: Claiming Outstanding Characteristics
And/or
Step 3: Claiming a Shot Distance to the Attraction
Sub-move2: Describing Things to See and Do
Sub-move3: Describing Background/ History
Move 4: Giving Visitor Information
Move 5: Giving Contact Information
Move 6: Giving Other Information

Boonchayaanant (2003 : 153) observed that all of the moves were found in this sequence
respectively. According to the study, moves 1-5 were the prototypical moves of the genre of
tourist brochures produced in the U.S. These five moves reflected the same communicative
purpose of the tourist brochures, which was not only to give information about tourist attractions,
but also to persuade readers to visit the places. The main communicative purpose of the genre in


 15

this study was persuasive which was in sharp contrast to that main purpose proposed by Iborra
and Garrido (2001 : 198). They points out that the informative descriptive communicative purpose
was the writer’s first intention, in communicating with the reader while the persuasive purpose is
delayed.

Similar to move1 “General Description” of Iborra and Garrido, the moves on the cover
page found by Boonchayaanant (2003 : 137) were identifying the attraction and attracting readers
that served an evident persuasive communicative purpose. Move 3, which was the highlight part
of this study, gave details of the attraction to persuade readers to visit them. She pointed out that
move 2 and move 3 seem to share the same step to motivate readers’ interest. The giving visiting
information and the giving contact information moves mainly objected to give readers information
and were written in a persuasive style.

Henry and Roseberry (1996 : 111) investigate on the genre “Brief Tourist Information”.
The corpus of their study comprises English-written texts from airline magazines, newspapers,
tourist information brochures, and guidebooks throughout the world. They investigate the move
structure of the genre and lexical-grammatical features in achieving each move. The move
structure they have found is as follows:
Move1: Motivation (emotional enticement to visit a place)
Move2: Identification (name of place)
Move3: Location (where it is)
Move4: Explanation (what is it)
Move5: Short history (brief historical background)
Move6: Description (what it contains that makes it an example of its kind)
Move7: facilities/ Activities (conveniences, not part of “description)
Move8: Direction (how to get there)


 16

In the study, they reveal that these moves tend to be found in the foregoing order. The
moves “Identifications”, “Location”, “Description”, and “Facilities/ Activities” are generally
obligatory moves of the genre.
The findings of moves in Henry and Roseberry’ study seem to shares similarity with the
moves of tourist texts provided by Iborra and Garrido (2001 : 245) and Boonchayaanant (2003 :
141). The move “Identification” of Henny and Roseberry, the move “General description” of
Iborra and Garrido (2001 : 198), and the move “Identifying the tourist attraction” of
Boonchayaanant (2003 : 153) are realized by stating the name of the attraction. According to
Iborra and Garrido (2001 : 198), this move functions as an attention call to the reader, giving an
attractive image of the destination as a whole. Like other moves in the genre of tourist brochures,
the other moves of the genre “Brief Tourist Information Text” give information of a tourist
attraction such as historical background and direction to go to the sites.

2. Linguistic features in tourist texts

As Bhatia (1993 : 147) recommends that an analysis of lexico-grammatical features is

regarded as a component in linguistic analysis of genres because the findings at this level can
reveal specific linguistic features which are considered a nomenclature in naming texts as sub-
genres of the same genre. From the studies of Iborra and Garrido (2001 : 213). According to
Boonchayaanant (2003 : 137) and Henry and Roseberry (1996 : 141), there are certain similarities
of linguistic features among the three types of texts. Nonetheless, Henry and Roseberry (1996 :
111) focus on investigating the language of each of the three major moves, their study reveals
other competent linguistic features in this genre. In this regards, the similar linguistic features
among the three studies will be reviewed and the results of other linguistic features by Henry and
Roseberry (1966 : 112) will be mentioned next.

Among these studies, pronouns, and imperatives are revealed as prominent linguistic
features of the tourist texts.
Regarding pronouns used in tourist text, this feature seems to convey the specific
meaning in persuading tourists to visit the tourist site. In the study of Henry and Roseberry (1996 :
111), “you” is used in addressing the reader to create a friendly personal tone. Iborra and Garrido


 17

(2001 : 213) found that the most frequently used possessive pronoun was “its”, whereas the
mostly used personal pronoun was “you” which used as a cohesive device functioned as a direct
formula to address the reader and to attract the visitor’s interest. In 2003, Boonchayaanant also
found that the pronouns “you”, “your”, “we” and “our” were generally used in the tourist
brochures. Her finding supports the interpretation of the use of pronoun by Iborra and Garrido
(2001 : 245) that the pronoun “you” was used to address the reader, while “we” generally referred
to the tourist organization. Additionally, the use of “you” was remarked as an attempt to attract
the reader’s interest.
The finding of pronouns in the three studies is agreed with the function of the pronouns in
advertisements. The functions of pronouns in advertising are explained that the first and the
second personal pronouns are used as personal preferences in advertising language. The first
personal pronouns “I” and “we” and the corresponding (“me”, “my”, “mine”, “us”, “our” and
“ours”) refer to the advertiser and the manufacturer respectively (Leech, 1966; Cook, 1992 and
Palmer, 1999). These frequent uses of pronouns are motives leading to the purchase of the product
(Cook, 1992 : 203), whereas Fuertes-Olives et al. (2000 : 41) has suggested that “he”, “she”, “it”
and “they” imply shared knowledge among participants in the communicative event in referring to
someone known to the reader, either through the ads, or known as part of the reader’s lift but they
are not significant enough to be stressed as major linguistic feature in advertising (Myer, 1994 and
Plamer, 1999).
In terms of modalities, Henry and Roseberry (1996 : 128) found that the modal verb
“can” and “will” are used in the location move. In Iborra and Garrido’s study, the modal verb is
one of the distinguished features of this particular genre. “Can” is commonly found in each
brochure to indicate possibilities that the destination offers the visitors while the modal “should”
represents three functions: recommendation, obligation, and as part of the conditional clause.
These aspects on modal verbs are supported by the explanation provided by Boonchayaanant
(2003 : 153) that “can” and “will” appear frequently in the texts with the pronoun “you”. She has
described that this occurrence is used to indicate value or benefit which the visitors would obtain
if they visit the attraction. The modal verbs in tourist texts conveys the same meaning of these in
advertisements. “will” and “can” are used to show promise and opportunity. Additionally, the
function of “will” in the contracted from (’ll) is used to favor an informal style or to establish


 18

personalized contact with the reader (Alder, 1998, cited Thompson, 2005). Leech has found that
“will” or “ ’ll” always appeared with the “you” personal pronoun in the independent clause
preceding with the conditional clause, for example, “If you suffer from indigestion, this is
something you’ll want to know.” While “will” expresses promising and opportunity, can is also
used to inform the consumers the possibilities or the benefits the product offers. Similar to “will”,
when this auxiliary verb is found with “you”, it is a common device to convince the reader that the
offered product can give them power or ability to do something.
Imperative is another common linguistic features found in the tourist texts. “Take”,
“find”, are imperative verbs found in Henry and Roseberry (1996 : 111). These are frequently
found in the move “Facilities/ Activities”. Iborra and Garrido (2001: 213) reveal that in tourism
context, the imperative found in the tourism context, the imperative found in the tourist brochure
mainly functions as a device to encourage directly the reader to visit a place of particular interest.
It is not primarily to be commands in the usual sense. The writer’s choice of imperatives can be
seen as projecting the reader into the scenery, constructing as if the reader was traveling through it
(Yan, 1998 cited Thompson, 2005 : 97). In the study of Boonchayaanant (2003 : 141), the
imperative form is found as one of the prominent linguistic features in advertising. She found
several verbs in imperative form but there is the only one verb “enjoy” could be found in
imperatives and after the modals “will” and “can”. She has also added some verbs that may be
found in advertising such as “come”, “see” and “experience”. In her study, “come” and
“experience” usually appear in imperatives while “see” is often found in imperatives and the
infinitive form.

English in the Brochure Produced in Thailand

The two main aspects which are presented in this section have the purpose to provide
some background knowledge on how the English language is deployed in the brochure used in the
tourism industry in Thailand. The style of the language used in persuading tourists is firstly
illustrated and the distinctive linguistic features are discussed later on.
In 1995, Pitchsinee (1995: 125) carried out small-scale analysis of tourist brochures in
English published in Thailand which were distributed to foreign visitors. She focused especially


 19

on the ways that the writers used the language in persuasive communication with their readers.
One of the aspects that she noted related to the use of the rational and emotional language. In her
study, emotional language was used heavily to appeal to tourists through the use of metaphor
because, as she mentioned, it attracted and directed the readers to create a vivid imagination as the
writer intends.
The following were typical example:
- Tropical Island paradise.
- Hidden Shangri-la.
- You can delight in a latter-day Robinson Crusoe experience.
Pitchsinee explained that the words such as paradise or Shangri-la influenced the readers’
emotion that the places were ideal and fantastic like heaven. The readers could imagine the
experience and happiness they would receive when visiting the places.
According to Pitchsinee (1995 : 128), adjectives were another linguistic choice found
functioning as metaphors to make the readers achieve the same emotion and visualization of the
scenery described in the brochures. These adjectives provided such a great impact on the readers’
emotions that no other words could be replaced. Notwithstanding, how far the readers could
acquiesce what the writers describe depended on each person’s experience. Some examples are
shown in the following:

- Exotic temple.
- A dozen spectacular beach.
- Most fascinating regions.
- Refreshing drink.
- Exhilaratingly crisp mountain scenery.
- Enchanting sunset.
- One of the joys of Phuket is the pure delight of escaping the city and lazing in the sun.

Poonlappanich (2001 : 351) compiled an annotated computer-based corpus of twenty

leading hotels brochures in Thailand. She analyzed them from various perspectives, concentrating
on the use of style of English in brochure writing. Taniya examined particularly the vocabulary


 20

items used in advertisements, the grammatical structures of the sentences, and the locations and
style of themes in the brochures. Drawing on Taniya’s discussion, one of the prominent lexical
features in English brochures was “you”, the second pronoun in addressing the readers. She found
that “you” and “your” were the only second personal and possessive pronouns used in her
collected hotel brochures.
At the same time, the English hotel brochures tended to have lots of fragments because
they were usually short and memorable. She explained that copywriters usually file most
information in the brochures as fragments. These fragments were pulled back to the top of the
readers’ mind by the use of cues, which were certain words or visuals that would elicit previously
learned information (Moriarty, 1991 quoted in Taniya, 2001 : 69)
AntConc. is a UNICODE compliant freeware concordance program for Windows, Mac
OS X, and Linux systems developed by Laurence Anthony of Waseda University, Japan. AntConc
can generate KWIC concordance lines and concordance distribution plots. It also has tools to
analyze word clusters (lexical bundles), collocation, word frequencies, and keywords.

Related Research

Titiporn Phongsuwan (2009) investigated the genre analysis of serviced apartments in

Bangkok, focusing on twenty-nine homepages were purposively selected as a corpus from 3
accommodation directories which drawn up from 2 international search engines. The homepages
were analyzed using the framework of move analysis of Bhatia (1993). Communicative purposes
of each move were determined. In addition, a computerized concordancing program was used to
identify and analyze prominent linguistic features of move 3 ‘Introducing the Apartment’.
The results show that the homepages analyzed contain five prototypical moves: 1)
‘Identifying the apartment’; 2) ‘Introducing the apartment’; 3) ‘Calling for action’; 4) ‘Giving
contact information’; 5) ‘Giving information’. The personal pronoun ‘your’, the modal verb ‘can’,
the adjective ‘services’, the imperative ‘contact us’ and complex noun phases are prominently
used the text.
Chayanin Charoenchasri (2007) investigated the genre analysis of newsgroup movie
reviews on [Link], focusing on twenty-five movie reviews currently written and upload


 21

in the IMDB domain are selected and analyzed. Further, in order to explore the use of words in
the examined movie reviews, AntConc 3.1 .303, A Freeware Corpus Analysis Toolkit recently
developed by Laurence Anthony (2006), School of Science and Engineering, Wasade University,
is then applied to investigate lexical features.
The results derived from the application of the move analysis, one of the qualitative
methods used to analyze text-genres, reveal that movie reviews on the IMDB domain have 5 main
move; ‘Move 1: Introducing the Movie’; ‘Move 2: Describing the Movie’s Storyline’; ‘Move 3:
Providing Comments’; ‘Move 4: Concluding the Review’; and ‘Move 5: Offering Other
Information’. Though there are five main prototypical moves found in the examined movie
reviews, the results revealed that the positions of the moves are interchangeable and the most
frequently found pattern of move order is move 1 move 3 move 4 move 5, which is
28%. In terms of analyzing lexical features, the typically found thematic discourse markers and
the general lexical categories most frequently used in the corpus of 25 movie reviews are also
found.
Tichakon Klankanna (2007) investigated the genre of hotel homepages, focusing on 50
Thai-hotel website accessed between 1-30 April 2006. Only the homepage of each website was
taken for the analysis. The lexical features realizing a particular move were investigated by using
the computer software, Oxford WordSmith Tools 4.0.
A prototypical move structure and linguistic regularities used in particular moves of hotel
homepages are found. The prototypical move structure consists of 4 moves: 1) ‘Attracting
Attention; 2) Establishing the Offer; 3) Introducing the Offer
4) Soliciting Response. Each move comprises various steps which help to accomplish the
communicative purpose of the moves. The linguistic features frequently found are: Noun Phase in
move 1 to identify the products, Adjectives in move 2 and move 3 describe and evaluate facilities
and services, Superlatives in move 2 to claim superiority, and Imperatives in move 4 to call for
action. Picture, which represent various communicative purpose appear in moves 1, 2 and 3.
Iborra and Garrido (2001) investigated the genre of tourist brochures, focusing on those
found in the Tourist Information Centers of the countries where English is the first languages.
From their findings, they have proposed a model for writing tourist brochures as follows:


 22

Move  : General Description (main characteristics of the place)

Move  : Places to Visit (attractions that the destination offers)
Move  : Summary / Conclusion (A final call for visitors)
Move  : How to Get There (Means of transport, communication networks)
Move  : For Further Information (Telephone or addresses to mark enquires)

In terms of linguistic features, although Iborra and Garrido () have found that the
most frequently used pronoun in the brochures is ‘its’, ‘you’ is the second most common pronoun.
The use of ‘you’ is a direct way to the reader, attempting to attract the reader’s interest (Gonzales,
 as cited in Iborra and Garrido, ). Iborra and Garrido’s study also reveals that there is a
connection between the personal pronoun ‘you’ and modals in the studied brochures. They have
also found that modal verbs (e.g. ‘can’ and ‘will’) and the pronoun ‘you’ are used to indicate
possibilities that the destination offers the visitor and to attract the visitor’s interest, respectively.
In addition, Iborra and Garrido have also found that the most common verbal tense is the simple
present, followed by the simple past. Iborra and Garrido explain this in relation to the content and
communicative purpose of the brochures, which aim to describe tourist attractions and
characteristics of the past of each place. Furthermore, Iborra and Garrido point out that
imperatives found in the tourist brochures investigated mainly function as a device to encourage
directly the reader to visit a place of particular interest and that the use of imperatives and ‘will’
present more direct language in addressing the reader.
According to Iborra and Garrido (), the analysis of adjectives also reveals that
qualitative adjectives account for a much smaller group than nouns; thus content and information
seems to be important in the studied texts. Iborra and Garrido () note that the adjectives
describing age, size or origin seen to appear in greater number than those expressing subjective
opinion. They have also found that few superlatives are found in the studied brochures. Therefore,
they suggest that the lexico-grammatical features of the tourist brochure tend to point to the
informative descriptive communicative purpose as the main one and the persuasive promotional
purpose as a secondary one.
Finally, Iborra and Garrido () have also found the frequent use of complex noun
phrases in the studied tourist texts. Ganzales ( as cited in Iborra and Garrido, ) suggests


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that “this particular linguistic feature seems to be usual in tourist texts” (Gonzalez,  as cited
in Iborra and Garrido, ). Concerning this issue, Iborra and Garrido () point out that the
use of complex noun phrases allows information to be added through pre-modification, thus
avoiding long descriptions in the texts.
Another research on tourist texts has been conducted by Henry and Roseberry ( ) on
the genre “Brief Tourist Information”. The corpus of the study comprises English-written texts
from airline magazines, newspapers, tourist information brochures, and guidebooks throughout
the world. They analyze the move structure of the genre and investigate linguistic features that
characterize each move or what they call “move register’. They have found the following moves:

Move  : ‘Motivation’ (emotional enticement to visit a place)

Move  : ‘Identification’ (name of place)
Move  : ‘Location’ (where it is)
Move  : ‘Explanation’ (what is it)
Move  : ‘Short History’ (brief historical background)
Move : ‘Description’ (what it contains that makes it an example of its kind)
Move
: ‘Facilities / Activities’ (conveniences, not part of ‘description’)
Move  : ‘Directions’ (how to get there)

Henry and Roseberry ( ) have found that these moves tend to appear in the above
order; and that the moves ‘Identification’, ‘Location’, ‘Description’, and analyzed the linguistic
features in the three obligatory moves of the genre. They have also analyzed the linguistic features
in the three obligatory moves: ‘Location’, ‘facilities / Activities’, and ‘Description’. They have
found all predominant use of the present simple tense and the active voice (except for a few verbs
such as ‘locate’, which tend to favor the passive).
In other aspects, Henry and Roseberry have found that the three move registers are quite
different from each other. For example, the move ‘Location’ frequently uses distance terms and
compass points but contains no modalities or idioms. In addition, Henry and Roseberry state that
lexical phrase frames such as noun-static verbs (e.g. lie, locate, be, etc.) followed by the
prepositional phrase(s), as in ‘Damai Beach is about  km from Kuching’; present and past


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participle forms of static verbs with a prepositional phrase as in ‘Situated approximately halfway
between Sydney and Brisbane…’; and adverbial phrases of location without a verb, as in ‘Less
than 
km from Bander Seri Begawan, Muara Beach…’ are usually found in this move.
Henry and Roseberry ( ) have also found that the location move uses some idioms
and frequently uses imperative verbs, quantitative adjectives, the modalities ‘can’ and ‘will’, the
pronoun ‘you’ and ‘your’, possessives (as often used to attach to place names), and lexical phrase
frames. Henry and Roseberry ( ) particularly point out that ‘you’ is used in addressing the
reader to create a friendly personal tone. In addition, the analysis also reveals that three verbs (i.e.,
‘take’, ‘find’, and ‘enjoy’) are frequently used in the move ‘Facilities / Activities’. In the move
‘Facilities / Activities’, ‘location’, which is also one of the separate moves, is also found, realizing
primarily by the prepositions ‘at’, ‘in’, and ‘from’, and also by ‘where’ and ‘here’ and by the verb
‘located’.
Furthermore, Henry and Roseberry have found that the move ‘Description’ uses verbs
that express the notion of existences. This move infrequently uses modals but often uses
superlative adjectives, possessives (as used to attach to place names features). Finally, they have
found that in this move, the reader is generally addressed by ‘you’ and ‘your’.
When comparing the moves found by Henry and Roseberry ( ) and those found in
order research, it can be seen that the moves of the genre ‘Brief Tourist Information Text’ tend to
share some similarities with those found in the genre ‘Tourist Leaflet’ by Iborra and Garrido
() point out, move  ‘General Description’ of the genre ‘Tourist Leaflet’ act as an attention
call to the reader, giving and attractive image of the destination as a whole. Similarly, move  of
the genre ‘Brief Tourist Information Text’ functions as an attention call to the reader, motivating
the reader to visit a place. Like other moves in the genre ‘Tourist Leaflet’, the remaining moves of
the genre ‘Brief Tourist Information Text’ give information regarding a tourist attraction,
historical background, and directions of how to get to a place. There are also certain similarities in
terms of linguistic features among the three types of texts, which are the frequent use of personal
pronouns (especially ‘you’ and ‘your’), modal auxiliary verbs (e.g. ‘can’), present tense, and
active voice. Like Iborra and Garrido (), Henry and Roseberry ( ) have also found the use
of imperatives, superlatives and possessives in the genre ‘Brief Tourist Information Text’.


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Regarding the study of linguistic features, the study of Henry and Roseberry ( ) tends
to be different from the work of Iborra and Garrido () in that Henry and Roseberry
investigate a broader group of tourist texts, not particularly focusing on tourist brochures. In
addition, Iborra and Garrido () do not focus on investigating the linguistic features of each
move of tourist texts, whereas Henry and Roseberry ( ) in particular emphasize exploring the
language of each of the three major moves. One of the implications of Henry and Roseberry’s
work is that for the teaching and learning of the genre. They have found that different moves of
the genre contain quite different linguistic features, thus requiring different emphasis of teaching.
As Flowerdew () points out, “the analysis of a small specialized corpus, would be more
valuable in the teaching of ESP” (Flowerdew. ).
In all of the cases discussed earlier, the similarities of the research findings seem to
support the words of Bhatia that the fact that all these text are instances of promotional genres
would make them share characteristics and “use somewhat overlapping linguistic resources in
much the same way” (Bhatia.  :
). Examples of the linguistic features that have been
discussed earlier are modal verbs, personal pronouns, complex noun phrases and imperatives.
The following section discusses recent work on genre analysis focusing on the
investigation of organizational structure and linguistic features of some instances of promotional
genres. These studies include the research on sales promotion letters (Bhatia, ), and tourist
brochures and similar promotional texts (Henry and Roseberry,  ; and Ibarra and Garrido,
).
In this study of structural description of sales promotional letter, Bhatia () assigns
the following moves to the sales promotional letters:

Move  : Establishing credentials

Move  : Introducing the offer
: Offering the product service
: Essential detailing of the offer
: Indicating value of the offer
Move  : Offering incentives


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Move  : Enclosing documents

Move : Soliciting response
Move
: Using pressure tactics
Move  : Ending politely

The most famous study seems to be Swales pioneering work of the move structure of
research article introductions (Swales, ). Other research has also focused on move analysis of
academic genres such as sections of research articles (Hopkins and Dudley-Evans, ; Dudley-
Evans in Couthard,  and Holmes, 
), lecture introductions (Thompson, ). The main
implications of these studies have been for the teaching and learning of English used in academic
genres. As in many previous studies on academic texts, genre analysis mainly aims to prepare
teaching materials and provide a model for writer or learners of the genre of how to produce the
genre effectively, it would also be helpful to apple a genre-based approach to the analysis of
tourist brochures to provide the same pedagogic benefits.
As tourist brochures could also be regarded as sub-genre of promotional genres, it would
share some linguistic features with other instances of promotional genres (Bhatia,  :
).
Therefore, it would be useful to discuss some of the previous studies on other sub-genres of
promotional genres in addition to those on tourist brochures.
In conclusion, this chapter presents background knowledge related to the present study.
The first section, describes the genre and genre analysis, and the last on the language of
advertising. The second section describes the present research involves the analysis of tourist
brochure, which is a type of texts used in the tourism industry, some background knowledge
concerning promotional print used in this industry, the tourist brochures analyzed in the aspect of
the genre theory in ESP is presented to provide specific information which is related to this study.
The last section concern how English is used in brochures in Thailand, focusing on the brochure
used in the hospitality industry in order to identify the style and linguistic features in them. The
detail of methodology is to be discussed in the next chapter.