Damrongmanee & Rojanaatichartasakul (2023), pp. 40-60
LEARN Journal: Vol. 16, No. 2 (2023) Page
First of all, a genre is a recognizable communicative phenomenon possessing a set of
communicative purposes generally understood by the members of a certain discourse or academic
community where it often occurs. The internal structure of the genre is dependent on the
communicative purposes. Therefore, any significant change in the communicative purposes gives
rise to a new genre.
Secondly, a genre is a highly structured and conventionalized communicative event. Those
expert members of a certain discourse community have both the knowledge of the structure of
the genre of the community they are in and the communicative goals of their community.
Thirdly, a genre has constraints on allowable contributions with regard to their intent,
positioning, form and functional value. This means that even though there is some freedom for
any professional members of a certain community to make use of any linguistic resources of their
community, they need to adhere to the standard practices of the genre. This is the reason why a
personal letter can be distinguished from a business letter or a news report from an art review.
Fourthly, these constraints are utilised by the experts in a certain discourse community to
achieve their aims within the framework of socially recognized purposes. It is clear that the insiders
of the community are likely to have greater knowledge of the structure, communicative purposes,
and rules than those who are the outsiders to the community.
For the past several decades, genre studies have gained interest among language scholars
and researchers. Genre-based teaching has been adopted as it has beneficial pedagogical
implications such as offering students writing models (Kay & Dudley-Evans, 1998), providing
teachers with resources to assist their students in writing relevant texts, and helping teachers to
give more informed feedback and teach more confidently (Hyland, 2004; Hyland, 2007).
Studies involving genre analysis and move analysis have previously been conducted in a
wide range of fields and disciplines such as business (e.g., Bhatia, 1993; Hiranburana, 1996),
accountancy (e.g., Flowerdew & Wan, 2010), legislation (e.g., Bhatia & Han, 2012), tourism (e.g,
Ahmed, 2015; Panseeta & Watson Todd, 2014), journalism (e.g., Bonyadi, 2012;
Rojanaatichartasakul & Phoocharoensil, 2022), social sciences (e.g., Holmes, 1997), sociology (e.g.,
Brett, 1994), biochemistry (e.g., Kanoksilapatham, 2005), medicine (e.g., Jirapanakorn, 2013;
Nwogu, 1997), engineering (e.g., Gao & Pramoolsook, 2023; Maswana et al., 2015) and computer
science (e.g., Posteguillo, 1999).
In comparison with other disciplines, texts in the art field have been less investigated. A
few studies have focused on art writings, for example, artist statements (Damrongmanee, 2016;
Hocking, 2021), online painting exhibition overviews (Işık, 2023), and single image accounts
(Swales, 2016). With the growth of museums, galleries and museum studies programs, texts about
artworks are worthy of investigation and there is real potential for ESP development (Swales,
2016).
The art review, the focus of this study, is an important genre within the art community and
has multiple communicative purposes. Barnet (2005) states that an art review should deepen and
enhance the readers’ understanding of art history as well as their appreciation of works of art.
According to the Writing & Learning Centre, OCAD University, as stated in their Writing Art
Reviews publication (n.d.), art reviews possess two primary aims. First, they provide details about
the artwork or exhibition to those unfamiliar with it so that they can decide whether or not to go
experience the artwork firsthand. Second, they provide a record and give criticism of the artwork
exhibited.
In addition, art reviews written by critics or artists belonging to an artistic discourse
community have one common goal; that is, to make artists and artworks known to the general
public and other experts in the same discourse community. To make them known to the general
public, reviews of art exhibitions in galleries and museums are disseminated via different channels,
such as newspapers and magazines (Cretiu, 2002; IESA Arts & Culture, n.d.).
Based on the existing literature, it can be concluded that the main communicative purposes
of the art review can be categorized into two main functions: to inform about the work in focus
and to evaluate it.