A Functional Interpretation of Company Brochures - from Context to Text

Abstract

A Functional Interpretation of Company Brochuresfrom Context to TextGenre analysis, or the study of functional variations of language, is an area of linguistics which has received considerable attention since its introduction in the 1960s.The description of genres has progressed from an identification of statistically significant linguistic properties (e.g.Halliday et al. 1964) through a concern with the rhetorical function of linguistic features (Selinker, Lackstrom & Trimble 1973), the organisation of texts (Widdowson 1973, Hoey 1979), and finally to a primary concern with the communicative purpose of genres (Martin 1985a, 1985b, Swales 1990, Bhatia 1993, Eggins 1994, Eggins & Martin 1997).Thus when trying to define and describe genres today, the identification of the purpose of a particular language variety is regarded as a useful place to begin.This thesis (Askehave 1998) presents an exemplary analysis of the purpose 1 of two instances of one particular genre -namely the company brochure.It is often maintained that the main purpose of company brochures is to describe various concrete aspects of a particular company (e.g. its production facilities, markets, employees, etc.).However, this thesis claims that these aspects merely account for the content of the brochures whereas the purpose of a company brochure is quite different.This thesis suggests that the purpose of a company brochure is to present the company as a qualified partner.In other words that manufacturers use their company brochures to demonstrate that they possess the qualities needed to enter into long-lasting trading relationships with potential customers.In order to look for support for this idea two dimensions of language use are considered; the cultural context in which company brochures are used and particular linguistic features of the company brochures.

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