WORLDS OF WRITTEN DISCOURSE: A GENRE-BASED VIEW. Vijay K.
Bhatia. New York: Continuum, 2004. Pp. xvii + 228. $49.95 paper.
In this volume, Bhatia discusses multiple aspects of written discourse
as produced in the real world by focusing not just on academic genres but
on genres from professional and institutional contexts as well. His
consideration of disciplinary variation in genres, relationships across
genres, appropriation of generic resources as seen in hybrid genres, and
the nature of generic integrity has led to an extension of genre theory
not “constrained by the nature and design of its applications”
(p. xiv) that is discussed here. In addition to this development of genre
theory, this well-crafted volume provides a multiperspective,
multidimensional model of genre analysis.