On the Basis of Generic Structure Potential

Reinvestigation of Editorial Genre:

On the Basis of Generic Structure Potential

Abstract

Editorial research has been developed since about 2005 by some professionals in the field such Scholar Ansary or Babaii because there are many following journals of editorials citing their previous development such as Fartousi and Dumanig (2012), Ansary and Babaii(2009) and so on. Out of the gap in the confirmatory developed by Ansary and Babaii (2005), the research attempts to apply their framework in the online editorials of China Post and the consequence manifests that their editorial GSP matches the consequence of the study, further confirming their research result; however, there are some limitations in the study: there are many other English editorials in non-English-speaking countries not researched yet, so if the future study can confirm the previous research results, then the reliability in the editorial GSP can be more stabilized to the extent of a principle-like theorem. Then, an editorial GSP slightly differs from the work of Ansary and Babaii (2005), id est, that of Fartousi and Dumanig (2012), but the most order or acronyms in Ansar and Babaii's (2005) editorial GSP is nearly the same; consequently, if the future study can make comparisons among editorial GSPs, the editorial GSP will be developed more completely and perfectly. For the pedagogical implication, the editorial GSP can be designed into a curriculum as an extra-curricular course or even an in-class one for students in the secondary or tertiary education in order to raise learning interest and the medium of communicating competence through absorbing and internalizing the editorial content as a subject or the discipline of in-class oral communication.

Introduction

In light of Ansary and Babaii (2005), during the past years, there has been much research in genre in and across many linguistic use domains; then, the concept, genre, has been a framework for the analysis of the form and rhetorical function such as

research articles, dissertations, editorials..., serving as a tool for developing educational practices in rhetoric, linguistics, composition studies, ESP, EAP, and so on

The interest in the research lies in the need to confirm a genre model that can be applied into non-English-as-L1 pedagogical environment, the one in Taiwan in order to discipline students' capability of understanding editorial genre to bolster their reading comprehension for the better effective communication competence. Therefore, based on such stance, it is expected that the editorial genre model may also be applied to the editorial genre in the online version of Taiwan editorial genres which will be discussed in the methodology.

For the research relative to the study theme, there is considerable. For instance, Anaray and Babii(2005) have formulated the editorial GSP on the online Washington editorials, which is the main base of the study. Next, Flowerdew and Dudley-Evans(2002) refer to their findings that they may contribute to the comprehension of the function and nature of letter editorials regardless of none generalization about it. Then, Katajamaki and Koskela(2006) studies rhetorical structure of editorials in English, Swedish, and Finnish business newspapers whose conclusion finds that when there is variation, it concerns two stages of the rhetorical structure, i.e. solution and moral, and that editorials in business newspapers seldom present any direct solutions for the critical issues discussed. Besides the aforementioned studies, Ansary and Babii(2009) report that an 'unmarked' English newspaper editorial, published either in Iran or Pakistan or the USA, typically consists of four obligatory and two optional generic rhetorical elements. Furthermore, Fartousi and Dumanig (2012) identify the rhetorical pattern of an English editorial titled 'the Hoodies of NWO' published on October 8, 2011 in the Tehran Times -the most read English daily newspaper- in Iran: RH ^ AI ^ (BI) ^ (IA) ^ A ^ (CR) ^ (AS): RH: Run-on Headline, CR: Concluding Remark, AS: Articulating a Solution.

In accordance with Ansary and Babaii (2005), they investigate the 30 editorials from online Washington Times in a perspective of SFL--Systemic Functional Linguistics--founded by Michael Halliday and creates a genre model for editorials; however, she expresses in the final textual page before the references that

There is a dearth of confirmatory research attempting to examine whether the identified generic patterns apply to other corpuses. To serve this line of investigation, then, it seems advisable to consolidate the findings of previous exploratory genre analyses, including the one reported here, through further research.

Therefore, the purpose of the paper is to reinvestigate the gap in the aforementioned journal by Ansary and Babaii (2005), The Generic Integrity of Newspaper Editorials: A Systemic Functional Perspective, on the basis of the work of them and the British linguist, M.A.K. Halliday. If the research successfully proves the fact the genre model with respect of editorials can be applied to the online Chinese Mandarin versions of editorial model, then, it will benefit the pedagogical domain and contribute the academic value concerning the development of the editorial genre format more completely and even fully to academic boundary.

Literature Review

This research is to reinvestigate if the editorial GSP developed by Ansary and Babaii (2005) and based on Halladian Systemic Functional Linguistics model of texts analysis, can be applied into that of online China Post in Taiwan and to be more specific and detailed, this study is check whether their GSP ( Generic Structural Potential) of English newspaper editorials can be applied into it. What relates to the concepts of the study theme are SFL, Systemic Functional Linguistics, GSP, Generic Structural Potential, and certain acronyms of a certain genre, say, editorial, exemplified later as follows. Accordingly, the study explores relevant research: First, there will be some relevant editorial works from different scholars; then GSP, is stated in detail and one real GSP of editorials listed below for illustration.

For SFL, it's a textual analytical tool or model or framework (Ansary and Babaii, 2005 & Hughes, 2009) set up by M.A.K. Hallidy and by Morley (1985), it states that SFL interprets language as a systematic network of meaning potential and that systems compose language.

For the GSP Hassan and Halliday develop it in 1989, and according to Ansary and Babaii(2005), a GSP of a genre is a condensed statement of a text (or a genre) in its CC (Contextual Configuration), and by Hassan(1984),