Jasmin Prieto 23 September, 2013 ENC 1102 Genre Analysis Within a Discourse Community In the times of Romeo and

Juliet, people would have to wait days for someone to deliver a message in person because that was the only way to communicate over a long distance. Now, the variety of forms used to communicate with one another are limitless and as instant as an email. Whether someone is trying to communicate with an acquaintance or a potential employer, that person needs to make a logical choice of which form of communication would be most proper in the respective situation. With that being said, members of discourse communities must find forms of communication that will best further their motives when communicating with members or outsiders; these forms are referred to as genres. When regarding genre, it is not the traditional view associated with sorting music and movies based on what genre they fall under (i.e. horror, comedy, romance, etc.). According to Amy J. Devitt, associate professor of English at the University of Kansas, she defines genre as a response to recurring rhetorical situation (Devitt, 576). To recapitulate, understanding genres help people generate appropriate responses or actions to repeating situations that will help meet the goals of the community, and in this paper I will be working with Devitts definition of genre. I choose to define the term in this way because I feel it has a good representation of what I will be comparing and contrasting in this paper. For instance, the Human Resource department and management of a hotel strive to provide a world-class guest service experience so look to hire people who have the same intentions. Because of this recurring situation that not only hotels,

but businesses all around experience, the job application was the response to this situation that helps the respective community achieve its goal. Thus, I will be observing three separate job applications for hotels, all referenced to in the appendixes, and comparing the types of appeals this specific genre has, how the structure of the genre is organized and highlights important sections in order to better uncover the real goals of this discourse community through forms of communication. Genres from different communities have different appeals pathos, ethos, and logos depending on the situation and the message being displayed. With job applications, this specific type of genre does not appeal to pathos, which is the emotional appeal. Hotel job applications do not have the intention to bring out any emotions, even though applicants with little to no experience or a criminal record might start to feel nervous or intimidated when prompted to answer questions about their past. Now ethos and logos, on the other hand, are more relevant in this genre. Ethos, the appeal to authority, appears when the applicant fills out the employment history and education sections, as you can note in the appendix A through C. This shows if the applicant is credible or not, depending on how qualified he or she may appear when answering those questions. All of these job applications that Ive been observing have been composed of fill-in-theblank inquiries, which of course exemplifies the logical appeal of logos. However, the amount of space in these inquiries varies from application to application, showing that certain hotels either want the applicant to get to the point or to elaborate a bit more. For instance, the job application for La Valencia Hotel in La Jolla (Appendix A) has minimal space next to each question, enough space to sufficiently answer the respective question. Conversely, Killashee House Hotel Employment Application Form (Appendix B) has a lot of blank space throughout the application,

calling for more detail. This shows that one hotel, or specific discourse community, only wants applicants to be straight to the point, whereas the other discourse community would like more details about the applicants in order to make proper judgments prior to the hiring process. As one can see, genres can show a lot about a community based on its visual layout and appeals of that community. The format of this genre is in a generic, straight to the point, job application. Appendix A and B both share the quality of being only two pages long with similar questions for the applicant to fill out. Appendix C shows a job application, however, that is four pages long with more room for employment history and an entire page dedicated to the applicant statement of honesty. For the most part, all of these applications are very similar in the sense that it starts off by asking for personal details (i.e. name, address, date of birth, etc.) and all ask for employment history. Going along with having a straight to the point format, each application organizes its information in sections (i.e. employment section, education section, etc.). It is quite obvious to see the differentiation between the sections because the titles or subtitles are either bolded or stand out in some way. The application in Appendix B uses tables to show the separate sections; on the contrary, Appendix C shows an application that all of the sections and questions flow throughout the genre without the sections being formally separated. The applications with the least amount of blank space (Appendix A and C) come off as more credible and official, giving the community a more professional appearance. In contrast, the Killashee House Hotel application seems like less time and effort was put into making that genre, possibly showing that this community is less concerned with the appearance of this written genre.

After careful observation and analysis, I noticed that this genre that these communities use helps sort through applicants who are better qualified or not at all, depending on the response of the applicants on the job application. This is useful for this discourse community because it helps the Human Resource department find the right people for the job that will help provide a good guest experience at the respective hotel. I can see this through the way the genres all ask for past experience in the hospitality industry and usually provide enough space for multiple past employments. Getting to understand genres in discourse communities gives readers more insight into what that community is really interested in.

Works Cited Devitt, Amy J. "Generalizing about Genre: New Conceptions of an Old Concept." College Composition and Communication. Vol. 44, No. 4. Dec. 1993. pp. 573-586. Print.

Appendix A

Appendix B

Appendix C