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Name of the University

Genre/Register Analysis
For
Professional and Personal Email Text Types
Student Name
Student ID
Course Title
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction 3
2. Situational Analysis 3
Situational Variables 4
3. Analysis 5
Features of Cohesion and Coherence 5
Hypothesis 7
Noun/Pronoun Count 8
Register/Genre Feature Ratio 8
Normalise Ratio 8
Summary of Counted Features 9
4. Discussion of Findings 10
Register Difference 10
Situational Analysis 10
5. Conclusion 11
Appendix 1: Sample 1 Professional Email 13
Appendix 2: Sample 2 Personal Email 15
Appendix 3: Noun and Pronoun Count 17
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1. Introduction
Language is an important concept through which communication with others is possible.
Written text is another form of language that has three varieties such as genre, register, and style
(Biber & Conrad, 2019, p. 2). Therefore, the purpose of this report is to perform register/genre
analysis for written text and contrasting features. The theoretical framework is based on personal
email compared and contrasted with professional email.
Email communication is used as a theoretical framework to understand written and
analyze text used for personal and professional language. The e-mail is classified into four
genres - discussion for describing issues; inquiry on people making a request; delivery for
sending documents and informing for something (AlAfnan, 2017, p. 24). Hence, to analyze the
theoretical framework, it is necessary to put emails into categories. Whereas, business email
focus on sending information, persuading, negotiating and collaborating (AlAfnan, 2015, p. 2).
After analyzing the genre for email communication, professional email has two genres such as
discussion and persuading arguments whereas personal email informing genres. Text variety for
email theoretical framework has field personal and business field, written mode and tenor
involved are friends and professional colleagues. Further, an in-depth genre/register for the
theoretical framework is provided in the report.
These forms of text types are selected to analyze the language in personal and
professional lives. Usually, talking to a friend has a different writing style, language, and flow,
for example, we speak with someone personally in an informal tone. On the other hand, a
professional way of speaking, writing, and communication has a formal tone. Hence, the purpose
is to compare how both texts differ from each other in terms of discourse analysis. Furthermore,
it will help to understand how language differs from each other as per the communication
medium. Therefore, this report will compare/contrast personal and professional email text types.

2. Situational Analysis
Before going towards situational analysis for sample texts, it is necessary to consider two
concepts. Genre refers to the property of a text which identifies the sequence of moves that
complete the purpose of writing (Nodoushan, 2011, p. 63). While register determines how
context is adjusted as per different situations (Kolata, 2010, p.54). The context analysis for text
types is done on the concept of genre and register. Hence, seven variables are proposed through
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which sample texts are investigated. The variables are participants, relations among participants,
channel, production circumstances, setting, communicative purposes and topics (Biber, &
Conrad, 2019, p. 40). The situational analysis is done to understand how text is used as per the
situation. In the sample text 1, professional email was written to persuade the receiver for an
offer within an organization. Whereas, in the sample text 2, personal email was written to
describe the personal incident that happened with the sender. Hence, the variables are useful to
analyze the text in terms of their situations. The situational analysis as per the variables is
presented in the table below.
Situational Variables
For Sample Text 1: Professional Email

Situational Variables Analysis

I. Participants participants: sender, receiver

Mr. Serling, Susan Parkar
addressor: Single, Social Characteristics:
Susan Parkar, Corporate Client Relations
addresses: Company

II. Relationships interactiveness

III. Channel writing mode, email medium

IV. Production Circumstances planned

V. Setting The public setting, contemporary timings

VI. Purpose persuade

VII. Topic Business opportunities, relationships with

other people

For Sample Text 2: Personal Email

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Situational Variables Analysis

I. Participants participants: sender and receiver from an

email attachment. John, Bill
addressor: Single, Social Characteristics: Bill,
working at Omega, bought a new car, sports,
trekking
addresses: self

II. Relationships A personal relationship is between John and

Bill. Shared Knowledge

III. Channel writing mode, email medium

IV. Production Circumstances Real-time

V. Setting Private place, contemporary timings

VI. Purpose narrate

VII. Topic Daily activities, sports, buying new things,

trekking, funny incidents

3. Analysis
The analysis below defines cohesion, coherence, hypothesis for linguistic items,
noun/pronoun count, ratio and summary. This analysis defines text types and how grammar for
writing is implemented in both emails differently.
Features of Cohesion and Coherence
Cohesion and Coherence are the linguistics terms that are part of discourse analysis.
Before analyzing the sample texts, it is essential to gather how they work in the writing.
Cohesion refers to relations of meaning which is present in the text and that define it as a text
(Wang & Guo, 2014, p.462). For example, cohesion provides connectivity within sentences and
combine them as a whole. There are several categories of cohesion used in the form of linguistic
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terms. Some examples include pronominal, comparative, causal, adversative, ellipsis, and
substitution (Wang & Guo, 2014, p.463). Whereas, coherence refers to an idea that makes
everything in writing meaningful not through words however with a reader who interprets the
text. Furthermore, there are three elements that are present in coherence such as connectedness,
consistency, and relevance (Wang & Guo, 2014, p.464). The sentences in the text should be
connected with each other, must have a consistent flow, and should be relevant to one topic.
Hence, cohesion and coherence are both important linguistics terms and used in the text types
often.
Let’s take examples from sample text 1 and sample text 2 to understand the use of cohesion and
coherence.
Sample Text 1: Professional email:
● Cohesion is used to connect the qualities of the writer within a causal manner.
Excerpt: “I feel I am a natural in sales and marketing because I think on my feet, am
open-minded in negotiation, have excellent communication skills, and know our
product/service.”
● Coherence is used to show the idea presented by the writer Susan Parkar to Mr. Serling.
In this paragraph, she talks about one idea of marketing and connects sentences with that
topic only.
Excerpt: “What interested me about your marketing philosophy is that it seems to support
our experience, but I would like to know more about how to improve my/our attempts to
improve customer relations/service…”
Sample Text 2: Personal email:
● Pronominal cohesion is used to refer to a third person with Bill and John.
Excerpt: “Do you remember how drunk he was on Saturday? You had to take him back
and put him to bed.”
● Coherence with all three elements such as connectedness, consistency, and relevance in
each paragraph is seen. Here, Bill explains the trekking experience and each sentence and
paragraph is connected to one idea in the text.
Excerpt: “A funny thing happened to me and Julia when we were in trekking in Wales
about 2 months ago. We were walking up Snowden when it suddenly started to snow. I
thought that it wouldn't last for long, so we continued going up. But it did…”
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Hypothesis
Linguistic items can be seen in both the sample text used in the report for email
communication. They often consist of vocabulary, sounds and other linguistic features in the
writing. Some of the examples for linguistic items are described below that demonstrate for
sample texts.
Sample Text 1: Professional email excerpt
In the professional email excerpt, lexico-grammatical features such as nouns, pronouns,
coordination, and verbs can be seen. For example, words like you, I, but, Gina Jefferson, and, left
are used in the writing. Secondly, theme-rheme organization is also used in this text type where
the theme is the central point and based on a rheme pattern (Dejica-Cartis, & Cozma, 2013). The
paragraph has a theme of discussion related to some ideas and based on an interest rheme.
Furthermore, Cataphoric and Anaphoric references are also provided in the sample text types.
Here ‘you’ is a cataphoric reference that addresses the receiver Mr. Serling in the future.
Whereas, an anaphoric reference that addresses first Gina Jefferson and then uses ‘who’ next in
the writing.

Sample Text 2: Personal email excerpt

In the personal email excerpt, lexico-grammatical features are seen in which nouns,
pronouns, and connecting words are present. Some examples of vocabulary are I, you, Omega,
but, and, left, working. Here theme-rheme organization is present however in informal language.
For example, Bill talks about his personal experiences and other incidents which is theme
whereas rheme is talking about those experiences, sports, funny incidents and other personal
casual stuff. Cataphoric and Anaphoric references are also provided in the sample text type 2.
Here ‘you’ is a cataphoric reference that addresses the receiver John in the future. Whereas, an
anaphoric reference that addresses first ‘you’ for whether working in the company and then uses
‘you’ next for changing. Therefore, linguistics terms are used in the text type 2 in the personal
email step.
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Noun/Pronoun Count
Noun and pronoun come under linguistic features and seen used in the theoretical
framework of email. The noun is defined as a group of person, place or thing, whereas; pronouns
are words that replace a noun in a sentence. The first sample text is written in the form of a
professional language and uses a business form of writing. On the other hand, the second sample
text is written in the form of informal language and considered a private email. However, it can
be seen that nouns and pronouns are used in both text types. In sample 1: professional email
there are 19 nouns and 45 pronouns while sample 2: personal email contains 31 nouns and 62
pronouns for replacing those nouns (Appendix 3). Additionally, sample 1 uses an orange color to
demonstrate the use of noun and sample 2 uses yellow. For pronoun sample 1 and sample 2 both
have a blue color circle to show the usage.
Register/Genre Feature Ratio
The register/genre feature ratio is defined as the ratio of feature to the total number of words in a
text.
● Sample Text 1: Professional email
Total Number of Words: 402
Total Number of register/genre features of noun and pronoun is 64 words.
Ratio = 64/402 = 0.15 = 15/100
● Sample Text 2: Personal email
Total Number of Words: 565
Total Number of register/genre features of noun and pronoun is 93
Ratio = 93/565 = 0.16 = 16/100
Normalise Ratio
The normalised ratio for 100 words for sample text 1 and sample text 2 is done below.
● Sample Text 1: First paragraph
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There are 5 pronouns for 35 words used.

5/35 x 100 = 14.2 words per 100 words
There are 3 nouns for 35 words used.
3/35 x 100 = 8.5 words per 100 words
● Sample Text 2: Fourth paragraph

There are 8 pronouns for 61 words.

8/61 x 100 = 13.1 words per 100 words
There are 3 nouns for 61 words.
3/61 x 100 = 4.9 words per 100 words.
Summary of Counted Features

Features Name Sample Text 1: Professional Sample Text 2: Personal

Email Email

Noun Nineteen Thirty-one

Pronoun Forty-five Sixty-two

Register/Genre Feature 15/100 16/100

Ratio

Normalise Ratio 14.2 words and 8.5 words 13.1 words and 4.9 words
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4. Discussion of Findings
Register Difference
The assumptions for register differences are made in the analysis section. The cohesion
and coherence are often used in both sample text types. As the mode of communication was e-
mail, the use of both can be seen equally. However, in personal email cohesion is present more
and coherence is found less. The formal mail talks about one concept in whole paragraphs and
structure. However, informal or personal mail does have more cohesion and more coherence. As
the discussion is about personal experiences, as many topics are included. Furthermore, linguistic
features such as lexico-grammar were used to analyze the differences. The purpose was fulfilled
because both writings differ from each other. The use of noun and pronouns are more effectively
seen. However, the use of the pronoun in the personal language is more as compared to the
professional setting. Hence, register differences were found in the text types. Similarly, micro-
genre is also deduced in both text types. For example, the first sample has arguments to persuade
the reader and the second sample has descriptive features to share incidents and personal
changes. Thus, the aim of this report is accomplished as huge register/genre differences were
identified for a theoretical framework.
Situational Analysis
The linguistic features differ from each other in the sample text type 1 and sample text
type 2. The situational variables have identified the difference between writing in a professional
setup and personal setup. The register differences can be seen with the help of seven situational
variables. In the sample text type 1, it is clear that Susan Parker is the sender participant and Mr.
Serling is receiver participant. She explains her professional experience, job position, and other
educational qualifications. On the contrary, sample text 2, Bill is the sender and John is a
receiver and they are friends with each other. Further, he talks about the profession, changing
jobs and personal experience of trekking. Hence, linguistic features differ from each other due to
interaction, tone, medium, purpose, and circumstances. The idea of analyzing situations with
variables is quite effective. For instance, the purpose of writing in business is to persuade the
audience however in personal life is to discuss each other’s experiences. This is an effective
example of using situational variables in text types. Furthermore, identification of text types and
their approaches in different settings can be understood. Henceforth, situational variables such as
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participants, relationships, mode, medium, circumstance, setting, purpose and topic present
differences for the theoretical framework. Additionally, sample text types have been immediately
contrasted through these situational variables.

5. Conclusion
The genre/register analysis is an important aspect to understand text variety. The
theoretical concept was based on email communication text types in professional and personal
lives. Furthermore, in this project situational variables were used to analyze situations in sample
text types. According to Biber’s variables for the situation are participants, relations among
participants, channel, production circumstances, setting, communicative purposes, and topics.
The linguistic items are also used to analyze and gather how writing for both texts differs. For
instance, in personal email text is written in an informal way whereas, professional email has
formal language. It has been also identified that lexico-grammatical features, theme rheme
organization, and cataphoric and Anaphoric references are used in both text types. Furthermore,
the noun/pronoun count defines how much they are used in both text types. Hence, linguistic
terms for text types have defined how writing style is different in email communication. The
email has a different variety and text changes as per the backdrop.
The analysis of text variety is an important part to gather how linguistics is composed of
many features. however, the genre and register analysis can be expanded to understand corpora
linguistics in business writing. Additionally, business writing differs from another genre and has
a different approach used. Four text types of different business writing such as memos, reports,
letters, and articles could be used. Therefore, a mini-project could be expanded into full research
for analyzing corpora linguistics for business writing.
The study offers identification for text variety within text types based on genre, register,
and style. However, the analysis of text types has its own limitations within context of this
theoretical framework. For example, the procedure for choosing email communication text is a
bit difficult due to multiple applications. The communication in the form of email is used for
many purposes such as description, information, sending, receiving. Therefore, the identification
of the exact purpose is one limitation to the study.
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References
AlAfnan, M. A. (2017). Critical Perspective to Genre Analysis: Intertextuality and
Interdiscursivity in Electronic Mail Communication. Advances in Journalism and
Communication, 5(01), 23-49.
AlAfnan, M. A. (2015). Language use in computer-mediated communication: An investigation
into the genre of workplace emails. International Journal of Education and Literacy
Studies, 3(1), 1-11.
Biber, D., & Conrad, S. (2019). Register, genre, and style. Cambridge University Press.
Clayton, C. How to write an email to a friend you haven't contacted in a long time exercise |
Blair English. Retrieved 15 November 2019, from
http://www.blairenglish.com/exercises/emails/exercises/how-to-write-email-friend-
long-time/how-to-write-email-friend-long-time.html
Dejica-Cartis, D., & Cozma, M. (2013). Using Theme-Rheme analysis for improving coherence
and cohesion in target-texts: a methodological approach. Procedia-Social and
Behavioral Sciences, 84, 890-894.
Kołata, J. (2010). The reformulation of genre and register analysis. Styles of Communication,
2(1). 50-74.
Nodoushan, M. A. S. (2011). The Place of Genre Analysis in International Communication.
Online Submission, 5(1), 63-74.
Serling, B. (2006). How to Market Your Way to a Million Dollar Professional Service Practice
(p. 183). Blaine: The Internet Marketing Centre.
Wang, Y., & Guo, M. (2014). A short analysis of discourse coherence. Journal of Language
Teaching and Research, 5(2), 460-465
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Appendix
Appendix 1: Sample 1 Professional Email

Source (Serling, 2006)

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Genre Analysis
Sender Greeting
Salutation
Argument:
● Purpose: The purpose of this email to persuade a prospect for a marketing consultancy.
● Schematic Structure
1. Claim: The claim is made in the first paragraph where the writer explores why he is
approaching and what he will talk about in the email.
2. Argument A: he argues that they require someone for advertising.
3. Evidence 1: Provide credibility to the company and where there are so many
relationships.
4. Argument B: he persuades the reader for having better opportunities.
5. Evidence 2: Provide his own personal experience as evidence for marketing.
6. Position: Takes position to the original point.
Body of Email
Signoff
Signature
Sender’s Name
Formal Language
Genre: Micro
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Appendix 2: Sample 2 Personal Email

Source (Clayton, n.d.)

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Genre Analysis
Sender Name and Greeting
Informal Language
Genre: Micro
Narratives
● Purpose: The purpose is to tell about personal lives.
Recounts
● Purpose: The purpose is to recount old events.
Anecdotes
● Purpose: The purpose is to share anecdotes and a funny incident with friends.
Body of Email
Signoff
Signature
Sender’s Name
Informal Language
Genre: Micro
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Appendix 3: Noun and Pronoun Count

Sample 1: Professional Email

Orange Line: Noun

Blue Circle: Pronoun
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Sample 2: Personal Email

Yellow Line: Noun

Blue Circle: Pronoun