A Comparative Genre Analysis of Scholarly Electronic Mail and Basic Electronic Message Schema

Abstract

This thesis presents a comparative genre analysis between scholarly electronic mail and basic electronic message schema. This was by evaluating the relationship between scholarly electronic mail and basic electronic message schema. The study also examines communicative functions of the discrete parts as communicated by subscribers to the mailing list. Lastly, the study established and described the linguistic features that signal the discrete parts of scholarly electronic mail. A qualitative research design is adopted for this study. Twenty scholarly electronic mails were sampled for analysis first through purposive and then stratified sampling techniques. Only those themes that had more than four contributions were considered. The study adopts an eclectic theoretical framework in which the basic electronic message schema and Genre Theory informed data analysis. It has emerged that there is a strong relationship between scholarly electronic mail and basic electronic message schema. Also, the discrete parts of scholarly electronic mail display a diverse class of communicative functions. Finally, specific linguistic features signalled the discrete parts in scholarly electronic mail. The study recommends that genre based teaching approach be adopted in the teaching of texts in computer mediated communication. This is in reference to the aspects of generic moves, communicative functions and linguistic features. Curriculum developers of English for Specific Purposes can also benefit from this study by developing a curriculum that is genre based. This can be done by sourcing materials for teaching writing in computer based communication from the internet. This will go a long way in grounding learners in computer-mediated communication. This seems to agree with Shammon (1998) that electronic mail E learning should have a strong place in writing across the curriculum theory and practice.