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The following segments of text are taken from genres encountered by one person over a week as they went about their daily life. Read through the segments on the table below and try to predict what the social purpose of each text is. Try to use generic labels that could be applied to similar text types.

Text Segment Social Purpose

1. OK, Well turn on the oven first

2. I look forward to immediate action on this matter

3. Dear Lin, Greetings from Tokyo!

4. Trees uprooted as wild storm hits coast

5. Because the plate moves downwards, it heats up.

APPL920 Linguistics and Language Teaching

Week 3 Tasks! Identifying Social Purpose and Register in Texts

Source: Droga L & Humphrey S (2002) Getting Started with Functional Grammar, Berry: Target Texts, Ch. 1 1

Genre Social Purpose Text segment

Exposition To persuade by arguing one side of an issue

Information Report

To classify and describe the things are or were

News story To tell events regarded as newsworthy or of public importance

Review To assess a work of literature, art or entertainment

Recount To retell a series of events

Narrative To tell a story dealing with problematic events in order to entertain or instruct

Explanation To explain how or why something occurs

Procedure To instruct how to do something through a sequence of steps




What is the topic of the text (field)?

Who is involved in creating the text (speaker/listener or reader/writer)? What is the nature of their

relationship (tenor)?

Is the text spoken or written (mode)?

Text 1 Cooking (everyday) Mother-child; unequal but informal: mother has power; frequent contact; high affect

Spoken dialogue (language as action)

Text 2

Text 3

Text 4

Text 5




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