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Alyssa Troy

Brendan Hawkins

ENC 2135-0009

22 September 2017

Quote

Writers, no less than speakers, construct texts which engage with readers and display a

community-based competence and valued identity, as lexical choice, topic selection, conventions

of argument, and so on also display an orientation and sensitivity to co-participants. (Hyland 33)

Citation

Hyland, Ken. Genre, Discipline and Identity. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, vol.

19, 2015, pp. 3243.

Exegesis

In Genre, Discipline and Identity, Ken Hyland tackles the concepts of proximity and

positioning. This particular quote focuses on the area of proximity, in which he generally states

that proximity is defined as the parameters that are in place for writers to categorize or define

their works as. His view is logistically constructed throughout the excerpt, because he uses

concise and descriptive language to display that we are co-participants of proximity every day.

Personally, his analysis of proximity is widely understandable, and relatively simple. To

illustrate, when walk into the library, everyone expects to see certain books in certain places. If

you were to look around my library at home, you would notice that the fiction and non-fiction

books are on opposite sides of the building, and are then categorized into smaller sections.
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Likewise, when conducting research on the history of medical advances, you can see the section

of medical books within the non-fiction section. Just how library goers expect certain books to be

certain places in the library, co-participants expect the works found in those places to be a

specific way. These parameters- lexical choice, topic selection, conventions of argument, and so

on (Hyland 33)- that the works must fall into is what Hyland meant by proximity. In these

medical, non-fiction research books, co-participants would expect a higher level of diction with

elevated vocabulary and references to facts and groundbreaking information. This differs

drastically from what co-participants expect from a young adult novel about a vampire-human-

werewolf love triangle.

Overall, from Hylands analysis of proximity, these parameters are placed to help both

the author write to connect to the intended audience and for the audience to efficiently seek out

readings to fit their needs. This is where my prospective differs from Hylands. I believe that

proximity mostly benefits the recipients, or the readers. With these constraints, readers will easily

be able to find the works within genres that they desire. While parameters are good for logistical

and categorization purposes, it defines how success as a writer can be achieved within a topic. In

the status quo, the impact of a text is directly proportionate to the level of success the work has

achieved. This success seems to be measured by the amount of ticks on a checklist, how well the

piece fits within the carved parameters. On the other hand, Hyland believes that these conditions

highlight shared social representations to assemble broad templates for recognizing the ways

things are done (Hyland 33).

Furthering this analysis of proximity, Hyland compares it to the concept of positioning.

Positioning is the calculated actions that an author makes in order to differentiate themselves

from others that are working within the same parameters. Hyland believes that these parameters
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do not involve stepping into a pre-packaged self, but enhance the conditions for originality

(Hyland 33). Comparatively, I dont see how entrapping parameters cultivate creativity. I believe

that when looking at proximity, diction, style, and lexicon are the boxes on checklists that

recipients use to categorize and evaluate readings. In other words, if these are the predetermined

expectations for success, how can a writer be both unique and successful? If the all writers

within the same genre must accurately adhere to each and every guideline to achieve success,

how can anything be truly original?