The use of the research digest as a hybrid genre in the ESAP – ESP classroom

Abstract

The potentiality of the digest as a hybrid genre to be pedagogically exploited in ESAP-ESP is discussed. Firstly, this genre is characterised as a peripheral one, partially belonging to the scientific genre colony; next, the features it shares as part of the informative discourse and that set it apart from the scientific genre colony are discussed, offering examples of variations which can be accounted for in terms of communicative activity or field and interpersonal or tenor dimensions (Halliday 1985). Some hints for the exploitation of this and related genres are shown. The explicit contrasting of digests, articles and abstracts allows for the overt tackling of intertextual and interdiscursive aspects, and their systematic linking on the Web with respect to particular research works makes it easier to keep track of them as genre sets. Besides, the mode dimension layer can account for the presence of certain information elements in electronic digests as compared to the printed ones, which in turn helps to create a new, more horizontal discourse influencing the interpersonal mode through the readers’ empowerment. These and related features can be brought up through a systematic topdown genre-based approach, in order to increase the students’ metadiscoursal awareness.