universidade federal de santa catarina pós-graduação em letras ...

4The assumption is that such a description can contribute to form nonnative writers withmore appropriate academic skills to participate in the international forum of humanistic,scientific, and technological debate. Such information can also contribute to fosterinstructors’ better understanding and use of the system of genres adopted in themainstream academia resulting in more appropriate pedagogies in English for Academicor Specific Purposes (EAP or ESP) courses. The relevance of a study such as thepresent one becomes evident if we consider that participants of a communicative eventin English as a Foreign or Second Language (EFL or ESL) cannot successfully take partin it, unless they understand the aims that are being instantiated (Cunha 1991:61).Generic analysis of texts in English in specific disciplines is believed to contribute tomaking such aims evident to learners.1.1 Purpose of the studyTexts are seen here rhetorically, i.e., writers use language to realize goals andcarry out activities (Bazerman, 1988:6) within a complex set of social relationshipsconstrained by the goals sanctioned by the disciplinary community (Haas, 1994:44). Tostudy the rhetoric of texts means to examine how language is put to use in the humanactivity type being considered. Activity type is here conceived as a culturally (in thesense of an academic discipline) recognized activity, ‘a goal-defined, sociallyconstituted, bounded, event with constraints on participants, setting, and so on, butabove all on the kinds of allowable contributions’ (Levinson, 1979:368).The purpose of this study is to consider the activity of book reviewing whichinvolves a set of elements such as context, the purposes and roles of writers and readers