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

6genre has been greatly neglected for research purposes resulting in an important gap inour knowledge of the academic genre system.Three aspects in book reviews suggest their possibilities as object of study. Thefirst aspect is an apparent paradox. To a certain extent, book reviews are recognized asunremarkable because they are rarely cited as references in articles or books. At thesame time –– and exactly because of this ‘unremarkable’ character –– they can bewritten by a wider range of academic staff that would not be in a position of writinghigher-status texts such as the research article for refereed journals. Therefore, bookreviews open the door to junior scholars, to the non-elite, while also offeringopportunities to academics in off-center places who are nonnative –– and ofteninexperienced iii –– writers to take part in and give their contribution to the mainstream ofacademia. These researchers can contribute to book review sections in internationaljournals to criticize and/or praise other authors' texts, helping to shape their disciplinethrough critical analysis of the theories and research reports that are being presented inbook-form. Consequently, a study that aims to explore and define the essential content(i.e., what kind of information about the book, the author, the audience, is usually foundin the genre) and the formal features (i.e., how this information is organized along thetext) in their linguistic realizations (i.e., what kind of linguistic constructions conveycontent and form) in book reviews can help inform the academic writing practices ofEFL writers.Secondly, in EAP classes, the study and comprehension of how book reviews inEnglish operate can contribute, not only to writing classes, but also to the development