Genre

For the genre analysis project, I chose obituaries as my genre to research. An obituary is a
piece of reading that publically announces someones death. It gives details and facts about the
person to help to try to identify that person. The tone of the obituary could change someones
view on it if, lets say for some reason, it pointed out all of someones flaws, being mean instead
of being sentimental like in most original obituaries. Along with tone, the structure and language
used in the obituary are a couple other factors that play an important role in writing an obituary.
Tight, Malcom. Dead academics: what can we learn about academic work and life from
obituaries? London Review of Education Jul2008, Vol. 6 Issue 2, p125-135. 11p. 3 Charts. Web.
2008.
My first source above serves as a reflection of peoples lives and school work through
their obituaries. It explains the tone of the obituaries written in the British newspaper and how
that tone could easily change the meaning of the obituary. The article also explains the
characteristics that are included in different obituaries. Although obituary is a genre in itself, this
article states that obituaries has 4 sub-genres. The analysis of several obituaries in this article
show the importance of life in the different cultures of the people.
Bowen, Barbara. A Multi-Genre Approach to the Art of the Biographer. English
Journal, v80 n4 p53-54 Apr 1991. Web. 1991.
In the article above, it talks about students writing in different genres such as an obituary,
a diary, a letter, even a poem. As I already know to focus in on obituaries specifically, this article
stresses the many steps it takes to understand and write in one of these different genres. It says
that when researching your genre you must note details, quotes, and most important impressions.

By observing your impression with a writing, it helps you learn your focus. The quality of the
information you gather about your genre can give you a good idea of what obituaries are really
about.
Ergin, Murat. Taking It to the Grave: Gender, Cultural Capital, and Ethnicity in Turkish
Death Announcements Volume 60, Number 2. Web. 2009-2010.
The reason I picked the source above is because it is a sample of Turkish death
announcements in a newspaper between 1970 and 2006. I thought that having an example of
obituaries from another country other than the United States would be helpful in analyzing the
genre. The attitude of the people of Turkey towards death can be reflected in each obituary and
death notice. Both signs of power and status are shown through obituaries.
Minkin, Shane. History Compass, v11 n8 Wiley Online Library. Online Only. 2013.
For my second example I picked this article because it talks about death announcements
in the Middle East, where as before we were talking about death announcements in Turkey. One
reason I thought this might be a good example is because it makes it easy to compare the death
announcements by country. Although the content of the obituaries may be the same, the tone and
significance of the obituary could be different. Just like with the Turkish death announcements,
power plays a role in the Middle East also.
Sage Journals. Memoirs. Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (vols
1-196) v160 n1949 (19490101). Web. 1847-1982.
My final example is a collection of memoirs of a range of people. I thought that this
example would be helpful because it serves as a basic idea of what an obituary looked like at one

point. With the several different people mentioned in the memoir, many various tones and
structures will be shown with each obituary. Each of them should be able to point out the
significance of that specific persons life or what they would like to be remembered for.