Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 1 Critical Issues in Information Systems BUSS 951 Lecture 12 Evolution of Systems

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 2 Recall Last week we claimed that you could analyse a system using Systemic Functional Linguistics we can use texts associated with workpractices to analyse what is being done, by whom to whom, and how this is being done

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 3 Agenda this week we will describe describe several theories of one useful strata- genre and apply it to SFL to an actual IS in its workplace- ALABS use our substantive knowledge of IS to alter the theory apply this theory to some features of the ALABS system

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 4 Agenda overtime we can see shifts in the genre structure of texts associated with these workpractices and a system features... NOTE: case studies conducted over time are referred to as longitudinal studies, or diachronic studies we can do this because we can study systems features using texts, remembering that there is a relationship between text and context! we can ask question why did this change to take place?

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 5 Readings Kress (1985) “The linguistic expression of social meaning: discourse, genre and text” #22 Eggins (1994) “Context of culture: genre” #23 Hasan (1985) “The structure of a text” #24 Clarke (1996) “The Persistence of Systems in Organisations: Genre Analysis of Systems Commissioning” #25

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 6 Genre Theory Revisited

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 7

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 8 Social Context and Language Genre: Several Theories now it so happens that there are two major views on genre the first is that genre is simply the unique instance of field, tenor and mode (also called Contextual Configuration) this is the model of genre theorised by Hasan (this tutorial)

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 9 Social Context and Language Genre: Several Theories in your reading, the ALABS system is looked at from this point of view initially- but it has some problems when looking at IS in organisations the alternative way of looking at genre is to treat it in exactly the same way as the rest of the SFL model ie/ as its own strata

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 10 Genre (Martin) obligatory/optional element distinction developed by Hasan is also used by Martin, but field evidence: the absence of an obligatory element (ALABS Identification Given element renegotiated into a Value Retained Item) consequence: abandoning the system to perform the loan, ad hoc development of a manual workaround to complete the loan

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 11 Negotiable Genre Elements Implications for Elements... genre elements are negotiated entities: a genre is more likely to fail to complete when both parties cannot come to an agreement IG may ‘fail’ for Labstaff member but may under certain circumstances be renegotiated by a ‘pushy’ Student a student who fails to negotiate will not complete a loan by any means

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 12 Negotiable Genre Elements...Implications for Elements if genre elements are negotiable categories can’t use a crisp obligatory-not obligatory (i.e. optional) distinction have to use something more like conditional probabilistic occurrence elements can be arranged somewhere on a continuum of occurrence; where, 0 = never found (i.e. absent) or 1 = always found

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 13 Negotiable Genre Elements Implications for Genres if genre elements are negotiable categories, then the following consequences apply some genres will have renegotiated obligatory elements (Clarke) or missing obligatory elements (Ventola) therefore, a larger range of genre sequences, can find themselves as members of specific genres- genres become fuzzy not crisp classifications

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 14 Quasispecies M:M:M Other Genre Field Tenor Mode Other Genre most dissimilar identical

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 15 Comparison Genre Species (Hasan 1985)Genre Quasispecies Other Genre

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 16 Social Context and Language Genre: Several Theories for various reasons genre as a strata (after Martin) is much better way of looking at IS like everything is SFL: linguistic resources form systems available to language users- genre should also be treated in this way IS appear to have some strange characteristics- they are multigeneric by nature

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 17 Genre and ALABS

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 18 Genre Analysis Applied to IS Genre Analysis is applied bottom-up: provides a very detailed view of work practices which then need to be integrated across various sites need to look at many actual texts in a social context in order to find out about work practices

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 19 Genre Analysis Data Collection 1. Multiple texts gathered in a particular Material Setting associated with a particular Context of Situation (ie. Register) 2. Texts are transcribed if involving spoken language. All texts are analysed for genre elements 3. Individual Schematic Structures (SS) (after Martin) or Genre Sequences (GS) (after Clarke) are analysed Data Analysis/Results 3. A single Generic Structure Potential (GSP) (after Hasan) or a single Genre Digraph is formed (after Clarke) eg/ Buying Bread

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 20 ALABS Study (1) Automated Library And Borrowing System at the Microcomputer Laboratories, UOW now effectively decommissioned as a consequence of networking developed by staff who then used the system (end-user developed system) study looked at parts of system which used speech only referred to as service encounters longitudinal study of these service encounters over 12 years of operation, four versions and three platforms

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 21

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 22 Student Loans By taking transcripts of Students borrowing s/w, manuals and h/w (especially s/w) a number of stages were found in texts a genre sequence was identified which accounted for most Student Loans

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 23 Student Loans Greetings, Service Request, Identification Sought, Regulations, Enrolment, Materials Out, Finis SR G ISMO F E ALABS Student Loan RE

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 24 Conditions of Use form ALABS Example: Conditions of Use form (written text) is associated with the Regulations (RE) element in Student Loans genre. the Conditions of Use form describes what students can borrow, when to return it and what can happen if they don’t By inference once a student signs this form, all subsequent Student Loans in a session will operate by these conditions- it’s a contract

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 25 Student Returns Student Returns are of course much simpler because the student does not need proof of identity (student card was retained at the office during the Student Loan). None-the-less the Conditions of Use form relates Loans and Returns together!

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 26 Student Returns Greetings, Request Completion, Materials In Identification Returned, Finis G RC MI IR F ALABS Student Return

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 27 Systems Evolution

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 28 Cutting, Pasting, Elaboration ALABS provides evidence for the wholesale, purposeful manipulation of individual genres the manipulation is of three types: the removal of genre elements the addition of new genre elements both of the above

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 29 ALABS Version 1 G RC ALABS Student Return MIIR MI F IR G SR IS E ALABS Student Loan RE SR MOF

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 30 ALABS Version 2 & 3 Pasting G RC ALABS Student Return IR MI F G SR IS SR MOF ALABS Student Loan RE LO LI MI IR E

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 31 ALABS Version 4 Cutting G RC ALABS Student Return IR MI F G SR MO ALABS Student Loan RE LO LI E ISF IR MI

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 32 Cutting, Pasting, Elaboration the evidence for purposeful manipulation of genres: is that changes are ‘optimal’ and genres which form assemblages get changed together Is this how non-IS related genres change? Is it just that IS speed up these changes? wrt IS, genre re-use appears to be preferred to genre reinvention

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 33 Cutting, Pasting, Elaboration implications for end-user programming practices: was the programmer so intimately familiar with the code that they knew exactly which lines to add/remove or was the programmer so intimately familiar with the workpractice that they knew which code implemented which genre element

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 34 Cutting, Pasting, Elaboration the programmer was very aware of the ‘staging’ of the workpractice there is further evidence to suggest this- the addition of a Student Append Feature in Version 2 of ALABS the code was copied from the Student Loan and then ‘crippled’ in order to implement the Student Append

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 35 ALABS Version 2 & 3 Elaboration G SR ALABS Student Loan RE LO SR MOF E IS G SR ALABS Student Append RE LO SR F E ISFIMO

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 36 Genre Assemblages

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 37 Genre Assemblages (1) Summary we have a new theory of genre (as a quasispecies), and we also have a new way of representing them (as a directed cyclical graph- digraph) one of the other advantages of using a digraph is that we can represent something the linguists haven’t seen...

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 38 G RC MI IR F ALABS Student Return Conditions of Use SR G ISMO F E ALABS Student Loan RE

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 39 Genre Assemblages which we can simplify as: Student Loan Cond of Use Student Return

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 40 Genre Assemblages and also include the social subjects affected: Student Loan Cond of Use Student Return Student Labstaff

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 41 Genre Assemblages (2) we know from tutorials that IS produce many texts we know that a genre defines a single set of text types linguists typically look at single genres... but IS always have multiple genres

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 42 Genre Assemblages (3) for example in ALABS, the Student Loan Genre is related to the Student Return Genre (each there own genre) also the Student Loan Genre is related to Conditions of Use Form (a regulatory genre)

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 43 Genre Assemblages (4) these relationships between genres characterise IS Clarke (1995) gives these phenomena a name, related genres are collectively called a Genre Assemblage the formal relationships which relate genres together are called Genre Associations

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 44 Genre Assemblages (5) Project Management Implications genre assemblages can be used as a basis for organising the process of analysis of a system in its organisational context such efforts are usually referred to as project management within the information systems literature

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 45 Genre Assemblages (6) Project Management Implications however, project management (especially during analysis) generally presupposes a formalised relationship between analysts exploring the organisation and its management

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 46 Genre Assemblages Genre 1 Material Setting

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 47 Genre Assemblages Material Setting Genre 1 Genre 2

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 48 Genre Assemblages Material Setting Genre 1 Genre 2

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 49 Genre Assemblages A Genre 1 Material Setting Genre 2

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 50 Genre Assemblages A B

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 51 Genre Assemblages A B

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 52 Genre Assemblages C A B

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 53 Genre Assemblages Common Occurrence several assemblages have been found in ALABS- very likely that most IS have many connections between genres so IS are very pervasive entities in organisations this may have profound implications for IS development

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 54 Genre Assemblages if these occur what are the implications for: Business Process Reengineering Mergers between Units/Divisions in a firm Mergers between one or more different Companies

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 55 Genre Collections

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 56 Genre Collections (1) if we were to map out all the genres, all genre assemblages and associations for a system, we would completely describe a system in its organisational context we would have described the genre collection for the system

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 57 Genre Collections (2) Basis of a Genre Methodology mapping out a system we would proceed by exploring all genres within a specific site (including assemblages and their associations) we would follow the language from one site to another, (repeating the above) until no more sites are left!

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 58 Genre Assemblages C A B

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 59 Genre Collection Diagrams

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 60 Genre Collection Diagrams we can formally map out the genres in a genre collection by using a higher level version of a graph- called an Genre Collection Diagram it shows associations between each genre and shows the participants involved in different Contexts of Situation

Clarke, R. J (2001) L951-12: 61 Genre Collection Diagram for ALABS