1. Genre and Rhetoric
in Illustrated Document Design
Judy Delin
University of Stirling
John Bateman
University of Bremen
Patrick Allen
University of Bradford

2. Overview The GeM project Genre and document design
Levels of description
Rhetoric and practicality
Conclusion

3. Background to the Project
GeM: Genre and Multimodality
Genre model of illustrated documents: newspapers,
websites, instructions, illustrated books (bird, medical)
Corpus constructed with designers and layout professionals:
Herald, Scotsman, Guardian, Telegraph, Harper Collins,
Harcourt Health, Taylor and Francis, IDU, freelancers, IDA
Practical constraints on design tasks
Aimed at generating and transforming
sample layouts by computer

4. Notions of Genre Text type? elements related to social
goal or function
Text? linguistic or visual properties
intuitive informed by set of assumptions
prior discourse triggered
‘inherent pull of innovation shifting
historicity’

5. Modelling genre Every document both reflects and constructs its genre
Genre boundaries erode and move; genres colonize
one another; expectations change
Description of genre ‘space’ that allows all to be related as
a set of parameters of variation
Generating examples out of the ‘space’ allows creation
of novel text designs as well as production of existing
genre examples

6. Levels of Description: Bateman et al. 2000
Content Structure the structure of the information
to be communicated
Rhetorical Structure the rhetorical relationships
between content elements,
Navigation Structure signposts supporting intended
mode(s) of consumption
Layout Structure the nature, appearance and
position of elements on the page
Linguistic Structure forms of language used

7. Genre is constituted in...
…the necessity to satisfy goals at these levels, and to
address constraints:
Artefact constraints arising out of the physical
nature of the object
Production constraints arising out of the production
technology
Consumption constraints arising out of the way in which
the object is mediated/consumed

11. Rhetorical Structure in Document Design
How the content is argued and presented:
Statement:evidence
Category: example
Action: purpose
List element: list element
Documents should be structured to preserve and
signpost these relationships (see e.g. Schriver 1997)

12. Rhetorical Structure in Document Design
Rhetorical structure theory (Mann and Thompson 1987)
nucleus
satellite
multinuclear

17. Summary Genre is amenable to extension to deal with a range of
production and consumption factors
Rhetorical structure is important, but can be
subverted by practical issues
Practical constraints must therefore be part of the
description of genre
Practical constraints differ between genres
Close work with designers, as well as document
consumers, must be part of academic research