Analyzing LSP tekst types: From descriptive to prescriptive text (-TYPE) linguistics

Abstract

In the last 15 years, numerous LSP genres have been analyzed and compared intralingually as well as interlingually and interculturally. The results of these analyses, however, have hardly been related to each other and consequently not been joined together to form a mosaic that gives us an overview over larger text-type systems. The methods of such an integration process will be the subject of the first part of this article. In the second part, I will raise the question whether the characteristics of specific genres which we find out on a purely descriptive basis actually contribute to the fulfilment of these genres’ communicative functions in an ideal way. Furthermore, I will discuss methods which may help us to answer this question and, thus, to develop guidelines for technical writers.