An Investigation into the Genre Features of Funeral Announcements: People's View in Social Communications in Focus

Genres are essentially defined in terms of the use of language in conventionalized communicative settings (Bathia, 1997). Generally speaking, funeral ceremonies, as a type of communicative setting, are composed of major communicative events such as epithets, tributes, dirges, obituaries, and funeral announcements (FA) (Moses &Morelli, 2004). Depending on the move structures, FAs, as a genre, might manifest the effect of language on social communication and norms. This study was conducted on Iranian FAs to see if covert socio-cultural relations have any significant effects onlanguage. The present study analyzed FAs to see how they were viewed by the society in which they were used, and how these judgments might affect the interaction between the mourning family and the rest of the society. Adopting Swales’ (1990) rhetorical approach, the study examined fifty funeral announcements from various Iranian ethnic backgrounds. The analysis of the results revealed nine move structures, five of which were similar across the ethnicities. Such results indicate the potential interplay between FA features and a set of socio-cultural norms.