A move structure analysis of cover letters produced by South African students

Abstract

Genres are textual categories, often seen as cultural activities which have become fixed over time in terms of structure, or ‘moves’. Structural, linguistic and cultural variation across all genres has been investigated in various text types, including cover letters for job applications. To date such cover letters produced in South Africa have not been analysed and explained. In a competitive, global job market, a cover letter that meets the expectations of a given discourse community could be vital to the applicant’s success. To address this research gap, we recruited 30 young South African participants and we asked them to write cover letters in response to an advertisement. We used Bhatia’s framework to conduct a move structure analysis of the collected corpus, and also conducted participant interviews. Our results show that the genre’s staple elements (which include a formal opening, the candidate’s suitability to apply, presenting qualifications, requesting a response, and a polite formal closing) are present in this corpus; however, compared to similarly sized corpora in other sociocultural contexts, there is considerable structural variation. The study’s contribution lies in offering insight into South African communicative choices and the role of specific contexts in changing generic norms.