Mandatory genres: The case of European Public Assessment Report (EPAR) summaries
-
Inger Askehave
Ph.D., is Head of the Department of Language and Culture at Aalborg University, Denmark. Her primary research interests include expert–lay communication, PR and business communication, and organizational communication. She has published several articles on genre theory, language and discourse, translation, business communication, and expert–lay communication in journals such as
Hermes, Applied Linguistics, Text, Perspectives, Document Design, Discourse Studies , andDiscourse & Society .Ph.D., is Associate Professor and Head of the Research Group for Translation and Interpreting at Aarhus School of Business, University of Aarhus, Denmark. Her primary research interests include translation theory, expert–lay communication, and lexical semantics. She has published several articles within her fields of interest in journals such as
Target, Meta , Perspectives,Document Design, Hermes , andJournal of Pragmatics .
Abstract
The aim of this article is to consider the nature of mandatory genres (legally regulated genres) emanating from European Union directives and point to the challenges that such genres pose due to their legal origin and complex text production and text reception processes. Taking its point of departure in one of the most recent mandatory genres within an EU medicinal assessment and approval context (the European Public Assessment Report [EPAR] summary) the article presents the results of an empirical study of 15 EU-approved, Danish EPAR summaries, testing whether the respondents believe the EPAR summaries live up to their declared purpose. The article concludes that the majority of the respondents do not think the EPAR summary fulfills its communicative purposes of providing information about The Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use's review and recommendation of the product and providing information that is understandable and useful to laypersons, respectively. The article points to some of the reasons why, in spite of careful preparation, and extensive guidelines prior to its ‘launch’ into the discourse community, the EPAR summary apparently fails to fulfill its communicative purposes.
About the authors
Ph.D., is Head of the Department of Language and Culture at Aalborg University, Denmark. Her primary research interests include expert–lay communication, PR and business communication, and organizational communication. She has published several articles on genre theory, language and discourse, translation, business communication, and expert–lay communication in journals such as Hermes, Applied Linguistics, Text, Perspectives, Document Design, Discourse Studies, and Discourse & Society.
Ph.D., is Associate Professor and Head of the Research Group for Translation and Interpreting at Aarhus School of Business, University of Aarhus, Denmark. Her primary research interests include translation theory, expert–lay communication, and lexical semantics. She has published several articles within her fields of interest in journals such as Target, Meta, Perspectives, Document Design, Hermes, and Journal of Pragmatics.
© Walter de Gruyter
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frame switches and identity performances: Alternating between online and offline
- Mandatory genres: The case of European Public Assessment Report (EPAR) summaries
- Generally speaking: Formulating an argument in the US Federal Trade Commission
- Unsettled facts: On the transformational dynamism of evidence in legal discourse
- An integrative framework for the analyses of argumentative/persuasive essays from an interpersonal perspective
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frame switches and identity performances: Alternating between online and offline
- Mandatory genres: The case of European Public Assessment Report (EPAR) summaries
- Generally speaking: Formulating an argument in the US Federal Trade Commission
- Unsettled facts: On the transformational dynamism of evidence in legal discourse
- An integrative framework for the analyses of argumentative/persuasive essays from an interpersonal perspective
