Textual Relations of Book Blurbs and Three Promotional Varieties: A Multidimensional Analysis

Abstract

Promotional genre has become a consistently flourishing area in recent years. Despite serving common communicative purpose of marketing, different promotional genres tend to show diverse liguistic structure. Several studies explored the generic and linguistic structure of important promotional genres such as book blurbs, direct mail letters, grant proposals and print advertisements. However, the textual relations of these promotional varieties are searched but rare. Present study analyzed book blurbs as a promotional variety, following multidimensional approach developed by Biber (1988) and investigated textual relations of book blurbs and three pomotional varieties on five linguistic dimensions. Findings revealed book blurbs as an informational genre, reflecting non-narrative concerns, disseminated through explicit references, non-persuasive expression and a blend of abstract and non-abstract style. Moreover, book blurbs were found closer to grant proposals in showing informational features and marked explicit references on dimensions 1 and 3. Book blurbs showed similarity to direct mail letters in reflecting non-narrative concerns on dimension 2. Blurbs were found parallel to print advertisements only on dimensions 4 and 5, in following non-persuasive expression exhibited through a mixture of abstract and non-abstract style. Findings will be of interest to researchers associated with promotional varieties in general and book blurbs in particular.