Text types

Overview

Things you should know about text types

Speakers and writers use text type patterns as a guide to help them organise language into effective texts, ie texts which have purpose and meaning. As students learn more about each text type, they are able to construct effective texts of each type with more confidence and skill.

When students have control of a whole repertoire of text types, they are able to adapt and modify these patterns in strategic and creative ways. If they are constructing a text for a complex or specialised purpose, they might use more than one text type pattern to help them construct a text. If they are constructing a text for a new or creative purpose, they might change the text type pattern in new and creative ways.

In a general description of a text type we can predict the language patterns which are likely to occur in each stage of an individual text. When teachers are familiar with the language patterns of different types of texts, they can decide which of them are most appropriate for their students to learn in order to meet the demands of the curriculum.

A description of a text type should be seen as a general guide to its structure rather than a fixed set of rules. Although texts are generally based around a familiar and recognisable structure, writers will always adapt their texts to fit their own particular needs, and to give each text its own particular character and style.

Occasionally speakers and writers will break away from predictable text types and produce a text so different that a new type of text may be said to be 'emerging'. If the new text structure makes sense and achieves a new, but recognisable, purpose, other people might start using texts of the same type. In this way text types evolve over time to achieve new purposes.