Linking micro and macro social structure through genre analysis

A genre analysis approach is used to compare how participants in Japanese and American cooking classes construct this rhetorical situation in ways that are similar yet different. A microlevel analysis of contextual variables and language use reveals how the participants constructed the situation and their social identities in different ways in each culture and that these differences reflected not only the participants' personal intentions but also the structures of the institutions that offered the classes. It is argued that close examination of the actions of individual actors is a necessary step in furthering the understanding of more macrolevel structures such as cooking schools, other types of institutions, and even theoretical concepts such as culture and social structure.