Hastings 1

Evan Hastings
ENC 1102
Professor Wolcott
7 October 2015
Genre Analysis
Genre in recent time has acquired a new identity, very different to the mainstream
thought of categories of books or music. The new meaning of genre involves repeated
rhetorical situations and genre itself is the textual response to those situations within
discourse communities. Amy Devitt, an English professor from the University of Kansas
puts it as, the act of constructing the genre-of creating or perceiving the formal traces of
a genre is also the act of constructing the situation (Devitt 578). Genre can be found
everywhere from doctors offices to courthouses and anywhere between. The discourse
communities of the Internal Revenue Service or IRS have many forms of genre.
Documents such as Individual Income Tax Returns, Employers Quarterly Federal Tax
Return, and the Employers Annual Federal Unemployment Tax Return are all forms of
genre within a discourse community.
The first sample of genre from the IRS is the U.S. Individual Income Tax Return
or Form 1040. This form is to be filled out by an American citizen or resident of the
United States once a year. The document itself is very self-explanatory, it asks for
personal details such as name, address, and ones social security number. The rest of the
document may appear confusing or tricky to those outside of the tax accounting
community and may force an individual to seek an accountant for consulting services.
The form asks for income information, adjusted gross income, taxes and credits,

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payments, refunds, amount owed, a third party designee, and a signature. Parts of the
form are for IRS use only and will say on the document not to write or staple in that area.
The questions used on the form are very specific as there are 79 questions to fill out
regarding ones financial status.
The Employers Quarterly Federal Tax Return or Form 941 is a document for use
only amongst employers of a company. According to the IRS, the document is for use by,
Employers who withhold income taxes, social security tax, or Medicare tax from
employee's paychecks or who must pay the employer's portion of social security or
Medicare tax (Forms). The form begins with the employers information and then 14
questions for that quarter for which it is being documented. The form asks for
information about the employers business, permission to talk to the companys third
party designee, and a signature. At the end of the document there are instructions for the
payment voucher and includes a voucher that must be cut out from the form.
The last form is the Employers Annual Federal Unemployment Tax Return or
Form 940. This document is also only for use by employers for their company. Just like
Form 941, Form 940 asks for the employers information and also requests permission to
speak to the companys third party designee. There is also a payment voucher at the end
of the form as well. However, there are also questions regarding tax adjustments, balance
due, and tax liability.
These three forms are universal in the discourse communities of tax accounting.
The documents are necessary in order for the IRS to process tax returns. The three
documents are organized by parts, which makes it easy to read and fill out. However, the
forms vocabulary may be out of reach for some individuals but it would be everyday

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speech for people within the IRS. These documents are ways to spread power from the
individual or employer to the IRS. Individuals and employers provide the IRS with
information and the IRS determines the individuals tax liability. All of the forms require
personal information whether that is a citizen or an employer. The amount of income
flowing in is also required and information about the financial status of a company is
required as well. These required areas to fill out are all rhetorical situations of the genre.
As Devitt says, we reach the situation through the genre (Devitt 578), these situations
arise all because of the necessary paper work for the IRS.
However, what set these documents apart are their intended roles to the discourse
community. The purposes of these forms are to file tax returns but they are to be filled out
under different circumstances. With Form 1040, it is to only be filled out by individuals;
and with Forms 940 and 941, it is to be filled out by the employer. This shows that the
IRS has a wide range of services and its goals are aligned to serve most general aspects of
the American economy.
Behind every discourse community, there are sets of goals that they want to
accomplish. According to John Swales from the University of Michigan, a discourse
community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals (Swales 24). As is the case
with the IRS, they have two stated strategic goals. Goal 1 is to deliver high quality and
timely service to reduce taxpayer burden and encourage voluntary compliance (Strategic
Plan 22). Their second goal is to effectively enforce the law to ensure compliance with
tax responsibilities and combat fraud (Strategic Plan 30).
Genres are everywhere we go, whether we notice it or not we are interacting with
genres everyday. Rhetorical situations such as income and personal information

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questioned by the IRS are responded to by such forms as stated earlier. At work or at
school rhetorical situations arise and thus genres are used to respond to these situations.

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Works Cited
Devitt, Amy J. "Generalizing About Genre: New Conceptions of an Old Concept."
College Composition and Communications, Vol. 44, No. 4. December 1993. pp.
573-586. Print.
"Forms & Publications." Forms & Pubs. Internal Revenue Service, 11 June 2015. Web.
29 Sept. 2015. <http://www.irs.gov/Forms-&-Pubs>.
"Strategic Plan, FY2014-2017." Publication 3744 (Rev. 6-2014) (2014): 1-40. Internal
Revenue Service. Web. 29 Sept. 2015. <http://www.irs.gov/pub/irspdf/p3744.pdf>.
Swales, John. "The Concept of Discourse Community." Genre Analysis: English in
Academic and Research Settings. Boston: Cambridge UP, 1990. 21-32. Print.