THE CEFR PERSPECTIVE ON GENRE INFORMATION IN FRENCH FOR SPECIFIC

In the past twenty years, the results of genre-based studies have been introduced into programmes of languages for specific purposes and even genre-based approaches have been used to teach languages for specific purposes. At the same time, the CEFR has been recognised as an important tool and reference in the process of materials design. However, the relationship between these two powerful frameworks has not been fully explored. In this article, we aim to analyse this relationship in order to reveal how genre knowledge is presented through written texts and through tasks included in textbooks. Based on the results of qualitative text analysis, we argue that the integration of the CEFR and genre perspectives yields valuable information concerning the role of genres at different CEFR levels and in different domains. We offer an insight into the genre identities portrayed in French for Specific Purposes textbooks and identify the possible types of gaps that may arise when the user’s professional identities are considered through the genres included in textbooks.


INTRODUCTION
In an era of increased international mobility, the acquisition of genre knowledge in a foreign language has become one of the prerequisites for successfully participating in professional communication.This trend has largely been observed in international environments where English is used as a lingua franca, while a revived interest in the French for specific purposes (FSP) programmes has been noted especially after the European Union's enlargement to Eastern European countries (Quotb 2009).In the past 20 years, the results of genre-based studies have been introduced into the programmes of languages for specific purposes (LSP) (Swales 1990;Mourlhon-Dallies 2008) and even genre-based approaches have been used to teach LSP (Burns 2013) 1 .However, little is known about the application of these results in FSP textbooks.
Research into genres in textbooks is particularly relevant because the LSP tradition has always highlighted the role of writing materials and especially the role of written genres (Belcher 2006).Harwood (2010) showed that scientific analysis of teaching materials is not only useful for teachers who want to make informed decisions while designing their own materials, but also for teachers who adapt ready-made materials to their local context.Textbooks remain the primary source of language material and a foundation for language practice in the classroom (Tomlinson 2012).They also point to the key features of the adopted pedagogical approach (Jin/Cortazzi 2011) and enhance students' intellectual growth, among other things, by exposing learners to a rich repertoire of genres and text types (Tomlinson 2008).The Common European Framework of References for Languages (CEFR) perspective can contribute to an understanding of the position of genre in textbooks because it has been recognised as an important tool and reference in the process of elaborating textbook materials (Beacco et al. 2004;Martyniuk/Noijons 2007).In the FSP context, textbooks remain less explored than in Anglophone contexts.Quotb (2009) labels commercially available FSP textbooks as often inadequate in terms of meeting users' needs.From a methodological perspective, Gajewska (2011) argues that discourse analysis has been accepted as part of the conceptual framework of the language teaching but has not yet been operationalised.The challenge facing the FSP teacher is to evaluate the degree of support the textbooks can offer in developing students' genre competences.
Existing research into genres included in textbooks has mostly concentrated on comparing language syllabi in specific genres with real-life data in order to evaluate the degree of suitability of materials.Harwood (2010) notes that these studies point to the inexistent or insufficient integration of research results into pedagogy.To our knowledge, no study has concentrated on genre repertoires and on their variability across CEFR levels.
This article reports on a study carried out to examine which types of written genres are explored in FSP textbooks and how the genre repertoires included in those textbooks enhance students' genre competences across CEFR levels and LSP fields.In order to establish a level of compatibility between the CEFR and LSP approaches, we start by identifying genre-related parameters in the CEFR and compare them with the LSP genre tradition.Basing ourselves on the established parameters, we describe the results of a textual analysis conducted in our corpus.We uncover how genre knowledge is built up through written texts and through tasks included in the textbooks.The results of the analysis are discussed and pedagogical implications are suggested.

THE CEFR AND LSP PERSPECTIVES IN CONTACT
Starting from Bakhtin's (1986: 60) definition, according to which genres as "relatively stable types of […] utterance" are related to particular "spheres in which language is used", we set out to explore the role of genre in the CEFR and Anglophone LSP traditions.The analysis of the convergences and differences between the two approaches will serve as a framework for a description of genre-related elements in the selected sample of FSP textbooks.
Several concepts in the CEFR point to the possibility of integrating the LSP perspective, and particularly the genre perspective within the CEFR.To begin with, it should be noted that the expression "language for specific purposes" is not to be found in the CEFR.However, this does not mean that reference is not made to concepts and to situations which are relevant to the LSP and to genre.The first of such concepts is domain.Domains can be approximated to Bakhtin's term spheres.Domains are defined as "[…] the broad sectors of social life in which social agents operate" (CEFR 2001: 10).The CEFR identifies four crucial domains in language teaching: the educational, occupational, public and personal.What is seen as a domain in the CEFR cannot be directly linked with the LSP perspective.The LSP perspective distinguishes between languages for academic purposes and languages for occupational purposes, covering different disciplines, such as medical language, diplomatic language, etc.Nevertheless, it may be claimed that domains as well as disciplines form the context in which genres are produced.
The next parameter relevant to language learning in the CEFR is the level of language proficiency.In the CEFR, language competences are divided into three basic lev-els, which are further broken down into six levels spanning from A1 to C2.The descriptors for individual language competences are given for the six levels and some of them make reference to professional or academic contexts, especially under levels B2 to C2.However, references to particular genres are rare.Descriptions for the French language have been made for individual levels where the relevant genres were listed (Beacco et al. 2004) and described in terms of functions, morpho-syntax and distributional characteristics, but the given genre descriptions rarely refer to precise genres since they are merged into larger categories (i.e.correspondence).As opposed to this categorisation, the LSP tradition views genres as a means to realise the shared goals of a community.In Swales' terminology, the category correspondence would thus represent "a suprageneric assembly of discourse", while a "good news" letter as a response to an application would constitute a genre (Swales 1990: 53).As noted by Beacco (2010), genre descriptions yielded by his project cannot cover all genres and cannot be used as general guidelines because some grammatical or other functional categories are not exclusively linked to a specific genre, and because they are common to several genres.Instead, they are offered as a source of ideas for programme designers.Finally, Beacco et al. (2004) contend that genres cannot be categorised into individual CEFR levels since the difficulty of text production or text reception cannot be attributed exclusively to genre.In the LSP needs-based environment, the situation is further complicated by the profile of the user who may face high socio-cultural professional expectations while having a low level of general language competences.For example, an Erasmus exchange student with low language competences may be required to write an academic essay in French.The two parameters seem to be mutually exclusive in the CEFR (Petit 2006).
Further references to the concept of genre can be found in Chapters 4 and 5 of the CEFR, for these chapters provide descriptors of activities and competences.Text (in written or oral form) is seen as a key element in an individual's communication activities and processes, although the concept of genre has a somewhat limited scope.When the term genre is used, the stress is put on the classificatory function of genres as general categories into which different text types can be assigned, meaning that genre is predominantly seen as an output.Texts are related to the macrofunctions they perform (e.g.description) and to the media they are carried by, while some other genre characteristics (such as communicative purposes) are not explicitly dealt with.It seems that the terms text type and genre are in some cases even used as synonyms (CEFR 2001: 160).Similarly, genre analysis is only given indirect credence: Swales (1990) is mentioned among the references for Chapter 4, but the concept itself is not used in the text.In Chapter 7, the following definition of text type is proposed: text type: familiarity with the genre and domain (and with assumed background and sociocultural knowledge) helps the learner in anticipating and comprehending text structure and content; the concrete or abstract nature of the text is also likely to play a role; for example, concrete description, instructions or narratives (particularly with adequate visual supports), for example, are likely to be less demanding than abstract argumentation or explanation […] (CEFR 2001: 165).This definition seems to favour the link between genre and text types, while recognising the broader implications of the term genre as part of the user's sociocultural knowledge.As opposed to the CEFR, it is precisely this context-centeredness that made the notion of genre particularly relevant to LSP teaching (Mourlhon-Dallies 2008;Bhatia et al. 2011).
Another parameter that characterises both the CEFR and the LSP is the insistence on action-based linguistic activities in language teaching and learning.The idea of an inherent link between text and activity is mirrored in established LSP practice, which sees language as a tool for communication (Nunan 2004).From the genre perspective, the multidimensional research into genre has been an integral part of genre theory and of genre-based pedagogy, which views genre as a social practice (Bakhtin 1986;Beacco 2004) related to a given professional or academic activity (Swales 1990;Bhatia 2004) or, more generally, as action (Bazerman 1994).Language users are seen as social actors performing tasks.While the LSP tradition does not seem to question this approach, the CEFR remains prudently conservative by introducing the expression action-oriented approach.In order to carry out tasks, users have to be equipped with an array of competences, which are activated in the process of task completion.The CEFR distinguishes between general competences and communicative language competences.For "matters often dealt with under genre", the CEFR refers interested readers to the section entitled Pragmatic competences.According to the CEFR, this competence is relevant at higher levels of proficiency.However, the link between the rhetorical structure and the functional aspect of genre, highlighted by the LSP perspective (Swales 1990), is not dealt with in the CEFR.
On the basis of this analysis, it could be claimed that throughout the CEFR approach and the LSP approach the insistence on the dynamic aspect of texts has resulted in the targeted development of competences.The genre tradition sees genres as complex, interactive and dynamic entities in which the ability to deal with both text and context contributes to genre competence (Bawarshi/Reiff 2010).Under the CEFR terminology, this would mean that LSP genre users would need to have acquired several types of competences and relevant knowledge of the world: socio-cultural knowledge, communicative language competences as well as sociolinguistic competence.To achieve these aims, task-based teaching is promoted.
The main difference between the CEFR and the LSP genre perspective lies in the perception of the user as a social actor.As observed by Piccardo et al. (2011), the CEFR highlights the centrality of tasks as a nexus between an individual's everyday life and communication on the one hand, and language learning on the other.At the same time, the term task is only used with reference to concrete personal experiences while neglecting the cultural and anthropological aspects of tasks as an integral part of relations to groups.In genre theory, the shift is clearly made to discourse as a social practice.
Based on a comparison of the genre-related parameters in the two studied approaches (for a summary of the results, see Table 1), we proceed to a description of the selected sample of FSP textbooks.

Genre as text type
The link between genre and text type is prioritised Genre is seen as a text type in its context

Language level
Levels of socio-cultural competences increase with levels of linguistic competences The level of the user's linguistic competences may be lower than the level of their academic or professional competencies

Task
The mobilising agency in situations soliciting a personal response in view of the task completion The mobilising agency in situations where language is used as a communication tool in a discourse community Competence A stress on communicative competence The ability to deal with text and context Table 1: Genre-related parameters in the CEFR and LSP traditions

RESULTS OF TEXTBOOK ANALYSIS
Seventeen textbooks were selected from the total of 33 textbooks listed in Latour (2013).Textbooks exclusively addressing oral communication were not included in the corpus because we restricted our analysis to written genres.In addition, the focus on the soft sciences as opposed to the hard sciences was chosen in order to avoid genre diffusion or possible differences of approach due to differences in the functioning of discourse communities.For a general overview of the textbooks' characteristics at the macro-level, see Table 2 in the Appendix.
In order to analyse how the precepts of the CEFR are implemented in written genrerelated contents of the textbooks studied, we adopted a qualitative criterion-based approach (Mol/Tin: 2008;Gray: 2010).We proceeded through various stages.We started at the macro-level of the textbooks and gradually moved to smaller units, concentrating on different texts pertaining to different written genres, and to exercises accompanying these texts.At the macro-level, we first identified the scope of the textbooks in terms of the CEFR levels and domains.Then we made a list of the genres covered by the textbooks at individual CEFR levels and analysed those genres with respect to their presence in individual disciplines.We further identified the sources of those genres in order to determine their authenticity and the link between the genre and the LSP field in question.In our analysis of genre-related tasks, we aimed to describe the required competences and the nature of the required response.Figure 1 shows the model we used for the analysis of genre-related information in the textbooks.

LSP fields, domains and CEFR levels
The FSP textbooks included in our corpus fall into the following categories: Business; Diplomacy and Administration; Tourism; and Law.The first category proved to be by far the largest in our corpus.The prevailing focus on business language is a trend that can also be observed in other languages and is thus not unique to French LSP textbooks (St John: 1996).This evidence is not surprising if we bear in mind the imperative of commercial success in publishing policies and therefore also its influence on the choice of LSP fields.As seen in Section 2 above, the concepts of LSP fields and the CEFR domains do not overlap.To determine the extent to which professional genres are included in the textbooks it was necessary to analyse which domains are covered within individual textbooks.Following the CEFR conceptualisation of domains, our analysis showed that the avowed LSP focus does not prevent the textbook writers from going beyond the occupational domain towards personal, educational and public domains (see Table 2).Most textbooks in our corpus tend to combine different domains, either within the same activity or across activities and topics.Written genres can be found in the educational, occupational and also the public domain, with constant parallels between the personal domain and the other three domains, thus allowing for continuous shifts of perspective between the language learner as an individual and the language learner as part of a professional community.
The textbooks included in the corpus range from levels A1 to B2 in the CEFR.Two interesting phenomena can be observed with reference to the textbook levels: the dominant Task description task level ambition to cover two levels in a single textbook and the absence of textbooks covering some CEFR levels.The tendency to include two levels in a single book is a finding that runs counter to the precept of LSP short intensive courses (Mangiante/Parpette 2004).
All of the textbooks that start at A1 also cover the A2 level.None of the textbooks in our corpus exclusively covers the A1 level and none covers levels above B2.While the absence of A1 textbooks could stem from a widely held belief that the LSP courses are predominantly meant for more advanced levels, it is more difficult to understand why there are no FSP textbooks targeting learners who have achieved the higher levels of language competence, where genre references are the richest in the CEFR.

Text types and genres included in the FSP textbooks
The genres in the textbooks help form students' discursive repertoires.Regardless of the domain they originally pertain to, all the texts in a textbook can be viewed as educational in purpose.Bhatia (2004) believes that a textbook is a genre colony.This means that a textbook includes genres which are embedded (Bhatia 2004;Lähdesmäki 2009) in it at different levels of structure.The communicative purposes of embedded genres are globally reframed to fit with the general purpose of the textbook as an instructional genre.The textbook user is aware that the texts carry a linguistically pedagogical value.Beyond this general orientation, each text type can be identified as originally pertaining to a given CEFR domain.For the distribution of written genres across domains, see Table 3 in the Appendix.
Genres pertaining to the occupational domain are supposed to be the distinguishing characteristic of FSP textbooks.These genres mould the identity of the textbooks by their contextual link with a particular LSP field.As expected, the professional genres form the richest repertoire among the four domains offered to an LSP learner.Our analysis showed that not a single professional written genre is common to all of the textbooks studied.Moreover, the number of different professional genres varies across textbooks.Although the mere number of different text types does not tell us much about the approach to genres, it does define the potential for the development of the user's genre repertoire and, consequently, contributes to the user's communicative competence.It is interesting to note that in the FSP textbook from the field of administration professional genres are almost exclusively replaced by the educational genre of textbook topic presentation.The professional profile drawn through such a genre repertoire would in this case probably better correspond to the profile of a (French native speaker) undergraduate student of the French administration system than to that of a non-native FSP user.On the other hand, some FSP textbooks, i.e. in the field of tourism, diplomacy and business, offer vast genre repertoires to learn from.
Contrary to our expectations, the richness of the genre repertoires does not consistently increase with the CEFR level.Some textbooks covering the lower levels (e.g.Objectif Diplomatie A1 / A2, Français.com,Comment vont les affaires) offer richer genre repertoires than B1/B2 textbooks (e.g.Carte de visite, Le Français du monde de travail).The richness of the genre repertoires was also found to vary across FSP fields and within a single field.While variation across fields may be partly attributable to the epistemic nature of the field, we observed that in some textbooks where task-based approaches were not systematically observed the choice of text types is more concentrated on the educational domain (e.g.Adminsitration.com, Diplomatie.com).
Further consideration of the nature of professional genres gives the teacher some insight into how professional identities are portrayed via genre inclusion in the textbooks.In our corpus, three tendencies were observed in the presentation of genre repertoires: the insistence on larger, generic categories of text types, the generalised use of the most widely used text types, and the dispersion of more specific genres across LSP fields and CEFR levels.The presentation of larger categories favours the analysis of text types at very general levels of analysis, including criteria such as the type of media (e.g.e-mail, SMS message), their physical presentation (paragraphs, photos, titles) and format.These text types appear in textbooks at CEFR levels A1 to B2 and in all of the studied FSP fields.They present genre information as being less important than the content-related "message" it carries for the textbook user.The learner's attention is not explicitly drawn to the genre features of these texts, which is in line with the increased emphasis on genres at higher CEFR levels.
Among the most widely used genres, the consistent presence of genres like forms and official documents can be noted.Moreover, correspondence seems to create an important terrain for exploring different genres and for identifying the textbook user with his/her professional context.Two types of correspondence seem to dominate.The first type is organised around the context of a job application.A real genre chain extending beyond the borders of written genres is formed in this case (i.e.job offer -job application letter -CV -positive response -job interview -job resignation letter).This type of genre is found across textbooks at all levels from A1 to B2, and in three of the analysed LSP fields.Surprisingly, the two fields in which this type of genre chain is absent are Law and Administration.The second type could be labelled standard business letters, which are limited to the field of business and tourism French.Correspondence offers numerous possibilities for the creation of genre chains in which contextual elements can intervene.In our corpus, professional correspondence is more consistently covered in the fields of business and tourism than in diplomacy, administration or law.
Several more dispersed professional genres can be found, especially at the higher CEFR levels (B1, B2).These genres are linked with specific situations, activities and texts that are characteristic of a given LSP field (e.g. an end-of-year statement in business, a press release in diplomacy, a court decision in law).In comparison with text types that chiefly highlight the generic professional situations, these genres constitute a narrower professional identity of the textbook user.They have an added value because they allow users to enrich their discursive repertoire and to experience it in a pedagogically recreated context.They have the potential to develop insights into the specificities of the target professional community for the newcomers and offer more experienced learners the possibility to share their specific professional expertise.
Within the educational domain, three groups of written genres can be distinguished: lecture-related genres, secondary literature genres and language evaluation genres.Lecture-related genres mimic the context of a lecture with the necessary carrier content, which may be complemented by additional authentic documents, examples and anno-tated lists of relevant website addresses.Secondary literature genres usually feature in the appendices of a textbook.They are part of the textbook macrostructure and include genres that are used in a language learning context, such as multilingual glossaries and grammar outlines, as well as field-related genres, such as lists of abbreviations and special purpose maps.Glossaries and lists of abbreviations are the most pervasive feature of FSP textbooks in all of the studied disciplines and CEFR levels.Language evaluation genres implicitly or explicitly direct a student towards an evaluation of the acquired knowledge.They include progress evaluation tests, competence grids, and portfolios.While the last types aim at developing students' self-assessment and lifelong learning evaluation skills used for formative purposes, the tests are not only meant as progress evaluation instruments but also as instruments to deal with the context of summative evaluation.Even though the majority of textbook introductions present the system of external testing, few textbooks provide sample general language tests (DELF, DALF) at lower levels of language proficiency (A1, A2).Only the textbook Français du tourisme presents LSP tests where the tasks aim to aid preparation for officially recognised FSP proficiency tests offered by authorised test centres.These tests familiarise students with the context of testing as well as the types of tasks included in the test and give them instructions to successfully deal with the testing situation.
In spite of the LSP nature of the textbooks, learners are also presented with some genres from personal and public domains.Genres pertaining to the personal domain vary greatly across the textbooks.Generally, they are in some way related to the user's professional life (i.e.paraprofessional situations, such as the user consulting a menu during a business trip), but some have hardly anything to do with it (i.e. a recipe or novel extract in a business textbook).Genres within the public domain seem to appear only accidentally, except in the fields of law and diplomacy, where they could be linked to the requirements of the profession.Finally, another feature appeared in our study of the FSP textbooks.Even though the occupational domain genres impart a specific identity to a textbook, and the genres pertaining to other domains are deemed to be secondary in this sense, the domains should not be viewed as static or impenetrable.In our corpus, there are numerous examples in which a professional genre is used as a trigger for a personal conversation and vice versa.FSP textbooks are therefore far from exclusively profession-oriented.Based on the analysis of genre identity within different domains, it could be claimed that FSP textbook authors view textbook users not only as professionals but as general language learners whose language learning experience is extended into the four CEFR domains.
The CEFR does not take any theoretical stances regarding the choice of suitable texts, but the reference to authentic texts or situations always ranks high among the presented possibilities to acquire the communicative competence in a foreign language (CEFR 2001: 143-154).Even though the textbook authors explicitly highlight the authenticity of materials, the vast majority of the genre-related materials in the FSP textbooks studied is not authentic but was redrafted or even written specifically for the textbook.While the choice of written genres points to the authors' efforts to deal with authentic LSP situations, the choice of authentic materials is either not always explicitly recognised or remains highly limited.This is to some extent understandable since complex, lengthy and linguistically demanding texts can be difficult to handle in a classroom situation.As a result, they are often shortened and changed to highlight only the critical discourse features.Moreover, some occluded genres are difficult to obtain in their original form (e.g.cables in diplomatic correspondence).Regardless of these limitations, it could be hypothesised that the enhanced authenticity of genre materials would further contribute to students' genre awareness.This could be achieved not only at the text level but also at the sentence, lexical, and morpho-syntactic levels of language analysis.In recent years, LSP research has benefitted from corpus-based results which have allowed for a deeper insight into the discourse of a given field.However, the information on the data collection methods used was not to be found in the textbooks studied.The reality to which the user is allowed to accede via the textbook information about written genres is therefore not easily verifiable.

Tasks involving written genres
In the FSP textbooks, written professional genres have different functions.As observed earlier, the first function is related to the specific LSP field.By their mere presence in a textbook, genres offer the possibility to establish a broader framework for the language learner who will be able to use different text types as a leverage to identify his/her role in a given professional situation and to grasp the professional reality through the analysis of actors, processes and activities as well as the analysis of discourse features and of social or (inter)culturally conditioned implications of genre practice.But we can observe that additional purposes are attributed to the selected professional genres or text types through the tasks involving written genres.
The most common function of genres as text types in FSP textbooks is what we may call the contextualisation function.Here, the acquisition of genre competence itself is not targeted as a pedagogical objective.Instead, genre is used to establish a suitable context in which the user is assigned a purely linguistic task in order to make a language-teaching point.For example, a gap-fill exercise embedded in an administrative letter can serve as a pretext to ask the learner to reuse the target vocabulary or language structures in a given situation.The overall purpose of this exercise is therefore not related to the genre itself.The required learner competences will logically have to match the nature of the tasks.While in this case the genre use allows for a framework of situated learning, the specific aim is to mobilise an aspect of learners' language competence in performing a pedagogical, linguistic task.
The contextualisation effort should be seen as a continuum which involves genre processing at different stages of the learning process.In some cases, the relevance of contextualisation can be questioned: e.g. the learner is presented with an introductory text written in a genre and is later required to produce a text in this genre, but the context is not related to the professional situation of the learner and therefore the genre output is not in a pedagogical focus.In one textbook (Français.com),the learner is presented with an extract from an article on a cultural aspect of a phenomenon.After the comprehension check phase, the learner is instructed to write an article about the same phenomenon in his/her culture.It can be assumed that the real pedagogical focus is the cultural phenomenon and not the genre.
If genres are often used only as triggers for activities that have little to do with genre itself, at the other extreme of this continuum are those FSP textbooks that propose tasks that require students' productive genre competence without even pre-teaching it in any way.For example, in the FSP textbook for law students and experts the learner is asked to produce a conference paper and an abstract for conference proceedings, without any previous preparation.The general instruction provides limited orientation by inviting the learner to observe a three-part structure with the introduction, body and conclusion while using the linking words to ensure the coherence of the text.In the latter case, the genre product is the final output of a simulation exercise in which the context has been artificially built around the chosen specialised topic, and the pedagogical stress is placed on the propositional content rather than on the genre structure, style or purpose.
Within the second group of pedagogically conditioned functions, written genres or extracts from written genres feature as short introductory texts, which are followed by instructions that trigger activities based on the primary use of receptive skills.The use of genres in this function shifts the focus from a limited linguistic question to raising genre awareness through reading tasks.These are usually composed of classical reading comprehension questions checking the global and detailed understanding of the text.It may be claimed that the aim of these exercises is more to develop learners' general reading strategies than specific genre competences, but this kind of exercise might result in some passive acquisition of genre patterns.
In the next group, genres are used as prompts in tasks that trigger the mobilisation of general productive skills.The majority of writing tasks in our corpus aims at developing general writing skills.An example of such a task would be summary writing, which sometimes follows the reading of comprehension questions (Objectif Diplomatie A2 / B1).In this task, the learner is required to sum up the whole text or part of the text, and this can remain a purely pedagogical task without any reference to real-life situations.In some professional contexts, summary writing may be seen as an important writing skill, which is also useful in professional genres, but this skill is not uniquely related to the development of genre competences.Another type of task, where genre also plays the role of a support document for the mobilisation of general productive skills, is tasks requiring interaction in a given situation.The required response to these documents may shift from a written genre to another channel of information, e.g. an oral presentation of a person based on their identity card or, vice versa, completing the record of a telephone conversation form after having listened to an oral document.
The degree to which productive skills are mobilised varies across genres.Some genres, e.g.different types of forms, administrative documents and cards, are presented as such and the user is not allowed to creatively intervene in the genre structure.Due to the nature of these genres, the learner is expected to use receptive skills in order to retrieve the relevant information or category of data in the text.Productive skills are employed to complete a form and to develop an oral interaction.However, for some written genres text construction skills are required.This is especially seen in corre-spondence, where learners' writing skills are developed through genre building tasks.
In considering the nature of these tasks, we distinguish between the process and the product approach, which is recognised in the genre tradition (Flowerdew 1993) and in the CEFR.While the process approach allows learners to discover the genre structure on their own and gives them the possibility to observe different factors influencing the interplay between genre as text and context, the product approach focuses on the structure of the text, and the text sample functions as a prototype.The prototype supports learners in producing their own response to a genre situation.In our corpus, traces of the process and the product approaches can be found, although the product approach seems to prevail.As far as genre-related information is concerned, a pronounced insistence on the product is expressed through the presentation of sample documents, especially sample letters to be studied by the learner.Textbook authors see these text exemplars as the necessary cannon to introduce the learner to the French culture and, more specifically, to the culture of a given professional community.The text-type structures are meant to be learned by the students through sample texts.In carrying out the genre-building tasks the learner is often guided by instructions of good use, which explicitly list individual moves taken by the genre author to achieve rhetorical objectives.Sample texts are offered to the learner as models to be followed for the completion of a task.The modelling and the reconstruction of text are entirely performed by the textbook author.The move structure and sequencing is shown as stable and unchangeable.Sometimes these steps are accompanied by theoretical descriptions of common grammatical difficulties.The information on genre structure is either integrated in the assignment structure or it is suggested in the appendices or in the Key to exercises, where the user is directed to search for ideal versions of the task solutions/genre performance without being given the possibility to compare different versions.Most of the textbooks studied also provide explicit culturally related "civilisation" or professional information.In some cases, the learner is invited to make comparisons between the structure of the same genre in the French language and in his/her first language.But cultural information is not systematically related to genres and is not always integrated in the presentation of genres.Overall, this type of contents in FSP textbooks could be seen as a response to the broad CEFR requirement to develop students' intercultural skills and to address their socio-cultural needs.
In our corpus, a combination of the process and product approaches can be seen in authentic task-based activities.These activities are usually presented in the form of end-of-unit simulations where the participants are given more or less detailed information and even scenarios for the staging of a real-life situation.In interaction with other participants and under appropriate teacher control, they can not only plan and discuss their outputs but also creatively explore the potential to use the communicative strategies, express adequate propositional content and their identity.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
Previous research has pointed to the importance of developing principled criteria in the evaluation of materials (Tomlinson 2012).We suggested that a double perspective on textbooks, namely taking the CEFR as a general framework for the analysis, while concentrating on genres as staged, socially conditioned text types, can prove to be relevant for the FSP teacher who sets out to evaluate an FSP textbook.The analysis of the genre-related parameters showed that the CEFR offers several parallels with LSP teaching.On the other hand, clear differences were observed when the precepts of the CEFR are to be applied to the LSP course design with a genre perspective.In both traditions the communicative competence, which is the goal of language learning, has to embrace the ability to function in society and to use the language, but the CEFR has a more limited approach to the conceptualisation of genre-related parameters, focusing to a lesser extent on the user as a social actor and remaining at a more general level as far as the types of texts are concerned.Evaluation frameworks would therefore have to take these differences into account.
Written genres included in textbooks point to the macrofunction of the textbook as an instructional genre.LSP textbooks intending to support the development of genre competences need to include relevant occupational genres, which would allow for the development of complex genre competences (Swales 1990;Bhatia 2004;Johns 2011).The analysis of genres in FSP textbooks gave us an insight into the way textbooks authors understand the issues of specialised discourse.Several findings, pointing to possible gaps in the genre information, emerged through this analysis.In general, considerable variation in the presented genre realities was observed across the CEFR levels and disciplines.With reference to the CEFR levels, we showed that the majority of the textbooks studied cover two CEFR levels in one book while the highest CEFR levels, where the genre competences are likely to be the most relevant to the FSP learner, are not even represented in textbook form.This implies that teachers who are about to choose a suitable textbook will have to take into account that the approaches to language learning in these materials are highly selective and that some level of adaptation to the target audience might therefore be needed not only from the genre perspective but also from other perspectives, i.e. the language level of the target audience, the pedagogical approach etc.
The second finding relates to the role of genres in textbooks.The assumption that the occupational genres would always function as the pivotal domain in the FSP textbooks was not confirmed, even though the professional domain genres seem to predominate in most of the FSP textbooks studied.Textbooks developers see specialised discourse as being intertwined with other types of discourse, extending to educational, private and public domains and the textbook user is expected to move freely across domains and communities.A panoply of different groups of genre types was identified in each of the domains included in the FSP textbooks.Within the occupational domain, the FSP textbooks tend to rely on the more general categories of text types; they mostly deal with general professional situations and the pertaining genres which are characteristic of professional life across LSP fields, e.g. a job application.These genres are often used in situations where they form genre chains, including switches between oral and written genres.The richest text type variation between LSP fields and CEFR levels was observed in the group of discipline-specific genres, although these genres only appear at the higher CEFR levels.Our study further suggests that students' communicative competence is rarely developed through the use of authentic materials and that the general precept of authenticity is not systematically followed in the FSP textbooks.It thus confirms the results of previous studies by Lähdesmäki (2009) for ELT textbooks and by Lah (2012) for FLT textbooks.
Finally, we revealed that the genres and genre-related tasks are closer to the conceptualisation of the CEFR than to the Anglophone LSP genre tradition.In the FSP textbooks, genres are predominantly dealt with as text types and are not always included with a view to developing genre competences.Four functions of genres as text types were identified: contextualisation, raising genre awareness through reading, mobilisation of general productive skills, and the genre-building function.Tasks that present genres as staged activities, related to professional situations, problems to be solved or missions to be accomplished enhance purposeful action-based linguistic behaviour within a given professional community and offer the possibility of a genre-building experience in which the learners can move beyond the reuse of linguistic structures and the mimicry of presented sample text types.These tasks usually appear in textbooks which propose end-of-unit simulations.The analysis of the genre-related tasks suggests that genres are mostly conceptualised from the prescriptive perspective.The perceived aim of this exercise for students is to mimic as faithfully as possible the text type characteristics in their linguistic or sometimes more broadly communicative activities.This knowledge is operationalised through tasks that favour reproduction of the given exemplars.The stress on this function can be explained by the nature of the textbooks themselves, which can generally be viewed as prescriptive genres (Piccardo et al. 2011).Less attention is devoted to the development of the process skills and to the dynamic aspect of written genres.
Our analysis offers a general insight into the role of genres in the FSP textbooks studied, but the results can be transferred to other FSP situations.Teachers planning to choose an FSP textbook in a given LSP field will have to consider its suitability with a specific needs analysis in mind.In order to be able to carry out this analysis, the set of criteria suggested above (Section 3) would be useful in the evaluation stage.Apart from considering the questions of authenticity, teachers will also have to determine whether the textbook provides a broad perspective on the functioning of genres.With reference to tasks, they will have to establish whether the learner is offered the possibility to develop the process and the product-related skills.These insights should help teachers better integrate the findings of the genre-based approaches into their teaching practices and to supplement the existing materials with additional genre samples or with additional approaches and thus allow the user to integrate their genre knowledge through a holistic genre experience.
Our study primarily focused on how textbooks can inform an FSP teacher about the written genres FSP students will have to deal with.However, it has some limitations in terms of scope and depth.When talking about genre, written text is only one of the challenges the teachers making decisions about the role of genre in their programme will be faced with.Our findings are concentrated on the teacher perspective in evaluating the role of genres.Further research is needed to integrate the learner's perspective and to evaluate how the genre practices are enhanced through the actual use of FSP textbooks.

Abstract THE CEFR PERSPECTIVE ON GENRE INFORMATION IN FRENCH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES TEXTBOOKS
In the past twenty years, the results of genre-based studies have been introduced into programmes of languages for specific purposes and even genre-based approaches have been used to teach languages for specific purposes.At the same time, the CEFR has been recognised as an important tool and reference in the process of materials design.However, the relationship between these two powerful frameworks has not been fully explored.In this article, we aim to analyse this relationship in order to reveal how genre knowledge is presented through written texts and through tasks included in textbooks.
Based on the results of qualitative text analysis, we argue that the integration of the CEFR and genre perspectives yields valuable information concerning the role of genres at different CEFR levels and in different domains.We offer an insight into the genre identities portrayed in French for Specific Purposes textbooks and identify the possible types of gaps that may arise when the user's professional identities are considered through the genres included in textbooks.
educational, occupational, public and personal Special purposes: academic and/or occupational purposes

Figure 1 :
Figure 1: Model for the analysis of genre-related information in FSP textbooks