Reception histories are retrospectives; they look back at publications and ask
who has cited them, how often, when, where and why. This paper takes an
influential 1996 paper on genre analysis and examines how it has played out
intertextually over the 15 years or so since its publication. The main sources used
have been Google Scholar and the Web of Science. The quantitative results show
that it has been primarily, but not exclusively, cited in ESP publications. The
more qualitative aspect of this investigation reveals that its value for most later
commentators lies in its review-article potential to act as an interpretive frame
for subsequent work. The paper ends with a discussion of whether today we
should accept just “three traditions” for genre analysis and its pedagogical
applications or look further afield.