GENRE ANALYSIS OF ONLINE CONSUMER REVIEWS ON AMAZON AND DARAZ IN PAKISTAN: A COMPARATIVE STUDY
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.68156/hhmt7f22Keywords:
Amazon, Bhatia (1993) Move-Step Model, Daraz, Digital Discourse, Genre Analysis, Online Consumer Reviews, Pakistani E-CommerceAbstract
Online consumer reviews now shape purchasing decisions, yet little is known about how their rhetorical and linguistic construction differs between a global platform and a Pakistani one. Existing work has examined reviews mainly through marketing and computational approaches, and genre-based studies have concentrated on Amazon and other Western sites, leaving Pakistani e-commerce largely unexamined. This study presents a comparative genre analysis of 50 consumer reviews, 25 from Amazon and 25 from Daraz. Using a qualitative, descriptive, and comparative design, it applies Bhatia’s (1993) move-step model to identify rhetorical organization and examines code-switching and culturally embedded expression through close reading. Two research questions guide the analysis: which moves and steps make up the genre on both platforms, and how the platforms differ in rhetorical structure, language, and cultural expression. Both sets of reviews contain the same four moves: identifying the product, evaluating the product, justifying the evaluation, and recommending the product or giving seller feedback. Evaluation is the only obligatory move, found in all 25 reviews on each platform. The platforms differ in the steps that realize the moves. Amazon reviews centre on the product: its features, its performance, and the reviewer’s experience of use. Daraz reviews centre on the transaction: conformity with the listing, delivery, and appreciation of the seller, often expressed through English and Roman Urdu code-switching and, in a minority of reviews, through religious formulas of thanks and blessing. Because the corpus is small, the patterns are descriptive and cannot be generalized to either platform as a whole. The study shows that one genre can take different shapes in different marketplaces, and it adds a Pakistani case to a literature built largely on Western data.
Downloads
References
Androutsopoulos, J. (2015). Networked multilingualism: Some language practices on Facebook and their implications. International Journal of Bilingualism, 19(2), 185–205. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367006913489198
Awan, Z. N., Begum, U., & Khan, M. (2025). Code-switching and code-mixing in Pakistani English: A sociolinguistic analysis. Social Science Review Archives, 3(1), 1448–1456. https://doi.org/10.70670/sra.v3i1.446
Bhatia, V. K. (1993). Analysing genre: Language use in professional settings. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315844992
Bhatia, V. K. (1996). Methodological issues in genre analysis. HERMES – Journal of Language and Communication in Business, 9(16), 39–59. https://doi.org/10.7146/hjlcb.v9i16.25383
Bhatia, V. K. (2004). Worlds of written discourse: A genre-based view. Continuum.
Hennig-Thurau, T., Gwinner, K. P., Walsh, G., & Gremler, D. D. (2004). Electronic word-of-mouth via consumer-opinion platforms: What motivates consumers to articulate themselves on the Internet? Journal of Interactive Marketing, 18(1), 38–52.
Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture’s consequences: International differences in work-related values. Sage.
https://doi.org/10.1080/08961530.2020.1712293
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0279716
Kanoksilapatham, B. (2015). Distinguishing textual features characterizing structural variation in research articles across three engineering sub-discipline corpora. English for Specific Purposes, 37, 74–86. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2014.06.008
Khan, A. M. (2014). Social aspects of code-switching: An analysis of Pakistani television advertisements. Information Management and Business Review, 6(6), 269–279. https://doi.org/10.22610/imbr.v6i6.1125
Koh, N. S., Hu, N., & Clemons, E. K. (2010). Do online reviews reflect a product’s true perceived quality? An investigation of online movie reviews across cultures. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, 9(5), 374–385. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.elerap.2010.04.001
Mudambi, S. M., & Schuff, D. (2010). What makes a helpful online review? A study of customer reviews on Amazon.com. MIS Quarterly, 34(1), 185–200.
Park, C., & Lee, T. M. (2009). Antecedents of online reviews’ usage and purchase influence: An empirical comparison of U.S. and Korean consumers. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 23(4), 332–340. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intmar.2009.07.001
Pollach, I. (2006, January). Electronic word of mouth: A genre analysis of product reviews on consumer opinion web sites. In Proceedings of the 39th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS'06) (Vol. 3, pp. 51c-51c). IEEE.
Racine, S. S. J. (2002). Changing (inter)faces: A genre analysis of catalogues from Sears, Roebuck to Amazon.com [Doctoral dissertation, University of Minnesota]. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses.
Rahman, T. (2002). Language, ideology and power: Language-learning among the Muslims of Pakistan and North India. Oxford University Press.
Rahman, T. (2006). Language policy, multilingualism and language vitality in Pakistan. In A. Saxena & L. Borin (Eds.), Lesser-known languages of South Asia: Status and policies, case studies and applications of information technology (pp. 73–104). Mouton de Gruyter.
Skalicky, S. (2013). Was this analysis helpful? A genre analysis of the Amazon.com discourse community and its “most helpful” product reviews. Discourse, Context & Media, 2(2), 84-93.
Swales, J. M. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge University Press.
Vasquez, C. (2014). The discourse of online consumer reviews. Bloomsbury Academic.
Ventre, I., & Kolbe, D. (2020). The impact of perceived usefulness of online reviews, trust and perceived risk on online purchase intention in emerging markets: A Mexican perspective. Journal of International Consumer Marketing, 32(4), 287–299.
Wang, S. (2023). A multi-dimensional analysis of CBEC English genre variation in South Asia: Based on Daraz. PLOS ONE, 18(4), Article e0279716.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Wajeeha Noor, Naveed Nawaz Ahmad (Author)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
