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Genre studiesFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Genre studies is an academic subject which studies genre theory as a branch of general critical theory inseveral different fields, including the literary or artistic, linguistic, or rhetorical.

Literary genre studies is a structuralist approach to the study of genre and genre theory in literary theory,film theory, and other cultural theories. The study of a genre in this way examines the structural elementsthat combine in the telling of a story and finds patterns in collections of stories. When these elements (orsemiotic codes) begin to carry inherent information, a genre emerges. In art history, genre theory considersthe visual arts in a similar way.

Linguistic genre studies is best described by Systemic Functional Linguistics or "SFL", also known as theSydney School of genre analysis. SFL scholars believe that language structure is an integral part of a text'ssocial context and function.[1] SFL scholars often conduct research that focuses on genres usefulness inpedagogy.

English for Specific Purposes or "ESP" is another school of literary genre studies that examines thepedagogical implications of genre. ESP scholars focus on how genre can help non­native English speakers,often in upper­level academic programs, learn how to use the language and its conventions through theapplication of genre.[2]

Rhetorical Genre Studies or "RGS" studies genre as social action. RGS emerged from Carolyn R. Miller'sarticle "Genre as Social Action".[3]

Contents

1 Branches of literary and linguistic Genre Studies

1.1 Systemic Functional Linguistics

1.2 English for Specific Purposes

1.3 Rhetorical Genre Studies (RGS)

2 Generic Conventions

3 History of genre theory

3.1 Enlightenment age

3.2 Evolution

4 Current state of genre theory

5 Functions and limits

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5 Functions and limits

6 In social communities

7 Aspects of genre theory

7.1 Rhetorical situation

7.2 Genre as social action

7.3 Social construct

7.4 Antecedent genres

7.5 Reciprocity of genre

7.6 Tyranny of genre

7.7 Stabilization, homogenization and fixity

7.8 Genre Ecology and Activity Theory

7.9 Secondary Speech Genres

8 See also

9 References

10 External links

Branches of literary and linguistic Genre Studies

Systemic Functional Linguistics

Systemic Functional Linguistics scholars believe that language is organized within cultures based oncultural ideologies. The "systemic" of SFL refers to the system as a whole, in which linguistic choices aremade. SFL is based largely on the work of Michael Halliday, who believed that individuals make linguisticchoices based on the ideologies of the systems that those individuals inhabit. For Halliday, there is a"network of meanings" within a culture, that constitutes the "social semiotic" of that culture. This "socialsemiotic" is encoded and maintained by the discourse system of the culture.[4] For Halliday, contexts inwhich texts are produced recur, in what he calls "situation types." People raised within a specific culturebecome accustomed to the "situation types" that occur within that culture, and are more easily able tomaneuver through the "situation types" within that culture than people who were not brought up within it.[5]

Halliday's approach to cultural context in the formation of recurrent "situation types" influenced otherscholars, such as J.R. Martin. Martin led the SFL pedagogical approach, which emphasized the role ofcontext in text formation. Martin and his associates believed that process­based approaches to education

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ignored the cultural boundaries of texts, and privileged middle­ and upper­ class students at the expense ofstudents from lower­class backgrounds.[6] According to Martin and other SFL scholars, an explicit focus ongenre in literature would help literacy teaching. Focusing on genre reveals the contexts that influences texts,and teaches those contexts to students, so that they can create texts that are culturally informed.[7]

Through their genre work in schools, Martin and his associates developed a definition of genre as a "staged,goal­oriented, social process." [8] In the Martinian genre model, genres are staged because they accomplishtasks that require multiple steps; they are goal­oriented because their users are motivated to see thecompletion of the stages to the end; and they are social because users address their texts to specificaudiences.[8]

English for Specific Purposes

English for Specific Purposes scholarship has been around since the 1960s, but ESP scholars did not beginusing genre as a pedagogical approach until the 1980s, when John Swales published Genre Analysis:English in Academic and Research Settings, in which Swales laid out the methodological approach thatbrought together ESP and genre analysis.[9] Swales identified two characteristics of ESP genre analysis: itsfocus on academic research in English and its use of genre analysis for applied ends.[10] ESP focuses onspecific genres within spheres of activity, such as the medical profession, but it also focuses on the broaderconcept of communicative purposes within fields of study.[11]

English for Specific Purposes shares some characteristics with SFL studies. Both believe that linguisticfeatures are connected to social context and function, and both aim to help disadvantaged students grasp thesystem in which texts are created so that they can create similar texts, by teaching them the relationshipbetween language and social function. Both try to accomplish their goals by teaching specific genres tounderprivileged users.[12]

However, there are also some important differences between ESP and SFL. Whereas SFL scholars focus onteaching basic genre structures to primary and secondary school students, ESP scholars are focuses onteaching Professional and Academic disciplinary genres to University­ and graduate­level students. ESPstudents tend to be more bound to discursive genre subjects, within very particular contexts. ESP focuses onmicro­level genres and contexts, whereas SFL focuses on macro­level contexts.[13]

Rhetorical Genre Studies (RGS)

Rhetorical Genre Studies scholars examine genre as typified social action, as ways of acting based onrecurrent social situations. This founding principle for RGS was taken from Carolyn R. Miller's essay"Genre as Social Action," which was published in 1984.[3][14] In her article, Miller examines Frank LloydBitzer's notion of exigence as a reaction to social situations, and Kenneth Burke's notion of "motive" ashuman action.[15] Using Bitzer, particularly, Miller believes it is possible to examine exigence as "anexternal cause of discourse."[16] Ultimately, she is able to view situations as social constructions. Genres aretypified ways of responding to recurring social constructions.[17]

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RGS scholars have evolved beyond Miller's founding definition of genre. Carol Berkenkotter and ThomasHuckin begin with the notion that genre is knowledge foundation, and argue that genres embodycommunities' knowledge and ways of acting.[3] For Berkenkotter and Huckin, genre becomes a way ofnavigating social activity. As such, it is dynamic, because the conditions of social activity are always influx. Recurrence, they claim, involves variation.[18] Berkenkotter and Huckin redefine genre as socialcognition.[18]

The notion of "uptake" is also integral to RGS scholars understanding of genre. Anne Freadman uses uptaketo describe the ways in which genres interact with each other in her articles "Uptake" and "Anyone forTennis?".[19] She uses the game of tennis to explain the ways genres interact. Tennis players, she says, donot exchange tennis balls, they exchange shots. Each shot only has meaning within the game, its rules, andthe context of the game being play.[20] Shots are meaningful because they take place in a game. The game ismeaningful because it takes place within "ceremonials." Thus, the final at Wimbledon provides a differentcontext than a game between friends. Genres are the games that take place within ceremonials, and shotsare utterances, or verbal exchanges. We cannot really understand a text without understanding theceremonial in which it occurs.[21] "Uptake" is the illocutionary response elicited by particular situations.[22]

Amy Devitt's research has further complicated the RGS landscape. In Writing Genres, Devitt distinguishesbetween the "context of genres," "genre repertoires," "genre systems," and "genre sets." The "context ofgenres" is the overall set of genres available in a culture. A "genre repertoire" refers to the set of genres thata specific group uses to achieve its purposes. "Genre systems" are the sets of genres that function within anactivity system. Finally, "genre sets" are more loosely defined sets of genres that function within an activitysystem, but only define a limited range of actions within that system.[23] For instance, if we were to take acourtroom as an activity system, a genre set could be defined as only those genres used by the judge.Studying the "context of genres," "genre repertoires," "genre systems," and "genre sets" enables researchersto study the relationships and power structures of activity systems.[23]

Generic Conventions

Conventions are usual indicators such as phrases, themes, quotations, or explanations that readers expect tofind in a certain genre. They could be considered "stereotypes" of that genre. For example, Science fictionis expected to be set in the future, and have futuristic events, technological advances, and futuristic ideas.Realism is expected to contain a story about people who could pass as real, struggling through real­lifesituations and/or real world events, etc.

Critic Paul Alpers explains that literary conventions are like meeting places where past and present writers"come together" to determine the form a convention should take in a particular literary instance (work). Inpractical terms, this coming together is a matter of the present writer consulting the work of predecessors,but Alpers wants to connote the sense of active negotiation and accommodation that takes place betweenthe writer and the genre he or she is working in (a genre defined by other people). According to Alpers, amisconception persists in modern criticism that literary convention is an “arbitrary and inflexible practice,established by widespread usage and imposed from without.” Convention in this sense is the “antithesis ofthe personal and individual”; it is “felt to constrain the [writer].” Alpers reconceptualizes literaryconvention as something “constitutive and enabling.” For him, generic conventions are “not fixedprocedures imposed by impersonal tradition;” rather, they are the living “usages of other [writers],” “theshared practice of those who come together.” Thinking of generic conventions as a practice shared by many

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users, allows later writers to exercise the same degree of control over convention as those who predatedthem. Far from constraining writers, convention provides flexibility to preserve certain aspects of a genreand transform others. Convention in this sense enables “individual expression, because the [writer] is seenas responsive to, even when challenging, his predecessors and fellows.”[24]

Genre theorist David Fishelov also deals with generic conventions—he calls them "generic rules"—inelaborating his explanatory metaphor of “literary genres as social institutions” in the book Metaphors ofGenre: The Role of Analogies in Genre Theory. Fishelov, like Alpers, sees generic conventions as aninescapably “vital part of the literary communicative situation,” linking present and past writers to eachother, as well as to readers. Established conventions are “a challenge, or a horizon, against which the writerand his reader have to define themselves.” The writer may respond to this challenge by “stretch[ing] thegeneric rules.”[25]

Fishelov draws his metaphor of genre as social institution from a passage in René Welleck and AustinWarren’s Theory of Literature:

The literary kind [genre] is an ‘institution’—as Church, University, or State is an institution. It existsnot as an animal exists or even as a building, chapel, library, or capital, but as an institution exists.One can work through, express oneself through, existing institutions, create new ones, or get on, sofar as possible, without sharing in politics or rituals; one can also join, but then reshapeinstitutions.[26]

This formulation ascribes agency to actors within social institutions. In the same way institutions likechurches, universities, and states organize social actors to accomplish collective social purposes, literarygenres organize relationships between writers and readers to accomplish communicative purposes, whichchange over time. Genres are not static, but rather, like social institutions, persist through the constantrenovation of their conventions by individuals. Fishelov is particularly helpful in theorizing the role of thereader in alternately constraining and motivating generic change:

[T]he reader demands compliance with the established generic conventions so that he can integratethe new text, but at the same time he expects the writer to manipulate these established conventionsso that the new text is more than a tedious repetition of the generic tradition.[25]

Reader expectations operate as both a constraint on the writer and a “latent demand for innovation." Thewriter “is expected to manipulate the existing conventions and to carry them (at least) one step further….From the writer’s perspective, the generic convention is a model to follow but also a challenge toovercome.” Fishelov explains that writers choose or are compelled to manipulate prevailing conventions fora variety of aesthetic and thematic reasons.

History of genre theory

Genre theory or genre studies got underway with the Greeks. The Greeks felt that the type of person anauthor was would be directly responsible for the type of poetry they wrote. The Greeks also believed thatcertain metrical forms were suited only to certain genres. Aristotle said,

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We have, then, a natural instinct for representation and for tune and rhythm—and starting withthese instincts men very gradually developed them until they produced poetry out of theirimprovisations. Poetry then split into two kinds according to the poet's nature. For the moreserious poets represented the noble deeds of noble men, while those of a less exalted naturerepresented the actions of inferior men, at first writing satire just as the others wrote hymns andeulogies.

This is all based on Plato's mimetic principle. Exalted people will, in imitation of exaltation, write aboutexalted people doing exalted things, and vice versa with the "lower" types (Farrell, 383). Genre was not ablack­and­white issue even for Aristotle, who recognized that though the "Iliad" is an epic it can beconsidered a tragedy as well, both because of its tone as well as the nobility of its characters. However,most of the Greek critics were less acutely aware—if aware at all—of the inconsistencies in this system.For these critics, there was no room for ambiguity in their literary taxonomy because these categories werethought to have innate qualities that could not be disregarded.

The Romans carried on the Greek tradition of literary criticism. The Roman critics were quite happy tocontinue on in the assumption that there were essential differences between the types of poetry and drama.There is much evidence in their works that Roman writers themselves saw through these ideas andunderstood genres and how they function on a more advanced level. However, it was the critics who lefttheir mark on Roman literary criticism, and they were not innovators.

After the fall of Rome, when the scholastic system took over literary criticism, genre theory was still basedon the essential nature of genres. This is most likely because of Christianity's affinity for Platonic concepts.This state of affairs persisted until the 18th century.

Enlightenment age

At the end of the 18th century, the theory of genre based on classical thought began to unravel beneath theintellectual chafing of the Enlightenment. The introduction of the printing press brought texts to a largeraudience. Then pamphlets and broadsides began to diffuse information even farther, and a greater numberof less privileged members of society became literate and began to express their views. Suddenly authors ofboth "high" and "low" culture were now competing for the same audience. This worked to destabilize theclassical notions of genre, while still drawing attention to genre because new genres like the novel werebeing generated (Prince, 455).

Locke, in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), had reduced data to its smallest part: thesimple idea derived from sense. However, as the science of cognition became more precise it was shownthat even this simple idea derived from sense was itself divisible. This new information prompted DavidHartley to write in his Observation on Man (1749),

How far the Number of Orders may go is impossible to say. I see no Contradiction insupposing it infinite, and a great Difficulty in stopping at any particular Size. (Prince, 456).

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The possibility of an infinite number of types alarmed theologians of the time because their assumption wasthat rigorously applied empiricism would uncover the underlying divine nature of creation, and now itappeared that rigorously applied empiricism would only uncover an ever­growing number of types andsubsequent sub­types.

In order to re­establish the divine in categorization, the new taxonomical system of aesthetics arose. Thissystem offered first beauty, and then the sublime as the taxonomical device. The problem with Aestheticswas that it assumed the divine and thus the sublime must underlie all these categories, and thus, the uglywould become beautiful at some point. The paradox is glaring.

Evolution

Ever since the late 18th century literary critics have been trying to find a theory of genre that would bemore commensurate with the realities of individual texts within genres. The evolution of genre took manytwists and turns through the 19th and 20th centuries. It was heavily influenced by the deconstructionistthought and the concept of relativity. In 1980, the instability engendered by these two new modes ofthought came to a head in a paper written by Jacques Derrida titled, "The Law of Genre."[27] In the articleDerrida first articulates the idea that individual texts participate in rather than belong to certain genres. Hedoes this by demonstrating that the "mark of genre" is not itself a member of a genre or type. Thus, the verycharacteristic that signifies genre defies classification. However, at the end of this essay, Derrida hints atwhat might be a more fruitful direction for genre theory. "There, that is the whole of it, it is only what 'I,' sothat say, here kneeling at the edge of literature, can see. In sum, the law. The law summoning: what 'I' cansight and what 'I' can say that I sight in this site of a recitation where I/we is."[28] By which Derrida meansthat not only is taxonomy a subjective sport, but due to this very fact, the place and time the taxonomicalact takes place deserves further study.

Then, in 1986, Ralph Cohen published a paper in response to Derrida's thoughts titled "History and Genre."In this article Cohen argued that

genre concepts in theory and in practice arise, change, and decline for historical reasons. Andsince each genre is composed of texts that accrue, the grouping is a process, not a determinatecategory. Genres are open categories. Each member alters the genre by adding, contradicting,or changing constituents, especially those of members most closely related to it. The process bywhich genres are established always involves the human need for distinction and interrelation.Since the purposes of critics who establish genres vary, it is self­evident that the same texts canbelong to different groupings of genres and serve different generic purposes. (Cohen, 204)

Genre Evolution in RGS

RGS scholars largely agree that while genres are indeed dynamic and constantly evolving entities, they aredifficult to change. Amy Devitt describes this bind, as she considers a genre to be “both the product and theprocess that creates it” (580) [29] To Devitt, genres not only respond to recurrent situations, but theyconstruct them as well.[30] This phenomenon makes theorizing genre evolution challenging. Carolyn R.Miller even cautions against describing genre change as “evolution,” as evolution implies progress.[31] Still,many RGS scholars have theorized how genres change. Jo Ann Yates and Wanda Orlikowski offer that“one person cannot single­handedly effect the change of an institutionalized structure; other relevant

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participants must adopt and reinforce the attempted change for it to be implemented and sustained inpractice” (108).[32] Yates and Orlikowski then describe how genres evolve: they claim that genres changewhen a kairotic moment presents itself, and the rhetor, instead of choosing to employ the "genre mostappropriately enacted" tries a new method of which the audience accepts as new way of responding to therecurrent situation (119). See kairos. Natasha Artemeva has made similar observations based on an eight­year ethnographic survey that followed engineering students from academia and into the workplaceenvironment.[33] Artemeva observed two of her subjects impact the evolution of workplace genres when akairotic moment presented itself (164). Yet these former student’s success in changing the workplace genrealso depended on three individually acquired skills: 1) “cultural capital”, 2) “domain content expertise”, and3) “agency in the rhetor’s ability” to not only see when a kairotic moment presented itself, but “to also seizethe opportunity” (167). Thomas Helscher is not as optimistic; he writes, the "rhetorical constitution of [a]discourse community operates as a counterweight to the process of community growth and change" (30)and argues that the "transformation of the fundamental generic conventions by which communitiesconstitutes themselves...is paradigmatic of the process of social transformation" (32).[34]

Current state of genre theory

The definition of genre from dictionary.com (http://www.dictionary.com) is "a class or category of artisticendeavor having a particular form, context, technique, or the like." Although it seems that genre should beeasy to define, the finer points of textual categorization are not yet established.

Genres, according to Daniel Chandler, create order to simplify the mass of available information. Creatingcategories promotes organization instead of chaos. Jane Feuer has divided ways to categorize genres intothree different groups. The first is aesthetic. By using this method one can organize according to certain setsof characteristics, and so the overall work of the artist is not disparaged by generalization. The secondclassification method is ritual. Ritual uses its own culture to help classify. If one performs a ritualassociated with a system of ritual, one can be said to be practicing as a member of that system. Thecommon taxonomic method is ideological. This occurs most often in the marketing of texts, music, andmovies. The effectiveness of this type of categorization can be measured by how well the public acceptsthese categories as valid.

Amy J. Devitt focuses on rhetorical genre. Scholars generally recognize the restrictions placed on worksthat have been classified as a certain genre. However, viewing genre as a rhetorical device gives the authorand the reader more freedom and "allows for choices." Genres are not free­standing entities, but are actuallyintimately connected and interactive amongst themselves. Rhetorical genre recognizes that genres aregenerated by authors, readers, publishers, and the entire array of social forces that act upon a work at everystage of its production.

This recognition does not make the taxonomy of texts easy. Chandler points out that very few works haveall the characteristics of the genre in which they participate. Also, due to the interrelatedness of genres,none of them is clearly defined at the edges, but rather fade into one another. Genre works to promoteorganization, but there is no absolute way to classify works, and thus genre is still problematic and itstheory still evolving.

Moreover, the metagenre as a concept has been an important point to study. According to Giltrow,metagenre is "situated language about situated language". Metagenres such as institutional guidelines canbe "ruling out certain kinds of expression, endorsing others", constraining and enabling. The concept of

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metagenre also provides a valuable way to understand the dynamics of institutional interrelations betweengenres. In the mental health discourse, for example, has been demonstrated the metageneric function of theAmerican Psychiatric Association's (DSM) for standardizing and mediating the localized epistemologicalcommunicative practices of psychiatrists.

Functions and limits

Genre began as an absolute classification system in ancient Greece. Poetry, prose and performance had aspecific and calculated style that related to the theme of the story. Speech patterns for comedy would not beappropriate for tragedy, and even actors were restricted to their genre under the assumption that a type ofperson could tell one type of story best. This classical system worked well as long as the arts were largelydirected by nobility and rich patrons. A common understanding of meaning was handy in knowing what theemployer expected, and the crowds understood it.

During the Enlightenment period in 18th century Europe, this system of patronage began to change. Amerchant middle class began to emerge with money to spend and time to spend it. Artists could ventureaway from classical genres and try new ways to attract paying patrons. “Comedy” could now mean Greekmetered comedy, or physical camp, or some other type of experience. Artists were also free to use theirmediums to express the human condition in a way that was not possible under single patronage, or at leastnot profitable. Art could be used to reflect and comment on the lives of ordinary people. Genre became adynamic tool to help the public make sense out of unpredictable art. Because art is often a response to asocial state, in that people write/paint/sing/dance about what they know about, the use of genre as a toolmust be able to adapt to changing meanings. In fact as far back as ancient Greece, new art forms wereemerging that called for the evolution of genre, for example the “tragicomedy.”

Unfortunately, genre does have its limitations. Our world has grown so much that it is difficult to absolutelyclassify something. Information overlaps, and a single book can encompass elements of several genres. Forexample, a book might be classified as fiction, mystery, science fiction and African American literature allat once.

Genre suffers from the same ills of any classification system. Humans are pattern­seeking beings; we like tocreate order out of the chaos of the universe. However, when we forget that our order is imposed, oftenarbitrarily, over a universe of unique experiences, the merit of the individual gets lost. If a system ofclassification, like genre, is then used to assign value judgments, we allow our preconceptions about thewhole to influence our opinion of the individual. Genre is useful as long as we remember that it is a helpfultool, to be reassessed and scrutinized, and to weigh works on their unique merit as well as their place withinthe genre.

A simple example of the inherent meaning in an art form is that of a western movie where two men faceeach other on a dusty and empty road; one wears a black hat, the other white. Independent of any externalmeaning, there is no way to tell what the situation might mean, but due to the long development of the"western" genre, it is clear to the informed audience that they are watching a gunfight showdown between abad guy and a good guy.

It has been suggested that genres resonate with people because of the familiarity, the shorthandcommunication, as well as the tendency of genres to shift with public mores and to reflect the zeitgeist.While the genre of storytelling has been relegated as lesser form of art because of the heavily borrowed

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nature of the conventions, admiration has grown. Proponents argue that the genius of an effective genrepiece is in the variation, recombination, and evolution of the codes.

Genre studies have perhaps gained the most recognition in film theory, where the study of genre directlycontrasts with auteur theory, which privileges the director's role in crafting a movie.

In social communities

There is something more about genre theory, and to that effect it is necessary to propose Kristen H. Perry’sdefinition. Written (textual) genres are social constructions that represent specific purposes for reading andwriting within different social activities, created by social groups who need them to perform certain things.They change over time, reflecting essential shifts in social function performed by that text. Genres alsorepresent constellations of textual attributes: some attributes are necessary and other attributes are optional.

Another definition which shows the different aspects of genre theory is Miller who defines genres as“typified rhetorical actions” that respond to recurring situations and become instantiated in groups’behaviors. Genre evolves as “a form of social knowledge—a mutual construing of objects, events, interestsand purposes that not only links them but makes them what they are: an objectified social need”. This viewsees genres not as static forms but, rather, as “forms of ways of being … frames for social action …environments for learning … locations within which meaning is constructed” (Bazerman), suggesting thatdifferent communities use different means of communication to accomplish their objectives.

To try to show the importance of the context in genre an example is used about a particular part of the genretheory—speech genres; but it is important to stress that context is really important in all situations. Contextplays an important role in shaping genres (Holquist, 1986). Genre theory does not conceptualize context assimply the space outside of text or the container surrounding texts, but as dynamic environments thatsimultaneously structure and are structured by the communicative practices of social agents. Speech genresare recognizable patterns of language­in­context (Bakhtin, 1986): speech genres include both oral andwritten forms of language.

Researchers have also shown that the rhetorical moves people must make within accepted genres tocommunicate successfully in particular contexts operate to reinforce communities’ identities and tolegitimate particular communication practices. Thus, the genres that communities enact help structure theirmembers’ ways of creating, interpreting, and using knowledge (Myers; Winsor, Ordering, Writing;Bazerman, Shaping, Constructing; Berkenkotter and Huckin; Smart). Genres are very important in ourevery day life and we do not realize how much we use them, how much they affect us, how much theydetermine the way we act and understand the others.

Aspects of genre theory

Rhetorical situation

In 1968, Lloyd Bitzer claimed that discourse is determined by rhetorical situations in his article titled, "TheRhetorical Situation". A rhetorical situation refers to the fact that every situation has the potential for arhetorical response. He looks to understand the nature behind the context that determines discourse. Bitzerstates, "it is the situation which calls discourse into existence".[35] Thus, the situation controls what type ofrhetorical response takes place. Each situation has an appropriate response in which the rhetor can either act

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J. M. Barrie's works were notoriouslyhard to place in any single genre.

upon or not act upon. He expresses the imperative nature of the situation in creating discourse, becausediscourse only comes into being as a response to a particular situation. Discourse varies depending upon themeaning­context that is created due to the situation, and because of this, it is "embedded in thesituation".[35]

According to Bitzer, rhetorical situations come into existence, atwhich point, they can either mature and go away, or mature andcontinue to exist. Bitzer describes rhetorical situations as containingthree components: exigence, audience, and constraints. Hehighlights six characteristics needed from a rhetorical situation thatare necessary to creating discourse. A situation calls a rhetor tocreate discourse, it invites a response to fit the situation, theresponse meets the necessary requirements of the situation, theexigence which creates the discourse is located in reality, rhetoricalsituations exhibit simple or complex structures, rhetorical situationsafter coming into creation either decline or persist. Bitzer's mainargument is the concept that rhetoric is used to "effect valuablechanges in real" (Bitzer 14).

In 1984, Carolyn R. Miller examined genre in terms of rhetoricalsituations. She claimed that "situations are social constructs that arethe result, not of 'perception,' but of 'definition'".[36] In other words,we essentially define our situations. Miller seems to build fromBitzer's argument regarding what makes something rhetorical,which is the ability of change to occur. Opposite of Bitzer'spredestined and limited view of the creation of genres, Millerbelieves genres are created through social constructs. She agreed with Bitzer that past responses canindicate what is an appropriate response to the current situation, but Miller holds that, rhetorically, genreshould be "centered not on the substance or the form of discourse but on the action it is used toaccomplish".[36] Since her view focuses on action, it cannot ignore that humans depend on the "context ofthe situation" as well as "motives" that drive them to this action.[36] Essentially, "we create recurrence," orsimilar responses, through our "construal" of types.[36] Miller defines "types" as "recognition of relevantsimilarities".[36] Types come about only after we have attempted to interpret the situation by way of socialcontext, which causes us to stick to "tradition".[36] Miller does not want to deem recurrence as a constraint,but rather she views it as insight into the "human condition".[36] The way to bring about a new "type",[36] isto allow for past routines to evolve into new routines, thereby maintaining a cycle that is always open forchange. Either way, Miller's view is in accordance with the fact that as humans, we are creatures of habitthat tightly hold on to a certain "stock of knowledge".[36] However, change is considered innovation, and bycreating new "types" we can still keep "tradition" [36] and innovation at the same time.

Genre as social action

The concept of genre is not limited to classifications and lists. People interact within genres daily. Genre isdetermined based "on the action it is used to accomplish" by the individuals using that particular genre.[36]The distance between the text or action of genre and its users does not have to be vast. People respond toexigencies provided by genre every day. Exigence is "a set of particular social patterns and expectations

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that provides a socially objectified motive for addressing" the recurring situation of a particular genre.[36]Seeing genre as a social action provides the "keys to understanding how to participate in the actions of acommunity".[36] Carolyn R. Miller argues that, "a rhetorical sound definition of genre must be centered noton the substance or the form of discourse, but on the action it is used to accomplish".[36]

The idea that rhetorical situations define genre means that participants in genre make decisions based oncommonalities and repeat those instances. Genre is not only about the form of but also the mererepetitiveness of similarities. The classroom setting exemplifies this. When students wish to speak, theyraise their hands to signify that desire. Raising a hand is the correct response to speaking in turn in thatparticular social setting. A person at lunch with a group of friends would not raise their hand to speakbecause the social situation is different. Miller concludes that social actions are the response to"understanding how to participate in the actions of a community".[36]

Carolyn R. Miller builds on arguments made by other scholars while also contradicting Bitzer's argumentby giving her readers five features to understand genre.[36] She believes that if something is rhetorical, thenthere will be action. Not only will there be action, but this action will also be repeated. The repetition ofaction creates a regularized form of discourse. Miller would add that the result has more to do with theaction accomplished by the situation. Miller recognizes that a person chooses to take a certain social actionwithin a defined set of rules ­ rules set in place by that user. Lastly, a situation cannot dictate a response.Miller ends her article with the thought that genres are partly rhetorical education through her statement, "asa recurrent, significant action, a genre embodies an aspect of cultural rationality".[36] Here, Millerunknowingly encapsulates a future ideology about genre: that genres are created by culture. According toMnotho Dlamini genre is basically a deep information in a particular context.

Social construct

Bitzer's definition of exigence as "an imperfection marked by urgency... something waiting to be done"[35]ties in with Miller's idea of social action as the next step after an exigency is realized. Miller also pointstowards the theory that genres recur, based on Jamieson's observation that antecedent genres finding theirway into new genres. More importantly, Miller takes on the bigger picture of a rhetorical situation in whichall of these steps happen. "Situations are social constructs that are the result, not of 'perception,' but ofdefinition".[36] From this, it is understood that social constructs define situations and, therefore, exigence isalso socially situated.

Genre, also, understood in terms of social contexts provides greater meaning to each recurring situation; itessentially allows for differentiation, though past genres have a role in present and new genres. Throughthis differentiation, genre is allowed to continue evolving, just as social contexts continue to change withtime. Bawarshi describes the way in which this happens as "communicants and their social environmentsare constantly in the process of reproducing one another" (Bawarshi 69). Rhetoric essentially works thesame way, as seen in the example of writing Bawarshi provides, "writing is not a social act simply becauseit takes place in some social context; it is social because it is at work in shaping the very context withinwhich it functions".[37] Therefore, through social constructs, one can shape rhetorical works, and in turn, theworks can shape the social context: "we create our contexts as we create our texts".[37]

Antecedent genres

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Written in 1975, Kathleen Hall Jamieson's "Antecedent Genre as Rhetorical Constraint" declares thatdiscourse is determined by the Rhetorical Situation, as well as antecedent genres. Antecedent genres aregenres of the past that are used as a basis to shape and form current rhetorical responses. When placed in anunprecedented situation, a rhetor can draw on antecedent genres of similar situations in order to guide theirresponse. However, caution should be taken when drawing on antecedent genres because sometimesantecedent genres are capable of imposing powerful constraints.[38] The intent of antecedent genres are toguide the rhetor toward a response consistent with situational demands, and if the situational demands arenot the same as when the antecedent genre was created, the response to the situation might beinappropriate.[38]

Through three examples of discourse, the papal encyclical, the early State of the Union Address, andcongressional replies, she demonstrates how traces of antecedent genres can be found within each. Theseexamples clarify how a rhetor will tend to draw from past experiences that are similar to the presentsituation in order to guide them how to act or respond when they are placed in an unprecedented situation.Jamieson explains, by use of these three examples, that choices of antecedent genre may not always beappropriate to the present situation. She discusses how antecedent genres place powerful constraints on therhetor and may cause them to become "bound by the manacles of the antecedent genre".[38] These"manacles," she says, may range in level of difficultly to escape. Jamieson urges one to be careful whendrawing on the past to respond to the present, because of the consequences that may follow ones choice ofantecedent genre. She reiterates the intended outcome through her statement of "choice of an appropriateantecedent genre guides the rhetor toward a response consonant with situational demands".[38]

Reciprocity of genre

People often recognize genre based on the characteristics that the situation offers. Amy Devitt states thiswhen she says, "A genre is named because of its formal markers" (Devitt 10). However she also says, "theformal markers can be defined because a genre has been named" (Devitt 10). When we label something as acertain genre, we also flag these same characteristics as contributing to what we already believe the genre tobe. These two quotes show how reciprocity functions within genre. Devitt displays the reciprocal nature ofgenre and situation according to the individual by using an example of a grocery store list. A question posedby this example is, is something a grocery list because it lists groceries or is it a grocery list because oneperson says it is a grocery list and we thus recognize all the items on the list as groceries? Though eachpossible answer to this raised question contradict one another, they are both correct. Similarly, individualsrecognize the characteristics of the recurring rhetorical situations in the same way as they see them asaffirmation of what they already know about the preexisting genre. The rhetorical attributes of the genre actas both objects which define and are defined by genre. In other words, genre and rhetorical situations arereciprocals of one another. Devitt focused on activity system of genre and that the participants' situation,contexts and text are all mutually created "no one aspect fully determines the other." (Devitt)

Tyranny of genre

The phrase "tyranny of genre" comes from genre theorist Richard Coe, who wrote that "the 'tyranny ofgenre' is normally taken to signify how generic structures constrain individual creativity" (Coe 188). Ifgenre functions as a taxonomic classification system, it could constrain individual creativity, since "thepresence of many of the conventional features of a genre will allow a strong genre identification; thepresence of fewer features, or the presence of features of other genres, will result in a weak or ambiguousgenre identification" (Schauber 403).

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Genres can act as constraints on readers as well. Literary historian Hans Robert Jauss describes genres ascreating a "horizon of expectation" under which readers will interpret texts based on how much theycorrespond to the features of the genre they recognize from works they have previously read.[39] Theclassification­system concept results in a polarization of responses to texts that do not fit neatly into a genreor exhibit features of multiple genres: "The status of genres as discursive institutions does create constraintsthat may make a text that combines or mixes genres appear to be a cultural monstrosity. Such a text may beattacked or even made a scapegoat by some as well as be defended by others" (LaCapra 220).

Under the more modern understanding of the concept of genre as "social action" à la Miller,[36] a moresituational approach to genre is enabled. This situational approach frees genre from the classificationsystem, genre's "tyranny of genre". Relying on the importance of the rhetorical situation in the concept ofgenre results in an exponential expansion of genre study, which benefits literary analysis. One literatureprofessor writes, "The use of the contemporary, revised genre idea [as social action] is a breath of fresh air,and it has opened important doors in language and literature pedagogy" (Bleich 130). Instead of a codifiedclassification as the pragmatic application of genre, the new genre idea insists that "human agents not onlyhave the creative capacities to reproduce past action, such as action embedded in genres, but also canrespond to changes in their environment, and in turn change that environment, to produce under­determinedand possibly unprecedented action, such as by modifying genres" (Killoran 72).

Stabilization, homogenization and fixity

Never is there total stabilization in a recognized genre, nor are there instances that indicate a complete lackof homogenization. However, because of the relative similarities between the terms "stabilization" and"homogenization", the amount of stabilization or homogenization a certain genre maintains is based onopinion. Necessary discourse is, obviously, always needed and is thus considered perfectly stabilized. Inrhetorical situation or antecedent genres, that which is unprecedented mostly leads to stable and predictableresponses. Outside the natural setting of a given form of discourse, one may respond inappropriately due toan unrecognized alternate. The unrecognized alternate is created by the lack of homogenization or differingexpectations in the presented rhetorical situation.[38]

Fixity is uncontrolled by a given situation and is deliberately utilized by the affected before the rhetoricalsituation occurs. Fixity almost always directly effects stabilization, and has little to no bearing onhomogenization. The choice of discourse will provide a certain value of fixity, depending on the specificchoice. If a situation calls for more mediated responses, the fixity of the situation is more prevalent, andtherefore is attributed with a stable demand of expectations. Stability nor fixity can be directly affected bythe subject at hand. The only option is affecting homogenization which in turn, can positively or negativelyaffect stability. Directly choosing a fixed arena within genre inversely alters the homogenization of saidchooser constituting as a new genre accompanied with modified genre subsets and a newly desired urgency.The same ideological theory can be applied to how one serves different purposes, creating either separategenres or modernized micro­genres. (Fairclough)

Genre Ecology and Activity Theory

Activity theory is not grounded in any one area of field of research, but instead draws from severaldisciplines including psychology, behaviorism, and socio­cultural studies. Although activity theoryoriginated in the social sciences, it is currently applied most frequently to social­scientific, organizational,and writing studies. Modeled as a triangle, activity theory considers how multiple factors (subject, object,

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mediating artifacts, rules, and division of labor) existing in an activity system (environment) interact toachieve an outcome. Central to activity theory is the concept of mediation. Human activities are driven by aneed to achieve a certain outcome or goal. Typically this activity is mediated by artifacts which includetools, language, signs, and cultural norms. In "Textual Objects" Cheryl Geisler explains that texts aretraditionally identified as meditational means to complete a task, though she offers that texts might also beidentified as the motive in discourse communities in which text is valued as the outcome as opposed to themeans of an outcome. Geisler notes that texts produced for meditational means are typically moreprivate/personalized, whereas texts identified as objects are often written with a public motive. She does notargue, however, that texts should exist exclusively as one or the other, but rather she suggests that texts canfunction as both.[40]

For some genre theorists, such as Clay Spinuzzi, genres are tools­in­use, and as such can be seen asmediating objects within the world. This view of genre as a tool­in­use is exemplified in the school of genretheory that studies genres' relationships to activity systems. In his article “Textual Grounding: How PeopleTurn Texts into Tools,” Jason Swarts asserts that users utilize texts as tools when they recognize the text’sspecific value in a rhetorical situation or environment. User’s then “ground” texts, altering the textsstructure for personal use, to make them usable under very specific conditions. The user takes the text froma “formalized representation of information” to a personal tool. Swarts argues that the meaning of a text isestablished by uptake of the users, though this varies depending on the user and the user’s goal.[41]Similarly, in Tracing Genres Through Organizations: A Sociocultural Approach to Information Design,Clay Spinuzzi asserts that the use of certain tools in certain situations can help users to act purposefully inthat activity.[42] Within this tradition of genre studies, "Genres are not discrete artifacts, but traditions ofproducing, using, and interpreting artifacts, traditions that make their way into the artifact as a form­shapingideology."[43] The study of genres as mediating artifacts within activity systems is closely related toActivity Theory, in which the interactions of different spheres of activity are examined. Activity theory,according to David Russell, "traces cognition and behavior, including writing, to social interaction."[44]Activity theorists examine the ways that the work done in one sphere of activity could potentially changethe work done in another. For example, Russell examines how people use writing to mediate their activities,and how changes in one activity can lead to changes in another activity. Russell points out that "the activitysystem of cell biology research is not confined to universities. It also extends into boundary activity systemsof drug companies, government medical research facilities, and so on."[45] Subtle changes in the use ofwriting in one activity can effect changes in the use of writing in related systems. If the government setsdown new pharmaceutical documentation laws, then the teaching of how to document the distribution ofpharmaceuticals will change, not just in pharmacies, but also in hospitals and nursing classrooms. Activitysystems are always in flux, because subtle changes in one level of the system result in subtle changes inother levels of the system.[46] Activity systems are still relatively stable, despite their constant flux. Thechanges within them are often subtle, and large scale changes usually occur over long periods of time.

Genre Ecology describes the dense connections between genres within the activities that they mediate.Multiple genres mediate a single activity; no genre exists in isolation.[47] In "The Ecology of Genre" AnisBawarshi argues that genres are “rhetorical ecosystems” in which participants actively enact and,consequently, reenact social practices, relations, and identities. Participants use genre to interpret andperform social motives which sustain rhetorical ecosystems that produce social contexts, practices, andidentities.[48] For Spinuzzi, and other genre theorists studying the social aspects of genre (like Carolyn R.Miller, Amy Devitt, and Kathleen Jamieson, among others), genre is more than a category or artifact; genreis a way of interacting with the world. In the study of genre ecologies, genre is seen as a way people can

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accomplish activities.[49] Like activity systems, genre ecologies are not entirely stable, because activitieschange, causing the genres mediating them to change, as well.[50] Take, for example the digitization of theworkplace. Before computers, the workspace was largely mediated by genres such as the paper memo,orthe company newsletter. After digitization, paper memos and paper newsletters began to disappear. Memosand newsletters did not disappear; instead, their distribution method changed. Now, memos and newslettersare disseminated electronically in emails. The genres of the memo and newsletter still exists, but they havechanged, slightly, to reflect the changes in the activity system that they mediate.

Secondary Speech Genres

Mikhail Bakhtin’s theorization of complex, secondary speech genres as composites of simple, primaryspeech genres in the analysis of the interaction between the multiple competing voices and registers inliterary works. Bakhtin defines complex, secondary speech genres as “novels, dramas, all kinds of scientificresearch, major genres of commentary, and so forth [that] arise in more complex and comparatively highlydeveloped and organized cultural communication” (62). While Bakhtin focuses on the historical emergenceof the novel in much of his work, in his essay "The Problem of Speech Genres," he makes clear that histheory can be applied to all literary genres, including “profoundly individual lyrical work[s]” (61) such asthe pastoral elegy. Complex, secondary speech genres are formed by “absorb[ing] and digest[ing] variousprimary (simple) genres that have taken form in unmediated speech communion” (62). Primary speechgenres are “short rejoinders of daily dialogue,” “everyday narration,” “brief standard military command”(60), “verbal signals in industry” (63), “letters, diaries, minutes, and so forth” (98), notable for theirreferentiality to and function within the pragmatic communicative contexts of “extraverbal reality(situation)” (83). When primary speech genres are absorbed by secondary ones, they are “altered andassume a special character,” losing “their immediate relation to actual reality and to the real utterances ofothers” (62). This process of absorption and digestion of primary speech genres by secondary ones leads toa “more or less distinct dialogization of secondary genres, the weakening of their monological composition”(66). While Bakhtinian dialogization may weaken the monological composition of secondary speechgenres, it does not preclude a dominant theme, ideology, or cultural meaning from arising out of interplayof the “various transformed primary genres” (98) that make up a secondary work (although, Bakhtin admits,this dominant ideology is difficult to isolate in complex works, and is, to a certain extent, left open to theinterpretation of individual readers). Bakhtin explains that primary genres undergo a more or less thoroughprocess of contestation and resolution within the secondary work they constitute and “enter into actualreality only via the [work] as a whole, that is, as a literary­artistic event and not as everyday life” (62). “Asa rule, these secondary genres of complex cultural communication play out various forms of primary speechcommunication” (Bakhtin 98). Even as a work permits and enacts dialogization between characters,conventional forms, and semantic content, it resolves or “finalizes” that content into a “wholeness” ofutterance, which is intelligible to readers, and therefore “guarantee[s] the possibility of response (or ofresponsive understanding)” (76). Through the finalization of disparate conventional and thematic strands, awork achieves the fullness of what Bakhtin calls its “specific authorial intent,” Milton’s “speech plan” or“speech will” for his work, and readies itself for responsive understanding (reception, interpretation) on thepart of readers (77). Despite its internal dialogization, the work delivers itself to readers as a semanticallyexhaustive whole, and in this way uses its internal drama to respond ideologically to its genre: “other worksconnected with it in the overall processes of speech communication in [its] particular cultural sphere” (75).These include “works of predecessors on whom the author relies,” “other works of the same school,” and“works of opposing schools with which the author is contending” (75). In this way a the work forms acrucial “link the chain of speech communion” of its genre (76).[51]

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See also

Computer and video game genresFilm genreFormula fictionGenre fictionLiterary genreMusic genrePlot deviceStock characterGenre criticism

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Genre. Eds. Richard Coe, Lorelei Lingard, and Tatiana Teslenko. Cresskill, NJ, Hampton Press, 2002. 103­122.33. Artemeva, Natasha. “Stories of Becoming: A Study of Novice Engineers Learning Genres of Their Profession.”

Genre in a Changing World. Eds. Charles Bazerman, Adair Bonini, and Débora Figueiredo. West Lafayette,Indiana, Parlor Press, 2009. 158­178. Print.

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Communication 34 (1): 67–89. doi:10.2190/eg0c­quey­f9fk­2v0d.42. Spinuzzi, Clay (2003). Tracing Genres Through Organizations: A Sociocultural Approach to Information

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Communication (October 1997). p.509.45. Russell. "Rethinking Genre." p.527.46. Spinuzzi. Tracing Genres. p.5047. Spinuzzi, Clay and M. Zachry. "Genre Ecologies: An open­system approach to understanding and constructing

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of New York Press. p. 70.49. Spinuzzi. Tracing Genres. p. 4250. Spinuzzi. Tracing Genres. p.6551. Bakhtin, Mikhail M. “The Problem of Speech Genres.” Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Eds. Caryl

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Charaudeau, P.; Maingueneau, D. & Adam, J. Dictionnaire d'analyse du discours Seuil, 2002.Coe, Richard. "'An Arousing and Fulfillment of Desires': The Rhetoric of Genre in the Process Era ­and Beyond." Genre and the New Rhetoric. Ed. Aviva Freedman and Peter Medway. London: Taylor& Francis, 1994. 181­190.Jacques Derrida. "The Law of Genre." ‘’Critical Inquiry’’. Autumn, 1980, vol. 7, no. 1, pg. 55.Devitt, Amy J. "A Theory of Genre." Writing Genres. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press,2004. 1­32.F.W. Dobbs­Allsopp. "Darwinism, Genre Theory, and City Laments." ‘’The Journal of AmericanOriental Society’’. Oct­Dec, 2000, vol. 120, no. 4, pg. 625.Fairclough, Norman. Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research Routledge, 2003.Joseph Farrell. "Classical Genre in Theory and Practice." ‘’New Literary History’’. Summer, 2003,vol. 34, no. 3, pg. 383.Monika Fludernik. "Genres, Text Types, or Discourse Modes? Narrative Modalities and GenericCategorization." ‘’Style’’. Summer, 2000, vol. 34, no. 2, pg. 274.Genette, Gérard. The Architext: An Introduction. 1979. Berkeley: University of California Press,

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1992.Killoran, John B. "The Gnome In The Front Yard and Other Public Figurations: Genres of Self­Presentation on Personal Home Pages." Biography 26.1 (2003): 66­83.Коробова А.Г. Теория жанров в музыкальной науке: история и современность. Москва:Московская гос. консерватория, 2007LaCapra, Dominick. "History and Genre: Comment." New Literary History 17.2 (1986): 219­221.Victoria Pineda. "Speaking About Genre: the Case of Concrete Poetry." ‘’New Literary History’’.Spring, 1995, vol. 26, no. 2, pg. 379.Michael B. Prince. "Mauvais Genres." ‘’New Literary History’’. Summer, 2003, vol. 34, no. 3, pg.452.Rosso, Mark. "User­based Identification of Web Genres." Journal of the American Society forInformation Science and Technology 59 (2008): 1053­1072.Schauber, Ellen, and Ellen Spolsky. "Stalking a Generative Poetics." New Literary History 12.3(1981): 397­413.Hayden White. "Anomalies of Genre: The Utility of Theory and History for the Study of LiteraryGenres." ‘’New Literary History’’. Summer, 2003, vol. 34, no. 3, pg. 597.Carolyn Williams. "Genre Matters: Response. (Analysis of Literary Genres)." ‘’Victorian Studies’’.Winter, 2006, vol. 48, no. 2, pg. 295.

External links

An Introduction to Genre Theory by Daniel Chandler(http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/intgenre/intgenre.html)Genre Across Borders (GXB) (http://genreacrossborders.org/)Special Issue of Composition Forum on Rhetorical Genre Studies(http://compositionforum.com/issue/31/)

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Categories: Genres Narratology

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