scholarly journals Always Already in Flux: A Response to Anne Freadman

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 152-160
Author(s):  
Charles Bazerman
Keyword(s):  
Social Action ◽  
North American ◽  
Degrees Of Freedom ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Genre Theory ◽  
Genre Studies ◽  
Rhetorical Studies ◽  
Rhetorical Genre ◽  
Communicative Actions ◽  
Freedom Of Action

Carolyn Miller’s rich and theoretically complex 1984 essay “Genre as Social Action” has been widely influential among scholars who have been variously identified as part of Rhetorical Genre Studies (Freedman, 1999), North American Genre Studies (Freedman & Medway, 1994; Artemeva, 2004), or American New Rhetorical Studies (Hyon, 1996). Despite being associated with each other, these loose congeries of scholars do not form a coherent whole with a commonly shared theory; nor have they taken up Miller’s essay in exactly the same way, to use the uptake term introduced into genre discussions by Anne Freadman (1987/1994). These scholars have a variety of understandings of how contexts configure perceived communicative opportunities within situations, how communicative actions are perceived by others, how social circumstances are relevant and articulated by the participants, the degrees of freedom of action by the writer and the interpreting reader, how mandatory certain elements of genres are and how those elements are realized in texts, as well as many other issues, including the natures of agency and exigency that Freadman (2020) considers in her current essay. Moreover, the theories or concepts advanced by these scholars are developed through empirical studies, each of a different character, although Freadman would like to distinguish sharply between genre theory and genre studies.

scholarly journals A Tardy Uptake

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 105-132
Author(s):  
Anne Freadman
Keyword(s):  
Social Action ◽  
Genre Theory ◽  
Genre Studies ◽  
Subsequent Work ◽  
Social Motive ◽  
The Social ◽  
Rhetorical Action ◽  
Rhetorical Genre ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Definition Of

Following Carolyn Miller’s (1984) definition of genre as social action, subsequent work in the field of rhetorical genre theory has focused on two aspects of her account. The first is the claim that “a genre is a rhetorical means for mediating private intention and social exigence” (Miller, 1984, p. 163). The site of this mediation is now referred to as the subject—a term that is imported from psychoanalysis and critical social theory. I am concerned that the theoretical freight carried by this term—with its claim to address the “big questions” of subjectivity—diverts us from our focus on “how the genre works as rhetorical action” (Miller, 1984, p. 159). I shall replace the subject with the agent, moving then to argue that bringing uptake to bear on agency helps shift the debate to a more strictly rhetorical terrain. The second aspect that has been focused on is exigence: the “social motive” of rhetorical action, “an objectified social need” lying at “the core of situation” (Miller, 1984, pp. 158, 157). I consider an ambiguity at the heart of this concept of exigence between the work it does in accounting for punctual rhetorical action—the genre in actu—and its work in generalizing over some genre in virtu. Because of this, I move to replace exigence with alternative ways of conceiving the site of rhetorical action. Throughout, I accept broadly the framework of Rhetorical Genre Studies. While I seek to solve the problems through a rigorous reliance on rhetoric, I move beyond this frame when I discuss the restrictions on a theory of genre imposed by an exclusive assumption of verbal or discursive acts.

Toward a Rhetoric of Serious Game Genres

2010 ◽  
pp. 50-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee Sherlock
Keyword(s):  
Social Action ◽  
Serious Games ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Rhetorical Theory ◽  
Serious Game ◽  
Genre Studies ◽  
Rhetorical Genre ◽  
Gaming Activity ◽  
Game Developers ◽  
Research And Design

This chapter examines the construction of serious game genre frameworks from a rhetorical perspective. The author argues that to understand the forms of persuasion, learning, and social action that serious games facilitate, perspectives on genre must be developed and applied that situate serious gaming activity within larger systems of discourse, meaning-making, and text circulation. The current disconnect between popular understandings of serious game genres and those expressed by serious game developers represents one instance where rhetorical genre studies can be applied to generate knowledge about the “genre work” that serious games perform. Advocating a notion of genre that seeks to identify forms of social action and the persuasive possibility spaces of gaming, the author concludes by synthesizing digital game-based formulations of genre with perspectives from rhetorical theory to suggest implications for serious game research and design.

scholarly journals Illicit Genres: The Case of Threatening Communications

Sakprosa ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-53
Author(s):  
Marie Bojsen-Møller ◽  
Sune Auken ◽  
Amy J. Devitt ◽  
Tanya Karoli Christensen
Keyword(s):  
Genre Theory ◽  
Situational Factors ◽  
Genre Studies ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Test Items ◽  
Societal Benefits ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Rhetorical Genre ◽  
Threatening Communications ◽  
Shed Light

This study takes a novel approach to the study of threatening communications by arguing that they can be characterized as a genre – a genre that generally carries strong connotations of intimidation, fear, aggression, power, and coercion. We combine the theoretical framework of Rhetorical Genre Studies (RGS) with results from theoretical and empirical analyses of threats to arrive at a more comprehensive perspective of threats. Since threats do not form part of any regular curriculum of genres, we designed a survey to test how recognizable they are. While scholars on threats describe threatening communications as remarkably varied in form and contextual features, the majority of our respondents categorized test items as threats without prompts of any kind, indicating that threats are a recognizable genre. We propose that threatening communications belong to a wider category of illicit genres: i.e. genres that generally disrupt and upset society and commonly affect their targets negatively. The uptakes of illicit genres are very different from those of other genres, as the users of the genres often actively avoid naming them, making uptake communities significant shapers of illicit genres. The present study contributes to research on threatening communications, since genre theory sheds light on important situational factors affecting the interpretation of a text as a threat – this is a particularly contentious question when it comes to threats that are indirectly phrased. The study also contributes to genre theory by pointing to new territory for genre scholars to examine, namely illicit genres. Studies of illicit genres also have wider, societal benefits as they shed light on different kinds of problematic rhetorical behavior that are generally considered destructive or even dangerous.

scholarly journals Towads a hybrid approach to genre teaching: comparing the swiss and brazilian schools of socio-discursive interactionism and rhetorical genre studies

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-120
Author(s):  
Vera Lúcia Lopes Cristovão ◽  
Natasha Artemeva
Keyword(s):  
North American ◽  
Hybrid Approach ◽  
Genre Analysis ◽  
Genre Studies ◽  
Rhetorical Genre Studies ◽  
The Future ◽  
Rhetorical Genre ◽  
Key Features ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Theoretical Foundations

Theoretical foundations of the Swiss School of Socio-Discursive Interactionism (SDI), North American Rhetorical Genre Studies (RGS) and the Brazilian School of SDI are reviewed, compared, and contrasted, and the similarities and differences in their key features and perspectives on genre analysis and pedagogy are discussed. The Brazilian School of SDI is identified as an expansion of Swiss SDI. The reviewed approaches are shown to be somewhat complementary. The recommendations are made for the future hybrid use of the Brazilian School of SDI and RGS in pedagogical applications.

A Review of Genre Approaches within Linguistic Traditions

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wan Farah Wani Wan Fakhruddin ◽  
Hanita Hassan
Keyword(s):  
Social Action ◽  
English For Specific Purposes ◽  
Genre Studies ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Ethnographic Approach ◽  
The Social ◽  
Rhetorical Genre ◽  
Rhetorical Features ◽  
And Function ◽  
Linguistic Approach

This paper reviews three major approaches to genre analysis; Rhetorical Genre Studies (RGS), English for Specific Purposes (ESP) and Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). Based on the review, it is noted that RGS is an approach which regards genre as a form of social action involving analysis of genre through detailed accounts of the social and cultural contexts with an emphasis on how a genre fulfills its social purpose and actions. On the other hand, ESP is an approach which views genre as a communicative event characterised by their communicative purposes as well as rhetorical features where the discourse community acts as those which recognises and sanctions the acceptance of a genre. The final genre approach, which is SFL, perceives genre as the cultural purpose of texts, achieved through a genre’s structural and realisational patterns where meanings are made within the genre. Overall, the ESP and SFL approaches share fundamental view that linguistic features of texts are connected to social context and function. Thus both of the approaches take on a linguistic approach in describing genres. RGS, in contrast, investigates genres through the study of society in which genre is being used thus taking an ethnographic approach to analysis of genres. This paper concludes with a discussion on the concept of genre presented in the various approaches and the possible emergence of other approaches in the study of genre.

scholarly journals Awareness Versus Production: Probing Students' Antecedent Genre Knowledge

1969 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Natasha Artemeva ◽  
Janna Fox
Keyword(s):  
Course Design ◽  
Genre Theory ◽  
Diagnostic Assessment ◽  
Genre Studies ◽  
New Rhetoric ◽  
Targeted Instruction ◽  
Genre Awareness ◽  
Rhetorical Genre ◽  
Genre Knowledge ◽  
Student Ability

This article explores the role of students' prior, or antecedent, genre knowledge in relation to their developing disciplinary genre competence by drawing on an illustrative example of an engineering genre-competence assessment. The initial outcomes of this diagnostic assessment suggest that student ability to successfully identify and characterize rhetorical and textual features of a genre does not guarantee their successful writing performance in the genre. Although previous active participation in genre production (writing) seems to have a defining influence on student ability to write in the genre, such participation appears to be a necessary but insufficient precondition for genre competence development. The authors discuss the usefulness of probing student antecedent genre knowledge early in communication courses as a potential source for macrolevel curriculum decisions and microlevel pedagogical adjustments in course design, and they propose directions for future research.Key words: antecedent genre, diagnostic assessment, disciplinary genre, engineering communication, genre awareness, genre competence, New Rhetoric genre theory, prior genre knowledge, rhetorical genre studies, targeted instruction

Where to from Here?

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-49
Author(s):  
Dawn Sardella-Ayres ◽  
Ashley N. Reese
Keyword(s):  
Social Action ◽  
North American ◽  
English Language ◽  
Community Integration ◽  
Genre Theory ◽  
Cultural Sites ◽  
Definition Of

In this article, we seek to articulate a genre theory-centered definition of girls’ literature, and interrogate its subgenre, the girl’s bildungsroman, as contextual, cultural sites of rhetoric regarding girls and girlhood. By exploring English-language North American girls’ literature, we identify it within a framework of genre as social action, tracing the protagonists’ maturation into the socially determined roles of wife and mother. We explore the ways in which the girl’s bildungsroman follows a home-away-home model, but with the end result of socially acceptable community integration, rather than the boy’s bildungsroman’s culmination in heroic independent identity via quests and adventures.

scholarly journals On Genre as Social Action, Uptake, and Modest Grand Theory

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 161-171
Author(s):  
Sune Auken
Keyword(s):  
Social Action ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Genre Studies ◽  
Grand Theory ◽  
Rhetorical Genre Studies ◽  
Special Place ◽  
Rhetorical Genre

Carolyn Miller’s (1984) “Genre as Social Action,” the primary topic—or target—of Anne Freadman’s brilliant and thought-provoking article, holds a special place in genre research. If I pick up an unknown piece of research on genre, the first thing I do is look for Miller’s article in the bibliography. If it is not there, the text in my hand will probably be of little of value to my work for lack of orientation. Moreover, as Freadman (2012) notes, convention in genre research suggests that when you mention the article, it is in good form to add a positive qualifier. It will often be framed as having “formative influence” (MacNeil, 2012), as a “landmark essay” (Feinberg, 2015), or as “seminal” (Andersen, 2008; Devitt, 2009a; Motta-Roth & Herbele, 2015; Møller, 2018; Paré, 2014; Tachino, 2012), “groundbreaking” (Bawarshi, 2000; Smart, 2003; Winsor, 2000), or “oft-cited” (Devitt, 2009b). More than just paying lip service to the greats in the field, adding this qualifier demonstrates that the author knows her way around Rhetorical Genre Studies and is mindful of Miller’s central place within it. This status as a classic text is in itself an example of the bidirectionality of uptake that holds a central place in Freadman’s work. “Genre as Social Action” could not be canonical when it was first published. A canon had to form, and the article’s central place within it had to be recognized by later researchers, before Miller’s text could be taken as oft-cited, seminal, or groundbreaking.

Markers of identification in Indigenous academic writing: A case study of genre innovation

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shurli Makmillen ◽  
Michelle Riedlinger
Keyword(s):  
Communities Of Practice ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Genre Studies ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
Research Article ◽  
Rhetorical Genre ◽  
Academic Genres

AbstractThis study contributes to research into genre innovation and scholarship exploring how Indigenous epistemes are disrupting dominant discourses of the academy. Using a case study approach, we investigated 31 research articles produced by Mäori scholars and published in the journal AlterNative between 2006 and 2018. We looked for linguistic features associated with self-positioning and self-identification. We found heightened ambiguous uses of “we”; a prevalence of verbs associated with personal (as opposed to discursive) uses of “I/we”; personal storytelling; and a privileging of Elders’ contributions to the existing state of knowledge. We argue these features reflect and reinforce Indigenous scholars’ social relations with particular communities of practice within and outside of the academy. They are also in keeping with Indigenous knowledge-making practices, protocols, and languages, and signal sites of negotiation and innovation in the research article. We present the implications for rhetorical genre studies and for teaching academic genres.

The schematic structure of Spanish PhD thesis introductions

2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
María Carbonell-Olivares ◽  
Luz Gil-Salom ◽  
Carmen Soler-Monreal
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Spanish Literature ◽  
Genre Studies ◽  
Doctoral Thesis ◽  
Rhetorical Studies ◽  
Phd Theses ◽  
Academic Genres ◽  
Phd Thesis

Since the 1990s written academic genres have received considerable attention in discourse and rhetorical studies, especially texts written in English. Although few studies describe PhD theses as a genre, some work has been carried out on their macrostructure and the rhetorical moves of certain sections. In the Spanish literature, genre studies on academic writing are scarce relative to those in English, especially in the case of doctoral theses. We analyse the introductions of 21 doctoral theses in computing written in Spanish using Bunton’s model (2002) for thesis introductions in English. The results indicate that most of the steps in this model are applicable to our corpus, but several new steps and sub-steps have been distinguished to account for the observed moves of Spanish PhD thesis introductions. The complexity of the thesis introduction is related to the scope and depth of the research carried out for a doctoral thesis, the need to display extensive knowledge of the field and to justify the relevance of the research.

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