Genre Knowledge and Genre Analysis:
2 readings on Genre
Thanks in part to Dr. Angela
Rounsaville, Assistant Professor,
Department of Writing and Rhetoric,
UCF
Continuing our discussion of
Bawarshi, Reiff, Devitt
• “In this way genres help counter the idealized
view of discourse communities as discursive
utopias constituted by homogeneity and
consensus” (552)
• What is a “Discursive Utopia?” and why don’t we want
that?
Bawarshi ctd.
• “Recognizing the presence of genres helps us to recognize
the palpability and complexity of our discourse communities,
to reduce their abstract, symbolic status, thereby making
discourse communities more visible and accessible to
ethnographic inquiry” (552)
Genres are “rhetorical maps”
“As typical responses to repeated social situations, genres are
rhetorical maps that chart familiar or frequently traveled
communicative paths and provide guideposts as writers adapt
to unfamiliar academic terrain and study parts of society
beyond the classroom” (Reiff 553)
“While students don't have extended periods to carry out
ethnographic studies, they can carry out what Bishop has
labeled "mini-ethnographies,“ smaller-scale studies
that explore particular literacy events or local phenomena in a
community” (554-555)
Next Assignment: Genre Analysis
• You’re going to collect 2-3 texts from your discourse
community that are all examples from the same genre. Your
default genre should be research publications, though there
are other genres that might work.
• Here’s why:
• Devitt says, “To develop our new genre theory, we begin with
rhetorical situation and expand it to encompass a semiotic
situation and social context” (576).
Genre Analysis: Discourse Community,
Situation, and Genre
• Discourse Community: “Place” where
communication happens between people
with shared objectives
• Disciplinary communities: engineering,
linguistics, art, chemistry, english
• “Sub-communities”: classrooms, labs,
lectures, conferences
Genre Analysis: Discourse Community,
Situation, and Genre
• Situation: Repeated rhetorical interactions
and practices (rhetorical situation) within
a discourse community
Genre Analysis: Discourse Community,
Situation, and Genre
• Genre: Typical ways of responding to a
repeated situation within a discourse
community that has developed over time
Syllabus (Genre)
What is the repeated situation that the syllabus developed out of?
What is the discourse community out of which the syllabus emerged?
Genre Analysis
• Genre analysis helps you gain access to the
patterns of communication that will enable you to
write more effectively within different discourse
communities.
• Rhetorical knowledge
• Content knowledge
• Formal knowledge
Rhetorical Knowledge
Understanding persuasive appeals (ethos, logos, pathos)
Understanding organization and structure
Understanding sentences, words, and tone
Understanding how to frame and incorporate sources
Understanding the features of an effective text (unity,
coherence, readability)
Content Knowledge
Understanding what content is typically included and
excluded
Understanding how to position one’s claim within
scholarly conversations and showing what is at stake
Knowing what counts as evidence and what sorts of
examples are used
Understanding how evidence is gathered, analyzed, and
presented as arguments
Formal Knowledge
Understanding conventions in format, layout, and appearance
Understanding the medium of the genre
Making Sense of these Patterns
• Genre analysis means connecting these patterns to the people
who use these genres, the situations they write in, and the
discourse communities they are part of.
• In other words: what is the significance or
meaning of these patterns?
• This question marks the final step in performing a genre
analysis
Steps in Understanding Genre
• Collecting examples of your genre
• Finding out where, when, by whom, and why the
genre is used
• Identifying rhetorical and linguistic patterns in the
genre
• Determining what these patterns tell us about the
people who use it and the discourse community in
which it is used
Moving into Devitt…
• She starts the article by saying:
“Our field has become riddled with dichotomies that threaten
to undermine our holistic understanding of writing.”
• Then she says “Recent conceptions of genre as a dynamic and
semiotic construct illustrate how to unify form and content,
place text within context, balance process and product, and
acknowledge the role of both the individual and the social.
This reconception of genre may even lead us to a unified
theory of writing. “
• What does this mean?
• “Traditional genre study has meant study of the textual
features that mark a genre: the meter, the layout, the
organization, the level of diction, and so on” (575)
• “consider what we know when, as readers, we recognize the
genre of a text. Based on our identification of genre, we make
assumptions not only about the form but also about the text's
purposes, its subject matter, its writer, and its expected
reader” (575)
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Junk Mail
Report card
Credit card statement
Wedding invitation