Genre Studies - in Social Communities

In Social Communities

There is something more about genre theory, and to that effect it is necessary to propose Kristen H. Perry’s definition. Written (textual) genres are social constructions that represent specific purposes for reading and writing 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 also represent 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, interests and purposes that not only links them but makes them what they are: an objectified social need”. This view sees 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 that different 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 genre theory—speech genres; but it is important to stress that context is really important in all situations. Context plays an important role in shaping genres (Holquist, 1986). Genre theory does not conceptualize context as simply the space outside of text or the container surrounding texts, but as dynamic environments that simultaneously structure and are structured by the communicative practices of social agents. Speech genres are recognizable patterns of language-in-context (Bakhtin, 1986): speech genres include both oral and written forms of language.

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