speech genre meaning

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Bakhtin on Genre

Influential twentieth century Russian scholar and theorist of communication, Mikhail Bakhtin, explores the nature of genre, or social different social practices producing different kinds of text or utterance.

The wealth and diversity of speech genres are boundless because the various possibilities of human activity are inexhaustible, and because each sphere of activity contains an entire repertoire of speech genres that differentiate and grow as the particular sphere develops and becomes more complex. Special emphasis should be placed on the extreme heterogeneity of speech genres (oral and written). In fact, the category of speech genres should include short rejoinders of daily dialogue (and these are extremely varied depending on the subject matter, situation, and participants), everyday narration, writing (in all its various forms), the brief standard military command, the elaborate and detailed order, the fairly variegated repertoire of business documents (for the most part standard), and the diverse world of commentary (in the broad sense of the word: social, political).

And we must also include here the diverse forms of scientific statements and all literary genres (from the proverb to the multivolume novel). It might seem that speech genres are so heterogeneous that they do not have and cannot have a single common level at which they can be studied. For here, on one level of inquiry, appear such heterogeneous phenomena as the single-word everyday rejoinder and the multivolume novel, the military command that is standardized even in its intonation and the profoundly individual lyrical work, and so on. One might think that such functional heterogeneity makes the common features of speech genres excessively abstract and empty. This probably explains why the general problem of speech genres has never really been raised. Literary genres have been studied more than anything else. But from antiquity to the present, they have been studied in terms of their specific literary and artistic features … and not as specific types of utterances distinct from other types … . Rhetorical genres have been studied since antiquity (and not much has been added in subsequent epochs to classical theory). But here, too, the specific features of rhetorical genres (judicial, political) still overshadowed their general linguistic nature. Finally, everyday speech genres have been studied (mainly rejoinders in everyday dialogue), and from a general linguistic standpoint….

The extreme heterogeneity of speech genres and the attendant difficulty of determining the general nature of the utterance should in no way be underestimated. It is especially important here to draw attention to the very significant difference between primary (simple) and secondary (complex) speech genres (understood not as a functional difference). Secondary (complex) speech genres—novels, dramas, all kinds of scientific research, major genres of commentary, and so forth-arise in more complex and comparatively highly developed and organized cultural communication (primarily written) that is artistic, scientific, sociopolitical, and so on. During the process of their formation, they absorb and digest various primary (simple) genres that have taken form in unmediated speech communion. These primary genres are altered and assume a special character when they enter into complex ones. They lose their immediate relation to actual reality and to the real utterances of others. For example, rejoinders of everyday dialogue or letters found in a novel retain their form and their everyday significance only on the plane of the novel’s content. They enter into actual reality only via the novel as a whole, that is, as a literary-artistic event and not as everyday life. The novel as a whole is an utterance just as rejoinders in everyday dialogue or private letters are (they do have a common nature), but unlike these, the novel is a secondary (complex) utterance.

The difference between primary and secondary (ideological) genres is very great and fundamental, but this is precisely why the nature of the utterance should be revealed and defined through analysis of both types. The very interrelations between primary and secondary genres and the process of the historical formation of the latter shed light on the nature of the utterance (and above all on the complex problem of the interrelations among language, ideology, and world view).

A study of the nature of the utterance and of the diversity of generic forms of utterances in various spheres of human activity is immensely important to almost all areas of linguistics and philology. A clear idea of the nature of the utterance in general and of the peculiarities of the various types of utterances (primary and secondary), that is, of various speech genres, is necessary, we think, for research in any special area. To ignore the nature of the utterance or to fail to consider the peculiarities of generic subcategories of speech in any area of linguistic study leads to perfunctoriness and excessive abstractness, distorts the historicity of the research, and weakens the link between language and life. After all, language enters life through concrete utterances (which manifest language) and life enters language through concrete utterances as well. The utterance is an exceptionally important node of problems.

Bakhtin, M. Speech Genres & Other Late Essays, (trans. by Vern W. McGee) . Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1986, pp. 60-63. || Amazon || WorldCat

18.3 Glance at Genre: Genre, Audience, Purpose, Organization

Learning outcomes.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Identify key genre conventions, including structure, tone, and mechanics.
• Implement common formats and design features for different text types.
• Demonstrate how genre conventions vary and are shaped by purpose, culture, and expectation.

The multimodal genres of writing are based on the idea that modes work in different ways, with different outcomes, to create various vehicles for communication. By layering, or combining, modes, an author can make meaning and communicate through mixed modes what a single mode cannot on its own. Essentially, modes “cooperate” to communicate the author’s intent as they interweave meanings captured by each.

For example, think of a public service announcement about environmental conservation. A composer can create a linguistic text about the dangers of plastic pollution in oceans and support the ideas with knowledge of or expertise in the subject. Yet words alone may not communicate the message forcefully, particularly if the audience consists of people who have never considered the impact of pollution on the oceans. That composer, then, might combine the text with images of massive amounts of human-generated plastic waste littering a shoreline, thus strengthening the argument and enhancing meaning by touching on audience emotions. By using images to convey some of the message, the composer layers modes. The picture alone does not tell the whole story, but when combined with informational text, it enhances the viewer’s understanding of the issue. Modes, therefore, can be combined in various ways to communicate a rhetorical idea effectively.

Audience Awareness

As with any type of composition, knowing your audience (the readers and viewers for whom you are creating) will help you determine what information to include and what genre, mode(s), or media in which to present it. Consider your audience when choosing a composition’s tone (composer’s attitude toward the audience or subject), substance, and language. Considering the audience is critical not only in traditional academic writing but also in nearly any genre or mode you choose. Ask yourself these questions when analyzing your audience’s awareness:

• What (and how much) does the audience already know about the topic? The amount of background information needed can influence what genre, modes, and media types you include and how you use them. You don’t want to bore an audience with information that is common knowledge or overwhelm an audience with information they know nothing about.
• What is the audience’s viewpoint on the subject? Are you creating for a skeptical audience or one that largely agrees with your rhetorical arguments?
• How do you relate to your audience? Do you share cultural understanding, or are you presenting information or beliefs that will be unfamiliar? This information will help you shape the message, tone, and structure of the composition.

Understanding your audience allows you to choose rhetorical devices that reflect ethos (appeals to ethics: credibility), logos (appeals to logic: reason), and pathos (appeals to sympathy: emotion) to create contextually responsive compositions through multiple modes.

It important to address audience diversity in all types of composition, but the unique aspects of multimodal composition present particular opportunities and challenges. First, when you compose, you do so through your own cultural filter, formed from your experiences, gender, education, and other factors. Multimodal composition opens up the ability to develop your cultural filter through various methods. Think about images of your lived experiences, videos capturing cultural events, or even gestures in live performances. Also consider the diversity of your audience members and how that affects the content choices you make during composition. Avoiding ethnocentrism —the assumption that the customs, values, and beliefs of your culture are superior to others—is an important consideration when addressing your audience, as is using bias-free language, especially regarding ethnicity, gender, and abilities.

Blogs, Vlogs, and Creative Compositions

Among the modes available to you as a composer, blogs (regularly updated websites, usually run by an individual or a small group) have emerged as a significant genre in digital literature. The term blog , a combination of web and log , was coined in 1999 and gained rapid popularity in the early 2000s. In general, blogs have a relatively narrow focus on a topic or argument and present a distinctive structure that includes these features:

• A headline or title draws in potential readers. Headlines are meant to grab attention, be short, and accurately reflect the content of the blog post.
• An introduction hooks the reader, briefly introducing the topic and establishing the author’s credibility on the subject.
• Short paragraphs often are broken up by images, videos, or other media to make meaning and supplement or support the text content.
• The narrative is often composed in a style in which the author claims or demonstrates expertise.
• Media such as images, video, and infographics depict information graphically and break up text.
• Hyperlinks (links to other internet locations) to related content often serve as evidence supporting the author’s claim.
• A call to action provides clear and actionable instructions that engage the reader.

Blogs offer accessibility and an opportunity to make meaning in new ways. By integrating images and audiovisual media, you can develop a multimodal representation of arguments and ideas. Blogs also provide an outlet for conveying ideas through both personal and formal narratives and are used frequently in industries from entertainment to scientific research to government organizations.

Newer in the family of multimodal composition is the video blog, or vlog , a blog for which the medium is video. Vlogs usually combine video embedded in a website with supporting text, images, or other modes of communication. Vlogging often takes on a narrative structure, similar to other types of storytelling, with the added element of supplementary audio and video, including digital transitions that connect one idea or scene to another. Vlogs offer ample opportunities to mix modalities.

Vlogs give a literal voice to a composer, who typically narrates or speaks directly to the camera. Like a blogger, a vlog creator acts as an expert, telling a narrative story or using rhetoric to argue a point. Vlogs often strive to create an authentic and informal tone, similar to published blogs, inviting a stream-of-consciousness or interview-like style. Therefore, they often work well when targeted toward audiences for whom a casual mood is valuable and easily understood.

Other creative compositions include websites, digital or print newsletters, podcasts, and a wide variety of other content. Each composition type has its own best practices regarding structure and organization, often depending on the chosen modalities, the way they are used, and the intended audience. Whatever the mode, however, all multimodal writing has several characteristics in common, beginning with effective, intentional composition.

Effective Writing

Experimenting with modes and media is not an excuse for poorly developed writing that lacks focus, organization, thought, purpose, or attention to mechanics. Although multimodal compositions offer flexibility of expression, the content still must be presented in well-crafted, organized, and purposeful ways that reflect the author’s purpose and the audience’s needs.

• To be well-crafted, a composition should reflect the author’s use of literary devices to convey meaning, use of relevant connections, and acknowledgment of grammar and writing conventions.
• To be organized, a composition should reflect the author’s use of effective transitions and a logical structure appropriate to the chosen mode.
• To be purposeful, a composition should show that the author addresses the needs of the audience, uses rhetorical devices that advance the argument, and offers insightful understanding of the topic.

Organization of multimodal compositions refers to the sequence of message elements. You must decide which ideas require attention, how much and in what order, and which modalities create maximum impact on readers. While many types of formal and academic writing follow a prescribed format, or at least the general outline of one, the exciting and sometimes overwhelming features of multimodal possibilities open the door to any number of acceptable formats. Some of these are prescribed, and others more open ended; your job will inevitably be to determine when to follow a template and when to create something new. As the composer, you seek to structure media in ways that will enable the reader, or audience, to derive meaning. Even small changes in media, rhetorical appeal, and organization can alter the ways in which the audience participates in the construction of meaning.

Within a medium—for example, a video—you might include images, audio, and text. By shifting the organization, placement, and interaction among the modes, you change the structure of the video and therefore create varieties of meaning. Now, imagine you use that same structure of images, audio, and text, but change the medium to a slideshow. The impact on the audience will likely change with the change in medium. Consider the infamous opening scene of the horror movie The Shining (1980). The primary medium, video, shows a car driving through a mountainous region. After audio is added, however, the meaning of the multimodal composition changes, creating an emphasis on pace—management of dead air—and tone—attitude toward the subject—that communicates something new to the audience.

Exploring the Genre

These are the key terms and characteristics of multimodal texts.

• Alignment: the way in which elements such as text features, images, and particularly text are placed on a page. Text can be aligned at the left, center, or right. Alignment contributes to organization and how media transitions within a text.
• Audience: readers or viewers of the composition.
• Channel: a medium used to communicate a message. Often-used channels include websites, blogs, social media, print, audio, and video-hosting sites.
• Complementary: describes content that is different across two or more modes, both of which are necessary for understanding. Often audio and visual modes are complementary, with one making the other more meaningful.
• Emphasis: the elements in media that are most significant or pronounced. The emphasis choices have a major impact on the overall meaning of the text.
• Focus: a clear purpose for composition, also called the central idea, main point, or guiding principle. Focus should include the specific audience the composer is trying to influence.
• Layering: combining modes in a single composition.
• Layout: the organization of elements on a page, including text, images, shapes, and overall composition. Layout applies primarily to the visual mode.
• Media: the means and channels of reaching an audience (for example, image, website, song). A medium (singular form of media ) can contain multiple modes.
• Mode: the method of communication (linguistic, visual, audio, or spatial means of creating meaning). Media can incorporate more than one mode.
• Organization: the pattern of arrangement that allows a reader to understand text or images in a composition. Organization may be textual, visual, or spatial.
• Proximity: the relationship between objects in space, specifically how close to or far from one another they are. Proximity can show a relationship between elements and is often important in layout.
• Purpose: an author’s reason for writing a text, including the reasoning that accounts for which modes of presentation to use. Composers of multimodal texts may seek to persuade, inform, or entertain the audience.
• Repetition: a unifying feature, such as a pattern used more than once, in the way in which elements (text features, typeface, color, etc.) are used on a page. Repetition often indicates emphasis or a particular theme. Repetitions and patterns can help focus a composition, explore a theme, and emphasize important points.
• Supplementary: describes content that is different in two or more modes, where a composer uses one mode to convey primary understanding and the other(s) to support or extend understanding. Supplementary content should not be thought of as “extra,” for its purpose is to expand on the primary media.
• Text: written words. In multimodal composition, text can refer to a piece of communication as a whole, incorporating written words, images, sounds, and movement.
• Tone: the composer’s attitude toward the subject and/or the audience.
• Transitions: words, phrases, or audiovisual elements that help readers make connections between ideas in a multimodal text, including connections from sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph, and mode to mode. Transitions show relationships between ideas and help effectively organize a composition.

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Genre Theory

An introduction to genre theory.

Genre Theory is a collective term used to describe theoretical approaches that are concerned with how similar situations generate typified responses called genres, which serve as a platform for both creating an understanding based on shared expectations and also shaping the social context.

Genre Theory has its origins in the study of literary genres, but has been expanded to include a wide range of genres from everyday examples such as recipes and apologies to workplace writing genres such as proposals and medical records. The branch of Genre Theory that is most often associated with technical communication is called Rhetorical Genre Studies (RGS) or North American Genre Theory and is known for its emphasis on understanding genres as inherent components of recurrent social action such as typical workplace situations. For example, according to RGS, the genre of proposals is an indispensable element in the frequently occurring business situation of making an offer.

Genre Defined

Recipes are a genre; but genres are not recipes (Freadman, 1994, p. 49).

While the term genre is most often defined in common usage as a means of classification based solely on formal characteristics (such as literary genres or movie genres), its meaning in RGS is much more refined. In RGS, the definition of genre as social action originates in Carolyn Miller’s (1984) similarly titled seminal article, where she describes genres as “typified rhetorical actions based in recurrent situations” (p.159). Miller’s conceptualization of genre moves away from identifying formal and structural characteristics of genres and highlights the importance of focusing on the action that a genre is used to accomplish. This way, attention is paid not only to how genres came to be the way they are based on similar situations (including the common characteristics of similar situations such as the needs, the goals, the objects, the organizations, the people involved, and larger society), but also to ways in which genres can be adapted to new situations as the context (again the needs, the goals, the people involved, etc.) is slightly different in every new situation.

According to RGS, one of the major reasons we use genres is to enable a shared understanding of the situation . The relevance of genres for this purpose has been pointed out by Bazerman (1988) who posits them as a “socio-psychological category which we use to recognize and construct typified actions within typified situations” (p. 319). Thus, genres have to be both stable and dynamic to fulfill the requirement of situations being both typical and different at the same time.

For this reason, genres can be envisioned as “stabilized-for-now” (Schryer, 1993, p. 208) meaning that they not only carry an imprint of similar situations of the past in their conventionalized form, but they have enough variability in their structures and ways of expression to make them easily applicable to any new situation. This connects directly to Bakthtin’s description of speech genres as “changeable, flexible, and plastic” (1986, p.80) because they have to easily fit any situation while at the same time, speech genres also need to retain certain characteristics to ensure that participants think about a specific situation in a similar way. Viewing workplace genres in this light can explain how the changeability of their formal characteristics is connected to changes in the situation and the actions these genres need to accomplish.

Application of Genre Theory

Because RGS connects genres directly to the situations in which they are used, it has proven to be a rich framework for looking at the role of genres in workplace interactions. A study by Orlikowski and Yates (1994), for example, uses Genre Theory to analyze the role of genres emerging through new forms of electronic communication within a company. The findings of this study indicate the importance of genres and genre repertoires in providing norms for “how, why, and with what effect members of a community interact to get their work done” (p. 1). Another workplace study by Wahl (2003) finds that the genre of customer documentation plays an important role in organizational learning as it structures technical and product knowledge in ways that makes it easier to be disseminated within the organization.

In addition to workplace studies, RGS is also productive in looking at the process of genre learning by students in school and novices in the workplace. Smart and Brown (2008), for example, while combining Genre Theory, Activity Theory, and Participatory Action Research, look at how students of Professional Writing develop a critical understanding of workplace genres and their situation in a specific work activity during an internship experience. Another case study by Artemeva (2008) describes how a novice engineer adapts in his workplace through the existing genres of this organization, while at the same time, the creativity he applies to these genres enables him to be quickly noticed and promoted. As these examples illustrate, Genre Theory, especially when combined with other theories such as Activity Theory and Situated Learning Theory, can create a more complete understanding of workplace communication practices and can improve the process of teaching technical communication.

Suggested Resources on the Web

• Genre: An Introduction to History, Theory, Research, and Pedagogy

Table of Contents

Collaboration, information literacy, writing process.

• © 2023 by Joseph M. Moxley - University of South Florida

Genre may reference  a type of writing, art, or musical composition; socially-agreed upon expectations about how writers and speakers should respond to particular rhetorical situations; the cultural values; the epistemological assumptions about what constitutes a knowledge claim or authoritative research method; the discourse conventions of a particular discourse community . This article reviews research and theory on 6 different definitions of genre, explains how to engage in genre analysis, and explores when during the writing process authors should consider genre conventions. Develop your genre knowledge so you can discern which genres are appropriate to use—and when you need to remix genres to ensure your communications are both clear and persuasive.

Genre Definition

G enre may refer to

• by the  aim  of discourse
• by discourse conventions
• by  discourse communities
• by a type of technology
• a social construct
• the situated actions of writers and readers
• the situated practices and epistemological assumptions of discourse communities
• a form of  literacy .

Related Concepts: Deductive Order, Deductive Reasoning, Deductive Writing ; Interpretation ; Literacy ; Mode of Discourse ; Organizational Schema; Rhetorical Analysis ; Rhetorical Reasoning ; Voice ; Tone ; Persona

Genre Knowledge – What You Need to Know about Genre

Genre plays a foundational role in meaning-making activities, including interpretation , reading , writing, and speaking.

In order to communicate with clarity , writers and speakers need to understand the expectations of their audiences regarding the appropriate content, style, design, citation style, and medium. Genres facilitate communication between writers and readers, authors and audiences, and writers/speakers and readers/listeners. Genre and genre knowledge increase the likelihood of clarity in communications .

Writers use their knowledge of genre to jumpstart composing: a genre presumes a formula for how to organize a document, how to develop and present a research question , how to substantiate claims–and more. For writers, genres are an efficient way to respond to recurring situations . Rather than reinvent the wheel every time, writers save time by considering how others have responded in the same or a similar situation . Genres are like big Lego chunks that can be re-used to start a new Lego creation that is similar to past Lego creations you’ve created.

In turn, readers use genres to more quickly scan information . Because they know the formula, because they share with the author as members of a discourse community a common language, common topoi , archive , canonical texts , and expectations about what to say and how to say it in, they can skip through a document and grab the highlights.

Six Definitions of Genre

1. genre refers to a naming and categorization scheme for sorting types of writing.

“… [L]et me define “genres” as types of writing produced every day in our culture, types of writing that make possible certain kinds of learning and social interaction.” (Cooper 1999, p. 25)

G enre  refers to types of writing, art, and musical compositions. For instance

• alphabetical texts may be categorized as Expository Writing, Descriptive Writing, Persuasive Writing, or Narrative Writing .
• movies may be categorized as Action & Adventure, Children & Family Movies, Comedies, Documentaries, Dramas.
• music may be categorized as Artist, Album, Country, New Age, Jazz, and so on.

There are many different ways to define and sort genres. For instance, genres may defined based on their content, organization, and style. Or, genres may be defined and categorized based on

• Examples: Drama, Fable, Fairy Tale, etc.
• Move 1 Establish a territory
• Move 2 Establish a niche
• Move 3 Occupy the niche (Swales and Feak 2004)
• A research article written for a scientific audience most likely uses some for of an “IMRAC structure”–i.e., an introduction, methods, results, and conclusion
• An article in the sciences and social sciences would use APA  style for citations
• by the type of technology used by the sender and the receiver of the information.

2. Genre is a Social Construct

“Genres are conventions, and that means they are social – socially defined and socially learned.” (Bomer 1995:112) “… [A] genre is a socially standard strategy, embodied in a typical form of discourse, that has evolved for responding to a recurring type of rhetorical situation.” (Coe and Freedman 1998, p. 137)

Genre is more than a way to sort types of texts by discourse aim or some other classification scheme: Genres are social, cultural, rhetorical constructs. For example,

• writers draw on their expectations about what they believe their readers will know about a genre–how it’s structured ( what it’s formula is! ) and when it’s socially useful.
• readers draw on their past experiences as readers and as members of particular discourse communities. They hold expectations about the appropriate use of particular textual patterns in specific situations.

Or, consider this example: in the social situation of seeking a job, an applicant knows from  the archive , the culture,  the conversations about job seeking , that they are expected to create a  letter of application  and a  résumé . More than that, they know the  point of view  they are to take as well as the  tone –and more.

Writers and readers develop textual expectations tacitly — by reading and speaking with others — and formally: by studying genres in school. Students are inculcated in textual practices of particular disciplines (e.g., engineering or biology) as part of their academic and professional training.

3. Genres Reflect the Situated Actions of Writers and Readers

“a rhetorically sound definition of genre must be centered not on the substance or the form of discourse but on the action it is used to accomplish” (Miller 1984, p. 151)

Carolyn Miller (1984) extends this social view of genre in her article Genre as Social Action by operationalizing genre from a rhetorical perspective. Miller asserts genres are the embodiment of situated actions. In her rhetorical model of genre, Miller theorizes

• writers enter a rhetorical situation guided by aims (e.g., to persuade users to support a proposal ). The writer assesses the rhetorical situation (e.g., considers audience , purpose , voice , style ) to more fully understand the situation and the motives of stakeholders.
• For instance, a researcher could dip into a research study seeking empirical support for a claim . A graphic designer could open a magazine looking for layout ideas.

4. Genres Embody the Situated Practices and Values of Discourse Communities

“Genre not only allows the scholar to report her research, but its conventions and constraints also give structure to the actual investigations she is reporting” (Joliffe 1996, p. 283).

The textual practices of discourse communities reflect the epistemological assumptions of practitioners regarding what constitutes an appropriate rhetorical stance , research method , or knowledge claim . For instance, a scientist doesn’t insert their subjective opinions into the methods section of a lab report because they understand their audience expect them to follow empirical methods and an academic writing prose style

Academic documents, business documents, legal briefs, medical records—these sorts of texts are grounded in the situated practices of members of particular discourse communities . Practitioners — e.g., scientists in a research lab, accountants in an accountancy firm, or engineers in an engineering firm— share assumptions, conventions, and values about how documents should be researched, written, and shared. Discourse communities develop unique ways of communicating with one another. Their daily work, their situated practices, reflect their assumptions about what constitutes knowledge , appropriate research methods, or authoritative sources . Genres reflect the values of communities . They provide a roadmap to rhetors for how to engage with community members in expected ways. (For more on this, see Research ).

5. Genre Knowledge Constitutes a Form of Literacy

Genres  are created in the forge of recurring  rhetorical situations . Particular  exigencies  call for particular  genres . Applying for a job? Well, then, a résumé and cover letter are called for. Trying to report on an experiment in organic chemistry? Well, then a lab report is due. Thus, being able to recognize which  genre  is called for by  a particular exigency, a particular call to write , is  a form of literacy : If you’re unfamiliar with a genre and your reader’s expectations for that genre, then you may as well be from mars.

Genre Analysis – How to Engage in Genre Analysis

When we enter a rhetorical situation , guided by a sense of purpose like an explorer clutching a compass, we invariably compare the present situation to past situations. We reflect on whether we have read the work of other writers who have also addressed the same or somewhat equivalent rhetorical situation , the topic, we’re facing. If you have a proposal due, for instance, it helps to look at some samples of past proposals–particularly if you can access proposals funded by the organization from whom you are seeking support. 

For genre theorists, these are acts of typification –a moment where we typify a situation: “What recurs is not a material situation (a real, objective, factual event) but our construal of a type” (Miller 157).

In other words, genres are conceptual tools, ways we relate situated actions to recurring rhetorical situations. When first entering a situation, we assess whether this is a recurring rhetorical situation and whether past responses will work equally well for this new situation—or if we’ll need to tweak our response, our text, a bit. For instance, if applying for a job, you might look at previous drafts of job application letters

Genres are like prefabricated Lego pieces that we can use to jumpstart a new Lego masterpiece.

We abbreviate the experiences of our lives by creating idealized versions–i.e., metatexts that capture the gist of those experiences. Or, we access the archive , or our memory of the archive, and seek exemplars — canonical texts , the works of others who addressed similar exigencies , similar rhetorical situations.

To make this less abstract, let’s consider what might go through the mind of a writer who wants to write a New Year’s party invitation. If the writer were an American, they might reflect on the ritual ball drop in Times Square in New York City. They might recall past texts associated with New Year’s celebrations (party invitations, menus, greeting cards, party hats, songs, and resolutions) as well as rituals (fireworks, champagne, or a New Year’s kiss). They might even conduct an internet search for New Year’s Eve party invitations or download a party template from Google Docs or Microsoft Word. Over time, that writer’s sense of the ideal New Year’s party invitation becomes typified —a condensation of the texts and rituals and stories.

Because we tend to have unique experiences and because we have different personalities, motives, and aims , our sense of an ideal New Year’s Eve invitation might be somewhat different from those of our friends and family—or even the broader society. Rather than assuming it’s a good time to go out and party and dance, you may think it’s a good time to stay home and meditate. After all, as writers, we experience events, texts and rituals subjectively and uniquely. Thus, we don’t all have the same ideas about what should happen at a New Year’s party or even what the best party invite should look like. Still, when we sit down to write a party invitation for New Year’s Eve, this is a reoccurring situation for us, and we cannot help but be influenced by all of the past invitations we’ve received, what our friends and loved ones have recommended, and what we see online for party invite templates (if we engage in strategic searching).

Sample Genre Analysis

Below are some sample questions and perspectives you may consider when engaging in Genre Analysis.

1. When During Composing Should I Engage in Genre Analysis?

Early in the writing process — during prewriting — you are wise to identify the genre your audience expects you to follow. Then, engage in strategic searching to identify exemplars and canonical texts that typify the genre.

Next, you might begin your first draft by outlining the sections of discourse associated with the genre you’re writing in. For example, if you are writing an Aristotelian argument for a school paper, you might jumpstart your first draft by listing the rhetorical moves associated with Aristotelian argument as your subject headings:

• Introduce the Topic
• Introduce Claims
• Appeal to Ethos & Persona to Establish an Appropriate Tone
• Appeal to Emotions
• Appeal to Logic
• Present Counterarguments
• Search for a Compromise and Call for a Higher Interest
• Speculate About Implications in Conclusions

That said, it’s important to note that some people prefer not to think about genre at all during drafting. Research in writing studies has found that there is no single, ideal writing process . Instead, our personalities, rhetorical stance , openness to information , rhetorical situation (e.g., contextual factors such as time available and access to information )–and more — influence how we compose.

You may not want to think much about genre when

• You’re the type of writer who needs to write your way to meaning. For you, writing is rewriting
• Your audience may have specific expectations in mind that you haven’t addressed. You may be unfamiliar with how other writers have addressed that situation in the past. You may lack access to the information you need to research how others typically respond to the rhetorical situation you are facing

In summary, thinking about genre and reading the works of other writers addressing similar rhetorical situations will probably help you jumpstart a writing project. However, at the end of the day, only you can decide how to work with genres of discourse.

Coe, R., & Freedman, A. (1998). Genre theory: Australian and North American approaches. In M. L. Kennedy (ed), Theorizing composition: A critical sourcebook of theory and scholarship in contemporary composition studies (p p. 136-147). Greenwood Press.

Joliffe, D. A. (1996). Genre. In T. Enos (ed), Encyclopedia of rhetoric and composition: Communication from ancient times to the information age (pp . 279-284). Garland Publishing.

Miller, R. (1984). Genre as social action. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 70 , 151-167.

Swales, J., & C. Feak (2004). Academic writing for graduate students: Essential tasks and skills . University of Michigan Press

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M.M. Bakhtin’s Genre Theory As A Key To Teaching Linguistic Text Analysis

The article is devoted to the search for new approaches to teaching the discipline "Fundamentals of linguistic analysis of text". The article describes the experience of using M.M. Bakhtin’s teaching about primary and secondary speech genres as an operational method for teaching this discipline in university. The hypothesis about the universal countable set of genre-forming text formants is proposed. The hypothesis is being tested with the use of the logical-deductive method by comparing various approaches to the analysis of text, including approaches based on M.M. Bakhtin’s works. As the material for the analysis, the author uses the texts of classical Russian literature of the 19th - 20th centuries, the texts of Russian folklore, political and academic Russian rhetoric. The data of Russian colloquial speech was used as a source of material of primary speech genres. The material is being analyzed with the use of observation and experimental methods. As a result of the study, presence of a correlation between the genre-forming formants of text and primary speech genres and some patterns of such a correlation were revealed. As an effective measure of text analysis, the category of producing speech genre is proposed for use. A set of minimum genre characteristics is established that are retained by the producing speech genre after it has joined the derivative speech genre. Keywords: Compositional unit of text genre-forming formant primary speech genre secondary speech genre

Introduction

Social demand for the knowledge about structure of text.

The discipline "Fundamentals of Linguistic Analysis of Text" plays an important role in the curricula of many philological departments of our country. This is due, in particular, to the fact that the knowledge about structure of text is widely demanded by higher and additional education, as well as secondary and even primary school. Graduates of philological departments should satisfy this need.

Lack of current knowledge about structure of text

Meanwhile, the authors of recognized textbooks on this discipline talk about the "insufficient degree of development of Bolotnov’s theory of text" ( Bolotnova, 2016, p. 22 ), they note that "general theory of text and its generally accepted definition are still lacking" ( Babenko & Kazarin 2005, p. 10 ) Perhaps that is why practicing teachers say: "The text and its categories are the most difficult for learners to master both in school and in a higher education institution" ( Sviridova et al., 2019, p. 184 ).

The relevance of the search for new approaches to teaching the discipline "Fundamentals of linguistic analysis of text"

Thus, the attempts to find new approaches to teaching the discipline "Fundamentals of linguistic analysis of text" seem relevant, appropriate and rational.

Problem Statement

Attempts to approach the text through the category of primary speech genres.

As a matter of fact, there is nothing fundamentally new in the attempt to approach the study of text through Bakhtin’s category of primary speech genres ( Bakhtin, 1986 ). Such attempts have been made regularly over the past two decades. See, for example, Gorlova ( 2016 ), Dementiev ( 2015 ), Kislitsina and Deshchenko ( 2018 ), Panchenko ( 2013 ), Popova ( 2015 ), Prozorov ( 2017 ), Rabenko ( 2017 ), Redkozubova and Kudryashov ( 2014 ) and some others.

Assumption of the fundamental limitation of the set of text components

The novelty of this work lies solely in the fact that the author proceeds from the assumption that the set of genre formants from which the text is composed as such is fundamentally limited. This assumption, however, offers nothing particularly new as well. Every student knows that an essay consists of an introduction, a main part and a conclusion. Any student also knows that a literary text consists of an exposition, a nodus, a culmination and a denouement (an epilogue is not excluded, however). On the other hand, a student (and not just him/her) does not know how these units relate to the category of primary speech genres.

The novelty of the current approach

The novelty, therefore, lies in the attempt 1) to correlate the traditional compositional units of text with certain speech genres, the structure of which will obviously be simpler than the structure of the entire text; 2) to establish a set of universal compositional units of the text.

Research Questions

Is the existence of a certain stable set of compositional text units possible?

What is the nature of correlation between the compositional units of text and primary speech genres?

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the study is, therefore, to find answers to these questions by summarizing years long experience in teaching the disciplines "Fundamentals of linguistic analysis of text" and "Text as an object of philological research.”

Research Methods

An attempt to find answers to the posed questions is carried out using 1) the logical-deductive method; 2) observation method and 3) experimental method. The logical-deductive method makes it possible to develop a categorical research apparatus and to substantiate a hypothesis; the observation method allows one to identify the expected characteristics in the empirical material; experimental - to check the validity of the hypothesis by applying fundamentally different research methods to the same material.

Categorical research apparatus

Following Admoni ( 1985 ), we will understand text as a statement meant to be reproduced. Following M.M. Bakhtin, we will understand speech genre as "a relatively stable and normative form of utterance" ( Bakhtin, 1986, p. 274 ). By an utterance we mean a speech unit limited by the “change of speech subjects” ( Bakhtin, 1986, p. 263 ). As primary speech genres will be considered only those characterized by the following set of features: a) are simple (non-derivative), b) directly correlate with reality, c) directly correlate with the real statements of others ( Bakhtin, 1986 ). M.M. Bakhtin points to another important feature of primary speech genres - that they are formed "in the conditions of direct speech communication" ( Bakhtin, 1986, p. 252 ).

This feature is important because it correlates with the previously described in the work of

Voloshinov ( 1993 ) "methodological order of language learning", according to which, at the first stage, attention should be paid to "forms and types of speech interaction in connection with its specific conditions", at the second - to "forms of individual statements, individual speech performances in close connection with interaction, elements of which they are, i. e. defined by speech interaction, genres of speech performances in life and in ideological creativity"; and, finally, at the third stage, "the revision of the forms of language in their usual linguistic interpretation". (p. 105)

Thus, it becomes obvious that primary speech genres are possible only in the discourse of direct unofficial speech communication. But this does not mean at all that derivative speech genres are impossible in this discourse. Thus, the above three features of primary speech genres are quite enough to distinguish any utterance of the primary speech genre from an utterance of the secondary speech genre.

It is easy to see that the researchers listed above do not take into account the entire set of the mentioned characteristics of the primary speech genre, and some do not even take into account the attribute of nonderivativeness, for example, Popova ( 2015 ). Most of these authors focus on such a characteristic of primary speech genres as their ability to be part of complex speech genres. However, this ability in itself does not guarantee that the compositional unit of text identified by the researcher corresponds precisely with the primary speech genre.

In order to avoid unlawful identification of any compositional unit of text with one or another primary speech genre, we will use such a category as the genre-forming formant, which Redkina ( 2017 ) understands as "the constructive unit of speech genre" (p. 131). This category is convenient in terms of text analysis precisely because, as Redkina ( 2017 ) points out, “in addition to non-derivative formants, derivatives can also be included in the genre structure” (p. 131). For the effective use of the category of genre-forming formant, it is also important to keep in mind the fact that primary speech genres, being part of the secondary ones as genre-forming formants, can undergo very serious transformations, so that, being extracted from the text, they will no longer be able to function as independent communicative units, in the same way as one or other morpheme being part of a derived word is sometimes modified in pronunciation beyond recognition. This, undoubtedly, is a factor that complicates the attribution of a statement which has become a certain genre-forming formant to a certain primary genre.

In addition, in order to analyze a text relying on genre-forming formants, one must remember that, since by text we mean a statement designed to be reproduced, no text can represent a statement of the primary speech genre. Even if this statement is clearly non-derivative. Such texts include, for example, proverbs. Proverbs, even if they consist of one sentence (Chickens are counted in the fall [English counterpart - Don't count your chicken before they are batched – translator’s note]), are still not statements of primary speech genres, because by definition they can move from one type of discourse to another and each time enter into new relationships with "true reality" and "other people's real statements".

The composition of genre-forming text formants and the problem of correlation between them and primary speech genres

So, what genre-forming formants does the text consist of? Is it possible to single out genre-forming "atoms" (in the ancient sense of the word)? As a working hypothesis, it was decided to accept the so-called rhetorical parts of speech as such "atoms" (not necessarily "indivisible"). The patterns of constructing a rhetorical text are dependent on the perception of a rhetorical work by ear, which prompts the rhetorician to repeat the same idea eight times (according to the laws of classical rhetoric). The rhetorical parts of speech include the following: 1) address, 2) designation of the topic, 3) narration, 4) presentation, 5) proof, 6) refutation, 7) appeal, 8) conclusion ( Mesenyashina et al., 2016 ). The same classical rhetoric teaches that the ninth part of speech does not exist, and it is possible to omit one or other part of speech, depending on 1) the genre of rhetorical speech, 2) the specific situation of speech interaction. Based on this, we assume that in written speech genres there is no need to repeat the same idea eight times, so we should not expect that the entire set of the listed parts of speech can be found in texts of different genres. At the same time, as rhetoric teaches us, the listed set of parts of speech corresponds to the most general laws of speech perception in general, since their totality just covers all the ways of influencing the addressee: ethos, pathos and logos. Pathos is reflected in the address and proclamation, logos - in the designation of topic, narration, presentation, proof and refutation, and ethos - in general places, which play the most important role in proof and refutation.

It is easy to see that a significant part of these genre-forming formants can act as independent speech genres. So, an address can act as a separate statement of the primary speech genre of a phatic nature, or as a vocal statement, for example:

Sonya (imploringly). Grandmother! Uncle Vanya! (A.P. Chekhov).

An independent primary speech genre can also be the designation of a topic:

Governor. I invited you, gentlemen, in order to tell you an unpleasant news: the inspector general is coming to us (N.V. Gogol).

An appeal can also act as an independent statement of one or other primary speech genre of a directive nature (command, prohibition, permission, request, etc.), for example:

Serebryakov. My friends, send tea to my office, please! (A.P. Chekhov)

The same is true for refutation:

Telegin. I'm sorry ... not Ivan Ivanovich, but Ilya Ilyich ... (A.P. Chekhov).

The genre-forming formants of narration and exposition can be used as independent statements ( Popova, 2015 ). However, this formant "narration" usually shows signs of derivativeness even as an independent speech genre, since this genre requires listing a number of successive events. Thus, the colloquial genre "Recollection" (which, as a rule, underlies the genre-forming formant "narration"), as Samoilenko and Laguta ( 2011 ) point out, “is a complex speech genre which includes simpler informative speech genres: a narrative about an event, a narrative about a person, a narrative-explanation, a paraphrase” (p. 129). Perhaps the same is true for speech genres setting out a synchronous cut of a certain situation:

Peasants and ... petty-petty bourgeois / such // Well, it means ... traders / owners of eh ... stalls / then ... m-mm ... rented out dachas / sometimes had two to three dachas / to rent out ... ( Quoted after: Frumkina, 2003, p. 290 ).

One can imagine the colloquial prototypes of the "proof" formant:

B. Well, in general / everyone forms their own language in some specific conditions / for some it is formed ... (pause) only during ... childhood / and adolescence / I think that my language has been forming all the time // ... Well, in general, my childhood playeda significant uh ... role. In the formation (-that?) of language, that's / pro-nun-ciation / even some mis-takes of speech that are typical for me / well, let's say I pronounce “one” / instead of “oni” (“they”) / ( Quoted after: Frumkina, 2003, p. 292 ) - and the "conclusion" formant:

[B. Then the booths / for bathing /.

A. For bathing?

B. Yes / on the beach like this, booths were lined up in two / in three rows //.]

A. So everyone had their own booth? Or (unintelligibly)? ( Quoted after: Frumkina, 2003, p. 290 ).

Formal signs of genre-forming formants

Noteworthy is the fact that not just one single primary speech genre can act as an extra-textual prototype of the same genre-forming formant, but several different ones, coinciding, however, in illocution. But this is not difficult to find explanation to. As Bakhtin ( 1986 ) points out, “replicas of everyday dialogue or a letter in a novel, while retaining their form and everyday meaning only in the plane of the novel's content, enter reality only through the novel as a whole” (p. 252). The real primary speech genre functions exclusively in real dialogue, where the pragmatics of communication plays an important role, in particular the relationship of equality / inequality between communicants, which is an important genre-forming principle that makes it possible to distinguish between request and order, advice and prohibition, etc. All these components, as well as the consituational characteristics, are lost when the primary speech genre joins the secondary one, only the dictum and the most important of the modus characteristics, in particular the illocutionary characteristic, are preserved. On the other hand, the integral meaning of a text utterance sets a logical and semantic connection between all genre-forming formants of the text.

At the same time, all these genre-forming formants continue to preserve formal indicators in the text, allowing these formants to be opposed to each other. So, for an address such a characteristic will be one or another indication of the addressee of the statement. Moreover, this will not necessarily be an address as a grammatical construction. In some genres of business style, the formant “address” is expressed by the tag “addressee”, and in fiction, an address to the reader, so characteristic of the eighteenth century prose, becomes just a literary game in the twentieth century ( Follow me, reader! Who told you that there is no true, faithful, eternal love in the world? (M. A. Bulgakov) and completely disappears in the XXI century.

The marker of the formant "designation of the topic" in the texts of business speech is the tag "title", in the texts of scientific style it is usually the title of the article (monograph, report, etc.).

The marker of the "narration" formant is the sequence of past tense verbs (usually of the perfect form), and the marker of the "exposition" formant is the sequence of the present tense verbs (less often - imperfective past tense verbs in the pluperfect sense (Once upon a time there lived a grandfather and a grandmother. They had Ryaba Chicken).

The marker of the formants “proof” and “refutation” are the forms of the verb with the meaning of present constant tense or certain forms of expression of unreality: Only force can be opposed to this phenomenon <...> Any indulgence in this area would be considered a crime by the government, since insolence of the enemies of society can only be ended by the consistent application of all legal remedies.

Marker of the "appeal" formant can be not just the use of verbs in the imperative mood, but also any other forms of expression of impetus, including vocabulary with the meaning of obligation: As a result of this, you will inevitably have to turn to the discussion of the state list introduced to the State Duma and at the same time, of course, tolerate the imminence to preserve budgetary equilibrium as the basis for the reconstruction of Russian credit.

The "conclusion" format only has optional markers in the form of introductory words: therefore, so, as a result, but it is not necessary. The very position of this formant, by definition ending the text, indicates its function. However, as a rule, an appeal to certain indisputable values ​​acts as a semantic marker of the conclusion: Russian people had enough strength, because it was a new strength, a new supply of energy.

The problem of formal-semantic correlation between genre-forming formants and communicative registers

It is possible to establish a partial correlation between the formal-semantic characteristics of the genre-forming formants and the communicative registers of Zolotova (1996). This correlation can be illustrated by the text of A. Barto's poem "Little Ball":

Our Tanya cries loudly:

Dropped the ball in the river.

Hush, Tanechka, do not cry:

The ball will not sink in the river.

So, the first line is the designation of topic. It is written in the reproductive register, since here “the one speaking from the chronotope of what is happening reproduces by means of speech the sensory perceived actions in their specific duration” (Zolotova, 1996, p. 284).

The second line is a narration. It is written in informative register, since “this register opposes to the reproductive one the absence of chronotopos which is common to the speaker and the event, irrelevance, distancing to varying degrees from the event line, and not sensory, but mental, reflective way of knowing” (Zolotova, 1996, p. 284).

The third line represents an appeal and is written in voluntary register, since it represents "the expression of the speaker's will, the addressee’s urge to action" (Zolotova, 1996, p. 284). It is important to clarify the following here. Since this poem, by definition, is a secondary speech genre, it is not surprising that it includes an utterance of the primary speech genre - advice addressed not to the reader of the text, but to the character of this text, Tanechka. How, then, an impulse addressed to a character can fulfill the function of the genre-forming formant "appeal" in relation to the addressee of the entire text? Meanwhile, there is no contradiction here. We deal with a literary text addressed to a reader – or rather a listener - of younger preschool age. The young reader usually identifies himself (herself) with the hero of a literary work of and shares his or her feelings, in this case, the child clearly sympathizes with the crying Tanechka. Thus, the author of the text simultaneously redirects to the reader the consolation addressed to Tanechka.

And finally, the last line syncretically combines both proof and conclusion. The most important part of the proof is the general place - topos. In this case, the proof is exhausted by topos. Topos is expressed by generative register, which “represents statements of the highest level of generalization, “timeless”, non-referential, generic: aphorisms, proverbs, inferences which correlate understanding of the phenomenon with universal life experience” (Zolotova, 1996, p. 284).

Of course, there can be no mutual-univocal correspondence between genre-forming formants and communicative registers, if only because of their quantitative discrepancy. So, in the voluntary register, not only an appeal is performed, but also an address that encourages (in those texts where it is provided) the addressee to enter into communicative contact with the author. In informative register, not only a narration can be carried out, but also an exposition, and sometimes also a designation of a topic and elements of proof and refutation. On the contrary, it is rather difficult for the reactive register to select correlates among the listed genre-forming formants. Nevertheless, it is obvious that each of the listed genre-forming formants is characterized by grammatical indicators peculiar exclusively to it.

Possible objections

The hypothesis about the universal laws of the composition of each text raises, of course, a number of objections. The first objection is related to the fact that there are texts (i.e., statements intended for reproduction) of a clearly non-derivative nature. First of all, this is about folklore texts of "small forms": proverbs, riddles, etc. However, it is not difficult to admit that these texts explicate one, less often two genre-forming formants, while the rest are contained implicitly, having the potential to "unfold" into a full-length text. So proverbs constitute the most important element of the formant "proof" and / or "refutation"; in a number of genres of publicistic discourse, this formant is exhausted by a proverb or an aphorism (in rhetoric this type of argument is called an enthymeme), for example, The thief should be in prison. It is no coincidence that one of the teachers’ favourite genres of school essay is the essay based on the proverb. As for the poetic texts of "small forms", for example, Oh close your pale legs! (V. Bryusov) - it is obvious that we have a conclusion, the rest of the genre-forming formants are absorbed by the so-called default figure; the art of poetic speech consists in the author's ability to organize the text in such a way that, according to the available formants, the reader, by an effort of imagination, can restore the omitted part.

The second objection is related to the fact that, on the contrary, there are very voluminous speech genres, the compositional structure of which is in no way reducible to eight genre-forming formants (monographs, novels, epics, etc.). One can object to this by the results of studies on the fractal structure of text (Moskalchuk, 2018). However, there are no studies yet where the fractal of text is understood as a unit belonging to one or another listed genre-forming formants, but this belongs to the prospects of this study.

Finally, we repeat that we have offered just an operational technique that allows students to facilitate the work of linguistic text analysis, which is confirmed by many years of work experience.

Generalization of this experience allowed us to come to the following conclusions. Rhetorical "parts of speech": address, designation of topic, narration, exposition, proof, refutation, appeal, conclusion, - can be considered as genre-forming formants of any text.

Explication of the full set of these genre-forming formants is not required for each text. The correlation between the genre of text and the mandatory for the text set of genre-forming formants in modern linguistics has been described in sufficient detail for a number of genres of institutional discourses (scientific, business, judicial, etc.), for other types of discourse, this task is a currently topical and promising research area.

The nonderivativeness of a genre-forming formant is its possible, but not obligatory feature. By analogy with word formation, it is advisable to propose a category of the producing speech genre, which underlies this or that genre-forming formant. The producing speech genre, being part of the secondary speech genre, loses a significant part of its own genre-forming features while retaining its illocutionary characteristics and dictum content.

Analysis of the problem of the secondary speech genres’ formation on the basis of primary ones showed that 1) researchers do not take into account all the signs of the primacy of the speech genre; 2) M.M. Bakhtin’s point about the fact that primary speech genres as part of complex ones "are transformed, acquiring a special character" should be understood literally, and it is not always possible and advisable to look for a real statement of a certain primary speech genre behind each compositional unit of the text. As for the further research prospects, as we see them, they are associated with the search for 1) not only semantic, but also formal-compositional evidence of the fractality of the text; 2) the correlation between the genre of text and the mandatory set of genre-forming formants in the types of discourse with a low level of regulation.

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Culture, communication, history, mediasphere, education, law

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Mesenyashina, L. (2021). M.M. Bakhtin’s Genre Theory As A Key To Teaching Linguistic Text Analysis. In E. V. Toropova, E. F. Zhukova, S. A. Malenko, T. L. Kaminskaya, N. V. Salonikov, V. I. Makarov, A. V. Batulina, M. V. Zvyaglova, O. A. Fikhtner, & A. M. Grinev (Eds.), Man, Society, Communication, vol 108. European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences (pp. 227-236). European Publisher. https://doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2021.05.02.28

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1.7: The Prose Genre

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Prose is a form of language that possesses ordinary syntax and natural speech rather than rhythmic structure; in which regard, along with its measurement in sentences rather than lines, it differs from poetry. Compared to poetry, prose sounds more like natural, every day speech.

While prose can certainly include some figurative language and connotative meanings, the messages are usually more direct. Prose often includes the voice of a primary narrator who either is (first person) or is not (third person) involved directly with the characters and plot of the work and who often explains context, action, and character descriptions to the reader.

Examples of prose include (but are not limited to) novels, short stories, essays, letters, speeches, diary entries, research articles, webpages, textbooks, newspaper stories, etc. What you are reading right now is considered a form of prose. Additionally, works such as Martin Luther King Jr.’s I Have a Dream speech, the novel War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, an article on the Cincinnati Bengals football team in ESPN magazine, the letter you may have written to Santa as a kid, and my creative non-fiction essay on apartment life that I wrote in college are also all examples of prose.

Writing Style and Language

You can use the prose author’s writing style to help you analyze and understand the work as well as to help you make delivery decisions. Writing style reflects the author’s attitudes toward the subject matter, and it should influence your performance. Your goal as an oral interp performer is to match the style of performance with the style of writing. The style of prose is determined by things like diction, imagery, figurative language, and syntax. Below are clues to identifying the style of a piece that can help you make decisions on how to convey meaning through your voice and body when you perform prose.

Connotative vs. Denotative Words

Some words contain richer meaning than what one may glean from simply a dictionary definition. For example, a general word such as "home" is more likely to have connotative value conjuring more feeling than specific language such as "house," which describes a type of building. These feelings will also vary among different people depending upon one’s culture, past experiences, etc.

Genre of Discourse

Prose performers must decide how words are used that indicate the kind of style the writer is trying to convey. For example, "commit homicide," "blow away," and "murder" all mean to kill someone. They come from legal discourse, vocal slang, and everyday usage. However, "blow away" and "murder" each carry a distinct connotative and emotive value. Also, "happen," "occur," "manifest," and "go down" are similar in meaning but come from distinct genres of discourse: everyday usage (happen), formal usage (occur), philosophical discourse (manifest), and slang (go down). "Happen" and "go down" could be used in everyday speech; "occur" and "manifest," being more formal, would not ordinarily be used in speech.

Allusions, Similes, and Metaphors

A writer’s use of these is an important aspect of literary style. All three can be used to convey connotative meaning.

• Allusions refer to shared experiences many would understand. Example: “I hope tonight won’t be another Thanksgiving dinner.”
• Similes describe things using a comparison that employs the words “like” or “as.” Example: “I feel like a million dollars now!”
• Metaphors draw a comparison by equating two or more things that are generally unrelated as the same. For example, “He has a heart of stone” or “She’s a real piece of work.”

This includes punctuation and how words are grouped together demonstrating their relationship and importance. Your discoveries here will dictate your use of vocal elements such as pauses, rate, emphasis, volume, and inflection.

Short, simple sentences indicate a direct approach and suggest immediacy of experience. Long, complicated sentences suggest a more sophisticated and evaluative approach. Examples of punctuation may include:

• Semicolon – marks a turn of thought or definite separation between two aspects of the same thought; and usually requires a slight pause.
• Parentheses and double dash – mark off distinct speech phrases.
• Single dash or colon – often marks the pause that occurs just before a summary and implies a reference to some previous portion.

All of this being said, use punctuation as a guide but not a rule. It is more for the eye than for the ear. A comma in a text does not always demand a pause. Keep in mind that how you perform punctuation might change as you begin practicing a piece for presentation.

Poetic diction

Poetic language, generally connotative, would stand out in casual conversation, so an author’s choice to include it in a prose piece would be very intentional. Unusual connotations also carry with them double meanings. For instance, the word "terrific" can be used for its connotation of terrifying;" the word "taxation" for its connotation of "taxing" or stress-inducing. Consider words such as “escape” vs. “flee,” “girl” vs. “maiden,” and “invisible” vs. “unseen.” In each of these pairings, the first usage is essentially descriptive; the latter more poetic or emotive.

The sounds of words an author has chosen are especially important for the interpreter. The sounds of the words carry meaning as well as the word itself. Pace and vocal quality are influenced by the connotative meaning of words.

Performance of Prose

Since prose is written in a style most like our natural speech, it is often the first genre you may tackle in your adventure through the world of oral interpretation.

Sometimes, a work of prose is more expository in nature rather than narrative (telling a story), focused on providing information or developing an argument as opposed to developing a plot. A narrative prose piece, on the other hand, tells a story from a first- or third-person narrator’s point of view. A performer of prose should understand the author’s intention behind the style of the work. The performer should thoroughly analyze the narrator or primary voice of the work to choose a performance approach that honors that voice’s point of view, personality, biases, feelings, etc.

Particularly in narrative prose, you will sometimes see more than one persona represented in the work. These may exist in the form of character dialogue throughout the piece. As a prose performer, you must examine these characters and determine how to perform them in a way that makes them distinct from the primary voice (narrator). You can do this using the various vocal and body language elements discussed in chapters 3 and 4. All characters should have some sort of body and/or vocal change that works with the interpretation given to that character. It can be your stance, how you hold your shoulders/head/posture, specific gestures to that character, or an accent or higher vocal tone. Do not go overboard, this should be subtle. Most importantly, be consistent with these choices, doing them each time the character speaks so as not to confuse your audience. Consider the following to add depth to your characterizations:

• Feel free to commit to an emotion that the character experiences.
• Consider adding reaction moments even when characters do not have anything to say. Characters can react whether they speak or not.
• Control your body. Avoid nervous rocking back and forth or nervous twitches such as wiggling your foot or playing with your pant leg.
• Use facial expressions. Your face should be “alive” at all times. Every narrator’s/character's facial expressions should be appropriate for that character. Practicing in front of a mirror can help.
• Use appropriate focal points (see chapter 4 in Body Language). If you determine through analysis that the narrator or primary voice is speaking to a group of people, engage the audience with eye contact using an audience focal point. Use the layout of classroom to your advantage, scanning and picking individuals to look at for an extended time during specified intense moments add to the performance. Though, if you determine whether the primary voice is speaking to no one in particular, perhaps rather to his or herself, you may need to use the inner-expressed focal point, looking into space as one may do while talking on the phone. When interpreting character dialogue, use different off-stage focal points to indicate characters looking at one another while speaking.
• Use appropriate vocal characteristics for the various personae. Play with tone, rhythm, volume, and all forms of dynamics. The secret with vocals is variation, and this can help make your various personae in a piece more distinct.
• Get to know the personae of the piece beyond the words in the literature. For deeper characterization, consider the possible history, backstories, and the relationships that exist between the characters and voices of the prose. Most of the time, these conclusions will be drawn simply from your own understanding and assumptions. That is fine. You can use those to help you make performance and delivery decisions for characterization.

Often, a prose piece may be too long for you to perform it in its entirety, and you will have to make a “cutting.” This involves selecting a chunk(s) from the entire work that still fit within the theme or message the performer is aiming to convey to the audience to include within a performance. Later, this chapter addresses cutting literature for performance, but in short, it works best to select large chunks for performance rather than piecing small lines and segments together to preserve as much of the rhythm and flow of an author’s words as possible. One key exception to this might be in the cutting of “tag lines,” or the short bits of narration after a line of dialogue. These are phrases such as “he said,” “she shouted angrily,” or “they paused.” Since performers are using character vocalizations to bring literature to life for audiences, they will likely be DOING the actions indicated in these tag lines (e.g. shouting angrily or pausing). Including them when performing often seems unnecessary, and many interpers choose to omit them in performance.

Any fiction or non-fiction novel, essay, journal, or short story can be selected to be cut for a prose performance. The use of diction, facial expressions, gestures, eye contact, intonation, pace and other elements of delivery will offer a rewarding experience for both interpreter and audience. Every delivery choice made for prose should benefit the piece, help tell the story or convey the information, and aid interpretation. Performing prose effectively, particularly a narrative piece with several characters, takes lots of practice, devotion, and creativity. The more work you have done analyzing the work and understanding it, the better you can bring the piece to light for your audience. Strive to convey the crisp mental imagery you had when you read it when you perform for your audience.

Attributions

Adapted from https://human.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Humanities/Book%3A_Introduction_to_Humanities_(Larsen)/08%3A_New_Page , https://moodle.linnbenton.edu/course/view.php?id=4645 .

What is a Genre? Definition, Examples of Genres in Literature

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Genre definition: Genre is the organization and classification of writing.

What is Genre in Literature?

What does genre mean? Genre is the organization of literature into categories based on the type of writing the piece exemplifies through its content, form, or style.

Example of Literary Genre

The poem “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke fits under the genre of poetry because its written with lines that meter and rhythm and is divided into stanzas.

It does not follow the traditional sentence-paragraph format that is seen in other genres

Types of Literary Genre

There are a few different types of genre in literature. Let’s examine a few of them.

Poetry : Poetry is a major literary genre that can take many forms. Some common characteristics that poetry shares are that it is written in lines that have meter and rhythm. These lines are put together to form stanza in contrast to other writings that utilize sentences that are divided into paragraphs. Poetry often relies heavily on figurative language such as metaphors and similes in order to convey meanings and create images for the reader.

• “Sonnet 18” is a poem by William Shakespeare that falls within this category of literature. It is a structured poem that consists of 14 lines that follow a meter (iambic pentameter) and a rhyme scheme that is consist with Shakespearean Sonnets.

Drama : This literary genre is often also referred to as a play and is performed in front of an audience. Dramas are written through dialogue and include stage directions for the actors to follow.

• The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde would be considered a drama because it is written through dialogue in the form of a script that includes stage directions to aid the actors in the performance of the play.

Prose : Prose is a type of writing that is written through the use of sentences. These sentences are combined to form paragraphs. This type of writing is broad and includes both fiction and non-fiction.

• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is an example of fictional prose. It is written in complete sentences and divided through paragraphs.

Fiction : Fiction is a type of prose that is not real. Authors have the freedom to create a story based on characters or events that are products of their imaginations. While fiction can be based on true events, the stories they tell are imaginative in nature.

Like poetry, this genre also uses figurative language; however, it is more structural in nature and more closely follows grammatical conventions. Fiction often follows Freytag’s plot pyramid that includes an exposition, inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution, and dénouement.

• The novel Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut is an example of a fictional story about the main character’s experience with his self-acclaimed ability to time travel.

Nonfiction : Nonfiction is another type of prose that is factual rather than imaginative in nature. Because it is more factual and less imaginative, it may use less figurative language. Nonfiction varies however from piece to piece. It may tell a story through a memoir or it could be strictly factual in nature like a history textbook.

• The memoir Night by Elie Wiesel is a memoir telling the story of Wiesel’s experience as a young Jewish boy during the Holocaust.

The Function of Genre

Genre is important in order to be able to organize writings based on their form, content, and style.

For example, this allows readers to discern whether or not the events being written about in a piece are factual or imaginative. Genre also distinguishes the purpose of the piece and the way in which it is to be delivered. In other words, plays are meant to be performed and speeches are meant to be delivered orally whereas novels and memoirs are meant to be read.

Summary: What Are Literary Genres?

Define genre in literature: Genre is the classification and organization of literary works into the following categories: poetry, drama, prose, fiction, and nonfiction. The works are divided based on their form, content, and style. While there are subcategories to each of these genres, these are the main categories in which literature is divided.

Final Example:

The short story “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe is a fictional short story that is written in prose. It fits under the prose category because it is written using complete sentences that follow conventional grammar rules that are then formed into paragraphs.

The story is also identified as fictional because it is an imagined story that follows the plot structure.

Speech Genre Research Paper

Introduction, gossip genre, literary genre, essentially masculine genre.

A speech genre can be defined as a relatively stable type of expression that matches a specific characterized situation. Speech genres consist of daily communication activities like greetings, conversations, military commands and many more. Most speech genres are based on social, economic and relationship status between the sources of the speech and the target audience. It is important to note that, each speech genre consists of a unique tone.

However, the presenter of a speech genre is free to use accent to express individuality and is capable of mixing genres from diverse spheres. Since this is a daily conversation and communication process, the better we use genre commands, the more effective we implement an open speech plan which allows us to mix genres comfortably.

Basically, speech genre can be referred to as an utterance. It is true that utterance never comes to an end when it ends another one emergences and a response becomes an utterance to reply the previous one. Vocal statement is always created and formed as a response to previous statement/s and is always created in anticipation of a responding statement. There is no complete language, all language is sporadic, provisional unfinished and can be compared with to a connecting web of utterances. (Crowston 2000:234-238)

In this article we are going to discuss gossip as our genre and look into deep the causes and effects associated with gossiping. Mostly, the effects of gossip are normally negative and they do affect a person professionally, socially and even psychologically.

On the other hand gossip can be taken as an excellent bonding opportunity that provides an advance warning of possible potential crises with your company. They enable an individual to set his/her boundaries before in advance. Always it’s very painful; and damaging to the person who is a target of gossip. (Crowston, 2000:246)

Gossips mostly originate from one close friend who knows you in deep and discuss your characters with other on your back. They are common mostly in work place where maybe a person who originates with the gossip aims at receiving a favor and damaging other person reputation. Whenever giving rumors about the other person its good to understand the risks behind the scene, for gossips are taken as defamation and one can be convicted of a slander and be prosecuted. (Dillon, 2000:678)

For the gossip tellers its good to put in consideration some of the issues before spreading the rumors such as you have to weigh the importance a gossip is, check whether the rumor will affect someone career so if it’s a serious allegation its good to address the issue to the supervisor or the Human Resource Manager rather than gossiping about it.

Always keep it light and instead of gossiping it is good to be a trustworthy person who can keep friends secrets and in some extent company’s secrets. Always assume whatever you utter will be spread and be blamed to be the source and avoid gossiping during work hour for it can lead to disciplinary action, ensure you gossip during tea break or lunch hour.

Finally, to the gossip teller never put it in writing no matter how legitimate the allegations are, avoid using e-mails or instant messages for some organizations monitor all correspondences and it can be very risky if your boss walks in with a printed e-mail or message to be evidence against you.

With invention of new media rumors and gossip spread rate increased to thriving one. People are nowadays using internet, e-mail, social media e.g. Facebook, twitter, Skype and even mobile phones to communicate with their friends on some selected topic.

It has proofed to be very dangerous with the way news are spreading with a very short span of time and lack of identification where people use different names and holds more than one account with the email providers and the social networks making it difficult to monitor the correspondences flowing in the social sites.

We can be sure that if a gossip teller gossip to us, likely we become target audience for their gossip and there are no justifiable reasons for gossiping. Those who gossips aims at ruining reputations, injure others and for no good reason than to achieve their personal ego. For those get gossiped about are not assisted but definitely harm is being done on them.

Additionally, if any one of us is not addressing the issue directly to the person but instead we are talking about them from their back we behave and become gossipers and this makes us malicious and backstabbing persons.

To define what is genre is like to embark on a conjectural journey within a theoretical minefield. Genre theory has drawn numerous debate and contemplation throughout literary history, however several conclusions have materialized. Genre types are unfixed categories whose characteristics differ considerably additionally, the role of literary history plays an important function in genre discussion for they evolve and shift with a new literary text.

There are some ways to discuss genre although challenges thrives in any approach, the subjective nature of the literary experience calls for attention to the importance of the interaction between reader and text to provide the final word on genre.( Spinuzzi,2003:75-77)

Although there is considerable theoretical debate about the definition of specific genres, the usual definition tends to be based on the idea that words or actions within a genre share particular convections of content and context such as themes, settings structure and even style. Consequently history and culture play a major role in the ever changing status of genres which are difficult to define because of their concept.

The crime fiction genre has for long period held principle antithetic to feminism. Through the ethics these principles imply that female traits are diminished and female characters marginalized to specific duties and responsibilities in a society. In Michael Ondaatje’s forensic novel “Anil’s Ghost” and also in the Alan Moore’s graphic novel “Watchmen” female crime fighters must posses’ male characters to succeed in maintaining order and administering justice.

Equally, in John Huston’s classic noir film The Maltese Falcon and Alfred Hitchcock’s film Rear Window, female characters are shown as chauvinistic or centralized ways through the engagement of Crime Fiction conventions. The female crime fighter appears to be only successful when she adopts a certain prejudiced characters. In Anil’s Ghost this is definitely true of the eponymous crime fighters who take on the principles of the hard-boiled seeker-hero, such as Huston’s Sam Spade.

While the amateur female sleuth “has been a staple of mystery novels for generation. The professional female character is an exciting newcomer to a market which is fully dominated by males.” (Jasinski, 2001:335)This is clearly shown out by Anil, she is a loner, and her family died and is abandoned by his lover and husband. Her name serves as a metaphor for her muscles as she first purchase it of her brother ironically using her sexuality and then denies her family’s attempts to emasculate her name by adding as ‘e’ at the end of it.

The significant element of the men hard boiled crime fighter is pursuit of ladies and this is confirmed by the sexual relationship experienced between Anil and Leaf. Additionally, an apart of boiled romance is that the crime fighter is never taken in by their lovers as Anil is not accepted by Cullis and does not give in herself to be controlled by him resisting forcefully.

However, Anil is basically a female character and so her basic inability to fit the masculine principle is reflected in her critical failure to achieve justice and restore order as expected by the norms of the convection.( Jasinski,2001:320)

Masculine perception in today’s world can lead to a very serious problem. Whether a male or a female both has equal potential of securing any opportunity that comes their way in life time. A sense of denial to some women mess a lot with their performance where they believes that a man is there to work better than that.

Gender equality has brought confidence in women life and make them feels superior as a normal man. Women has been in the front war line fighting and protecting the integrity on their motherland and therefore any statement which may intended to cause gender differences is highly regretted and its important for us to utilize the media that we have both electronic and print in preaching gender equality and condemn any partiality. (Kress, 2003:45-47)

Speech genre is generally supposed to support our means of communication. The way we send a message from the sender to the audience determines how our message will be received. The theme and tone of our utterances portray perceptions that we intend to send across hence one must be keen when making statements to avoid causing harm to him/her or to the others.

Once you utter a statement you become the originator and anything that protrude from the said words you tend to bare all responsibilities. Therefore, it is true that the language is naturally dialogic direct from its contexts. The sentence or phrases becomes a systematic utterance when uttered from one context of application to another.

Crowston, K. & Williams, M. (2000). Reproduced and Emergent Genres of Communication on the World Wide Web . The Information Society 16, 201-215.

Dillon, A. & Grushrowski, B.A. (2000). “Genres and the web: Is the personal home page the first uniquely digital genre?” [ [Journal of the American Society for Information Science]] , 51(2), 202-205.

Jasinski, J.(2001). Genre: Sourcebook on Rhetoric. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Kress, G. (2003). Literacy in the New Media Age . London: Routledge.

Spinuzzi, C. (2003). Tracing genres through organizations: A sociocultural approach to information design . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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Definition of Genre

Genre originates from the French word meaning kind or type. As a literary device, genre refers to a form, class, or type of literary work. The primary genres in literature are poetry, drama / play , essay , short story , and novel . The term genre is used quite often to denote literary sub-classifications or specific types of literature such as comedy , tragedy , epic poetry, thriller , science fiction , romance , etc.

It’s important to note that, as a literary device, the genre is closely tied to the expectations of readers. This is especially true for literary sub-classifications. For example, Jane Austen ’s work is classified by most as part of the romance fiction genre, as demonstrated by this quote from her novel Sense and Sensibility :

When I fall in love, it will be forever.

Though Austen’s work is more complex than most formulaic romance novels, readers of Austen’s work have a set of expectations that it will feature a love story of some kind. If a reader found space aliens or graphic violence in a Jane Austen novel, this would undoubtedly violate their expectations of the romantic fiction genre.

Difference Between Style and Genre

Although both seem similar, the style is different from the genre. In simple terms, style means the characters or features of the work of a single person or individual. However, the genre is the classification of those words into broader categories such as modernist, postmodernist or short fiction and novels, and so on. Genres also have sub-genre, but the style does not have sub-styles. Style usually have further features and characteristics.

Common Examples of Genre

Genres could be divided into four major categories which also have further sub-categories. The four major categories are given below.

• Poetry: It could be categorized into further sub-categories such as epic, lyrical poetry, odes , sonnets , quatrains , free verse poems, etc.
• Fiction : It could be categorized into further sub-categories such as short stories, novels, skits, postmodern fiction, modern fiction, formal fiction, and so on.
• Prose : It could be further categorized into sub-genres or sub-categories such as essays, narrative essays, descriptive essays, autobiography , biographical writings, and so on.
• Drama: It could be categorized into tragedy, comedy, romantic comedy, absurd theatre, modern play, and so on.

Common Examples of Fiction Genre

In terms of literature, fiction refers to the prose of short stories, novellas , and novels in which the story originates from the writer’s imagination. These fictional literary forms are often categorized by genre, each of which features a particular style, tone , and storytelling devices and elements.

Here are some common examples of genre fiction and their characteristics:

• Literary Fiction : a work with artistic value and literary merit.
• Thriller : features dark, mysterious, and suspenseful plots.
• Horror : intended to scare and shock the reader while eliciting a sense of terror or dread; may feature scary entities such as ghosts, zombies, evil spirits, etc.
• Mystery : generally features a detective solving a case with a suspenseful plot and slowly revealing information for the reader to piece together.
• Romance : features a love story or romantic relationship; generally lighthearted, optimistic, and emotionally satisfying.
• Historical : plot takes place in the past with balanced realism and creativity; can feature actual historical figures, events, and settings.
• Western : generally features cowboys, settlers, or outlaws of the American Old West with themes of the frontier.
• Bildungsroman : story of a character passing from youth to adulthood with psychological and/or moral growth; the character becomes “educated” through loss, a journey, conflict , and maturation.
• Science Fiction : speculative stories derived and/or inspired by natural and social sciences; generally features futuristic civilizations, time travel, or space exploration.
• Dystopian : sub-genre of science fiction in which the story portrays a setting that may appear utopian but has a darker, underlying presence that is problematic.
• Fantasy : speculative stories with imaginary characters in imaginary settings; can be inspired by mythology or folklore and generally include magical elements.
• Magical Realism : realistic depiction of a story with magical elements that are accepted as “normal” in the universe of the story.
• Realism : depiction of real settings, people, and plots as a means of approaching the truth of everyday life and laws of nature.

Examples of Writers Associated with Specific Genre Fiction

Writers are often associated with a specific genre of fictional literature when they achieve critical acclaim, public notoriety, and/or commercial success with readers for a particular work or series of works. Of course, this association doesn’t limit the writer to that particular genre of fiction. However, being paired with a certain type of literature can last for an author’s entire career and beyond.

Here are some examples of writers that have become associated with specific fiction genre:

• Stephen King: horror
• Ray Bradbury : science fiction
• Jackie Collins: romance
• Toni Morrison: black feminism
• John le Carré: espionage
• Philippa Gregory: historical fiction
• Jacqueline Woodson: racial identity fiction
• Philip Pullman: fantasy
• Flannery O’Connor: Southern Gothic
• Shel Silverstein: children’s poetry
• Jonathan Swift : satire
• Larry McMurtry: western
• Virginia Woolf: feminism
• Raymond Chandler: detective fiction
• Colson Whitehead: Afrofuturism
• Gabriel García Márquez : magical realism
• Madeleine L’Engle: children’s fantasy fiction
• Agatha Christie : mystery
• John Green : young adult fiction
• Margaret Atwood: dystopian

Famous Examples of Genre in Other Art Forms

Most art forms feature genre as a means of identifying, differentiating, and categorizing the many forms and styles within a particular type of art. Though there are many crossovers when it comes to genre and no finite boundaries, most artistic works within a particular genre feature shared patterns , characteristics, and conventions.

Here are some famous examples of genres in other art forms:

• Music : rock, country, hip hop, folk, classical, heavy metal, jazz, blues
• Visual Art : portrait, landscape, still life, classical, modern, impressionism, expressionism
• Drama : comedy, tragedy, tragicomedy , melodrama , performance, musical theater, illusion
• Cinema : action, horror, drama, romantic comedy, western, adventure , musical, documentary, short, biopic, fantasy, superhero, sports

Examples of Genre in Literature

As a literary device, the genre is like an implied social contract between writers and their readers. This does not mean that writers must abide by all conventions associated with a specific genre. However, there are organizational patterns within a genre that readers tend to expect. Genre expectations allow readers to feel familiar with the literary work and help them to organize the information presented by the writer. In addition, keeping with genre conventions can establish a writer’s relationship with their readers and a framework for their literature.

Here are some examples of genres in literature and the conventions they represent:

Example 1: Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow , Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of recorded time, And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out , brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

The formal genre of this well-known literary work is Shakespearean drama or play. Macbeth can be sub-categorized as a literary tragedy in that the play features the elements of a classical tragic work. For example, Macbeth’s character aligns with the traits and path of a tragic hero –a protagonist whose tragic flaw brings about his downfall from power to ruin. This tragic arc of the protagonist often results in catharsis (emotional release) and potential empathy among readers and members of the audience .

In addition to featuring classical characteristics and conventions of the tragic genre, Shakespeare’s play also resonates with modern readers and audiences as a tragedy. In this passage, one of Macbeth’s soliloquies , his disillusionment, and suffering is made clear in that, for all his attempts and reprehensible actions at gaining power, his life has come to nothing. Macbeth realizes that death is inevitable, and no amount of power can change that truth. As Macbeth’s character confronts his mortality and the virtual meaninglessness of his life, readers and audiences are called to do the same. Without affirmation or positive resolution , Macbeth’s words are as tragic for readers and audiences as they are for his own character.

Like  M a cbeth , Shakespeare’s tragedies are as currently relevant as they were when they were written. The themes of power, ambition, death, love, and fate incorporated in his tragic literary works are universal and timeless. This allows tragedy as a genre to remain relatable to modern and future readers and audiences.

Example 2: The Color Purple by Alice Walker

All my life I had to fight. I had to fight my daddy . I had to fight my brothers. I had to fight my cousins and my uncles. A girl child ain’t safe in a family of men. But I never thought I’d have to fight in my own house. She let out her breath. I loves Harpo, she say. God knows I do. But I’ll kill him dead before I let him beat me.

The formal genre of this literary work is novel. Walker’s novel can be sub-categorized within many fictional genres. This passage represents and validates its sub-classification within the genre of feminist fiction. Sofia’s character, at the outset, is assertive as a black woman who has been systematically marginalized in her community and family, and she expresses her independence from the dominance and control of men. Sofia is a foil character for Celie, the protagonist, who often submits to the power, control, and brutality of her husband. The juxtaposition of these characters indicates the limited options and harsh consequences faced by women with feminist ideals in the novel.

Unfortunately, Sofia’s determination to fight for herself leads her to be beaten close to death and sent to prison when she asserts herself in front of the white mayor’s wife. However, Sofia’s strong feminist traits have a significant impact on the other characters in the novel, and though she is not able to alter the systemic racism and subjugation she faces as a black woman, she does maintain her dignity as a feminist character in the novel.

Example 3: A Word to Husbands by Ogden Nash

To keep your marriage brimming With love in the loving cup, Whenever you’re wrong, admit it; Whenever you’re right, shut up.

The formal genre of this literary work is poetry. Nash’s poem would be sub-categorized within the genre of humor . The poet’s message to what is presumably his fellow husbands is witty, clear, and direct–through the wording and message of the last poetic line may be unexpected for many readers. In addition, the structure of the poem sets up the “punchline” at the end. The piece begins with poetic wording that appears to romanticize love and marriage, which makes the contrasting “base” language of the final line a satisfying surprise and ironic twist for the reader. The poet’s tone is humorous and light-hearted which also appeals to the characteristics and conventions of this genre.

Synonyms of Genre

Genre doesn’t have direct synonyms . A few close meanings are category, class, group, classification, grouping, head, heading, list, set, listing, and categorization. Some other words such as species, variety, family, school, and division also fall in the category of its synonyms.

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Definition of genre

Did you know.

Genre , as you might guess from the way it sounds, comes straight from French, a language based on Latin. It's closely related to genus , a word you may have encountered in biology class. Both words contain the gen- root because they indicate that everything in a particular category (a genre or a genus) belongs to the same "family" and thus has the same origins. So the main genres of classical music would include symphonies, sonatas, and opera, and the major genres of literature would include novels, short stories, poetry, and drama. But within the category of novels, we could also say that detective novels, sci-fi novels, romance novels, and young-adult novels are separate genres.

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Examples of genre in a Sentence

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'genre.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

French, from Middle French, kind, gender — more at gender

1770, in the meaning defined at sense 1

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“Genre.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/genre. Accessed 11 Apr. 2024.

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Digital Oratory as Discursive Practice pp 153–186 Cite as

Oratory as Social Practice (I): Discursive Genre, Culture, and Power

• Fiona Rossette-Crake 3  
• First Online: 17 December 2022

145 Accesses

Part of the book series: Postdisciplinary Studies in Discourse ((PSDS))

This chapter is the first of two that examine oratory as social practice. The question of discursive genre is discussed in relation to the heritage of classical rhetoric and public speaking pedagogy, before being addressed within a discourse-analytical framework. The framework proposes to account for various speaking practices according to the social actors and social purposes by which they are informed. For some formats, it is not easy to identify specific genres. Like digital communication generally, digital oratory reflects a “decompartmentalisation” of specialised discourses and generic practices, which can be linked to the horizontal model of information-sharing that is intrinsic to Web 2.0. The second part of the chapter adopts a critical stance, in order to appraise digital oratory practices in light of cultural and economic stakes. The practices, which generally developed within the Anglo-American context, reflect Anglo-American communication norms, as informed notably by corporate, neoliberal trends. These practices therefore leave little room for variation depending on language and/or culture.

• Communication culture
• Cultural hegemony
• Decompartmentalisation
• Discourse community
• Empowerment
• Scene of enunciation

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The Lincoln-Douglas debates were a series of debates that opposed Abraham Lincoln as candidate for the U.S. Senate and the incumbent Senator Stephen Douglas. They marked the beginning of the use of debates as publicity events for political candidates.

For instance, the author likens “platform oratory” to what he calls “mob oratory” in that it is said to correspond to a “miscellaneous gathering of all classes, but in which the lower classes predominate” (Cox, 1863 , p. 296).

See also Reisigl ( 2008 , p. 245) for a detailed presentation of these three categories.

“Enclosing scene” overlaps partially with Reisigl’s ( 2008 ) above-mentioned “fields of action,” which in fact correspond to sub fields of action within the superordinate field of political action.

The terms “genre” and “generic scene” are therefore treated as synonyms here, with the latter insisting on the relative and dynamic construction of the entity.

Cambridge English Dictionary .

See: Steve Jobs’ 2005 address at Stanford, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc ; Meryl Streep’s 2010 address at Barnard College, Columbia, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-a8QXUAe2g ; Barack Obama’s 2016 address at Howard University, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K4MctEmkmI

“Dragons’ Den” first aired in 2005, and “Sharks Tank” in 2009.

Social media has also appropriated the field of political journalism, as illustrated by the example of French YouTuber Hugo Travers, who interviews politicians and members of the government in videos that are comparable to television journalism, but that he qualifies as “vlogs.” See, for instance, his interview with the French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe in 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cHq4YJzk4g [accessed 03.11.2021].

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Even if the current time limit of shorts on social media is 60 seconds (relevant in June 2022), the hypergenre category of “embodied shorts” includes videos that can exceed this limit.

Interestingly, recent changes in French school curricula, such as the introduction into the high-school leaving certificate ( baccalauréat ) of a prepared oral presentation (“ le Grand Oral ”), have led specialists of curricula and rhetoric in the United Kingdom to look to the example of France in the promotion of public speaking skills in schools (see: https://speakingcitizens.org/ ).

For instance, a manager was surprised by the lack of eye contact he received from his audience during a business presentation in Greece in 2021 (personal communication, 2021).

The cases of second and third generation immigrants raise a number of issues which cannot be covered in this book.

In the ranking of cultures with respect to the dimension of individuality, the United States is followed directly by the other English-speaking countries Australia and Great Britain (in that order) (Hofstede & Hofstede, 2005 , p. 78).

Similarly, Kearney and Plax ( 1996 ) apply to the field of public speaking “I-type” cultural types, which “promote individual initiative and achievement by reinforcing the right of every individual “to be his or her private property, thoughts, and opinions” (Samovar & Porter, 1995 , p. 89—quoted in Kearney & Plax, 1996 , p. 51).

Within organisational studies, for instance, scholars warn of “the necessity to adopt multi-level views when examining the effects of culture” (Miska et al., 2018 ).

My translation from the French.

A. Winstead, “How Public Speaking Has Changed Due to Digital and Social Media,” Aug. 13, 2021, https://speakerhubhq.medium.com/how-digital-public-speaking-has-changed-due-to-social-media-9fb94ef3ef89 (quoted in Chap. 1 ).

Echo chamber: “an environment in which a person encounters only beliefs or opinions that coincide with their own, so that their existing views are reinforced and alternative ideas are not considered” ( Oxford English Dictionary ).

O’Regan explains that the power asserted by forms of spoken language is more recent compared to that asserted by written forms of language. The author also argues that when it comes to spoken language, the process is experienced as more “violent” because speech holds greater stakes in the formation of identity (cf. the example of multilinguals), and also because spoken utterances represent “the more authentic voice […] by being closest to their innermost ‘real-time’ feelings and dispositions” (O’Regan, 2021 , p. 204—in reference to Kelly-Holmes, 2016).

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Rossette-Crake, F. (2022). Oratory as Social Practice (I): Discursive Genre, Culture, and Power. In: Digital Oratory as Discursive Practice. Postdisciplinary Studies in Discourse. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18984-5_6

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Secondary genre.

Back to Glossary

Bakhtin (1986) gives as examples "novels, dramas, all kinds of scientific research, major genres of commentary, and so forth" (p. 62). Literary genres are one kind of secondary genre, but not the only kind.

Nick Temple, Carolyn Miller