Genre

What I kind of want to do with my post tonight is talk about my SCD and what I did with it. So basically what I wrote about what Genre and what genre means. Initially I looked at what the Bedford Glossary defined as Genre. The definition of Genre was, "the classification of literary works on the basis of their content, form, or technique.” (Ray, Genre 202) It is clear that genres give you a way of classifying texts, but they are not only giving you a system to classify texts but they are setting expectations to of what a particular text is/needs to do. Genres provide you with important information that is needed to help examine a particular work. The Bedford Glossary states, "Genre is a helpful, though arguably loose and arbitrary, categorizing and descriptive device that provides a basic vantage point for examining most historical and many modern and contemporary works." (Ray, Genre 203) While genres can play some useful roles, not all agree that they are beneficial. Many find that a text cannot be completely one genre or another, this is because genres have become too rigid.

Carolyn Miller is one rhetorical theorist who has some strong opinions in regards to genre. Based upon her essay, I gathered that Miller defines Genre as, "Rhetorical genres have been defined by similarities in strategies or forms in the discourse, by similarities in audience, by similarities in modes of thinking, by similarities in rhetorical situations." (Miller 151) Miller does not stop here, she goes on to state that, "From day to day, year to year, comparable situations occur, prompting comparable responses.” (Miller 152) From this I understood that Miller is explaining not only how rhetorical situation are created but how genres also created. Since we have comparable situations happening the reactions can also be comparable. Thus because we are humans, we naturally try to categorize the situation and results into a particular genre. Miller in other words states,

Thus inaugurals, eulogies, courtroom speeches, and the like have conventional forms because they arise in situations with similar structures and elements and because rhetors respond in similar ways, having learned from precedent what is appropriate and what effects their actions are likely to have on other people. (Miller 152)

It is clear that we have created genres, and the general idea of how to approach these genres, due to similar situations we have experienced over our lives. In the end, Miller finally defines genre as “typified rhetorical actions based in recurrent situations.” (Miller 159) All of this has just reaffirmed the point I made earlier... a genre does not just classify a situation or text, it sets expectations of what they are and what they do.

Works Cited:

Miller, Carolyn R. "Genre as Social Action." Quarterly Journal of Speech 70 (1984): 151-167.

Ray, Ross Murfin and Supryia M. "Genre." Ray, Ross Murfin and Supryia M. The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms. 3rd. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009. 202-204.