Miller, Burke and Bitzer on Genre

In "Genre as Social Action," Miller analyses the definition of genre and how it applies to specific pieces of rhetoric. Miller struggles with the diversity among different genre definitions: including similarities in forms of discourse, audience, modes of thinking, and rhetorical situations (Miller 151). Miller's ideas about genre raise a large question, is their one set way to categorize genre? Miller calls on the opinions of other literary critics to try to answer this, analyzing them and commenting on them. 

Personally, I see two main questions that are raised to Miller's argument, the solidarity of genre and its rhetorical purpose. Miller explains how as humans we are drawn to categorization, how we crave to label everything, but when examining rhetoric there is almost too much to take into consideration. 

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The idea of remix has only been relevant to the songs I'd seen titled Remix. I didn't think everything is. But seeing the pinepoint documentary and after reading, I can't help but look around and see everything as that. There is no originality except the intention motivating the outcome. Even if that product is built upon others ideas its the first it has ever been done. All things are original and remix like differance is just the juxtapostion between the ideas of originality and "           ".

Miller - Genre, Classification and Recurrence

Miller’s compilation of ideas in her own understanding of genre seems “all over the place,” to use a   cliche. The word ‘genre’ in my eyes, if going to instantly be socially perceived as plainly; a classification. Prior to diving into Miller’s essay, I thought about the concept of what a genre actually is. I immediately came up with two examples of humans using what we label as ‘genres’ on an everyday basis: for music and in the film industry. Genres of music could include hip-hop, classic rock, alternative rock, oldies, pop and reggae… sometimes even combinations of these genres are labeled as ‘sub-genres’ and even genres in themselves. Why do we, as humans, label these differing musical sounds into classifications?

Miller, Burke, and our "Marked Instability"

The issue of our being in an age of “marked instability,” according to Burke, was one of the most striking details I found in Miller’s Genre as Social Action. I found it interesting that, after all of the build up of background information about recurrences, motives, and generalized rhetorical actions, our era seems to have greatly surpassed the topic of using these features as means to describe a culture. It implies that today’s progressive cultures are the most vague, due to the multifaceted nature of our communication systems.  

In his book Permanence & Change, Kenneth Burke argues that today’s world is increasingly individualistic, which feeds the growing instability in discourse within our nation (Burke 33). After generations of society practicing “typical, or recurrent, patterns of stimuli,” Burke claims, the “integration” of cultures over time has complicated the old ways of typifying our rhetorical genres (Burke 32,33). Typical patterns of discourse are being replaced with “marked instability” and “shifting contrasts” (Burke 32). 

Remix from Last Class

Since last class I have been thinking about Ridolfo and DeVoss's excerpt on rhetorical velocity. And based on last week's discussion the general idea I got was that their argument is based on the idea that an "original" text is not necessarily original, it is just a remix of another previous text. Or better yet the idea that, "Remix is how we as humans live and everyone within our society engages in this act of creativity"(Remix). This definition took me a little while to unpack; but what I ended up getting from it was that everything a society or humans create is a remix of something that has been created in the past. With this thought I began to think of things that could be considered a remix... one of the first things I thought of was a television set. Every day we see commercials about  a new and improved TV on the market, but no one really thinks of it as a remix, of a remix, of a remix, and so on, of an even older TV. Which is in turn then a remix of a zoetrope. (Ugh! Exhausting, right? No wonder why no one thinks of it like that... but it is cool to think about sometimes.) So the case of the TV, this new and improved TV that is being marketed as original is not necessarily original after all. Like Ridolfo and DeVoss said, nothing is original, just a remix. This statement holds true for books, movies, TVs, and even pictures.


Works Cited:
Ridolfo, Jim, and Dànielle Nicole DeVoss. “Composing for Recomposition: Rhetorical Velocity and Delivery.” Kairos 13.2 (2008): n. pag. Web.

Subjective Meaning

You tell me the word ‘Genre’ and the first thing I think about is music. The fact that people utilize that word to classify music, I will automatically think about the terms “classification” or “categorization”. In order to classify or categorize music, certain standards are crucial and must be met. But like everything else some standards in music are very subjective and sometimes it depends on the person who’s doing the classification. For example, some may think that Nicki Minaj is Hip Hop because of the bass in her music while others may consider her Pop because of her lyrics and music videos.  Just like people may get confused about Rihanna’s genre. I just chose to utilize music as an example of mine to help better understand where Millers review on genre seems to stem from. It is difficult to obtain common standards even within different fields of study. Even within rhetoric, we just can’t seem to find one true classification of what it truly means, and where it falls.

Stock of Knowledge

Here in the text, genre doesn’t specifically imply a style but rather classifying rhetoric based on approach (action). However, those approaches are influenced by situations where discourse is occurring. For instance, the text states that “eulogies, courtroom speeches” are delivered due to the elements that surround which they are being heard (152). Quite frankly you won’t hear a eulogy anywhere else where the environment isn’t melancholy.
 

Everything is a Remix. Everything is Original.

Lawrence Lessig makes the argument that quite literally anything can be either remixed, is a remix, or both. Knowledge, Culture, Politics... it seems that everything in society today can be traced back to more original pieces off of which textuality has been built. It appears that pretty much everything is a remix. Then the question of originality comes in. If everything has been ‘remixed,’ or has been tied to past texts that enabled the creation of the new text, then is anything original? I believe the answer is actually quite simple: Everything is an original.

At the Movies with Genre

In "Genre as a Social Action", Miller deals with the concept of genre. While reading, I felt like I was struggling a bit with the concept of Miller's theory of genre as a “situated action" (Miller 155). From taking Writing and Editing in Print and Online and other EWM courses, I know what genre is and how different mediums and stories could be divided into different genres. I understand that several genres can overlap all at once, but I was still not sure that I fully understood the concepts Miller was bringing up. I decided to watch a few of the trailers posted on the blog and see how I could apply Miller's ideas about genre to them. After watching the posted trailers and their rememediations, I tried to apply Miller's theory. I think that the trailers make her concepts much easier to understand. All these movies are very fully entrenched in their specific genres, and many of them are used as classic examples of those genres. However, with a bit of simple re-editing, an entirely new product is created.

Miller on Miller

I feel as though Miller and myself have more than just a last name in common. In the first paragraphs of this text she states that rhetoric in general hasn’t done a great job of providing guidance in the way of genre because there are so many differing definitions its hard to nail down what determining a genre is really even doing.  She quotes theorists like John H. Patton and Thomas M. Conley, citing how they have found that “genre criticism requires too much critical distance between the reader and the text and thus leads to assessments that are not fully responsible.”(151) I think what she is really trying to get at by quoting them is that genre criticism is convoluted by inaccurate assessments because most readers aren’t qualified, or don’t have the ability to maintain that critical distance. She says it’s not important to merely make something different from something else but that “It emphasizes social and historical aspects of rhetoric that other perspectives do not” (151).

Miller's Features of Genre

In Carolyn Miller's conclusion, she outlines five features of her genre as social action.  Her argument is compelling, but I am not sure I am completely onboard.  The way she defines genres strays away from some preconceived beliefs of genre:

1) Genre refers to a conventional category of discourse based in large-scale typification of rhetorical action; as action, it acquires meaning from situation and from social context in which that situation arose (Miller 163).

This first statement is one that I find myself sympathizing with.  A genre obtains its specifications from the circumstances that are present during the situation.  For example, a speech given at a funeral usually celebrates the life of the dead person.  You will not hear a degrading discourse but one that is positive and uplifting because of a funeral's social function.

Miller's "Introduction"

Because I was assigned the latter portion of the document for my road mapping assignment, I chose to mainly focus on a breakdown of the “introduction,” so to speak, of Miller’s essay, in which she largely refers to numerous theorists, rhetoricians, and critics on the subject of genre. In her initial approach to the entire subject, Miller automatically throws out a plethora, an overload, it seems, for the reader.  Whether it is for credibility/ethos purposes, or simply to include the large amount of sources that she came across in her research, it seems extremely overwhelming for the initial paragraphs. Without giving a true definition or outline of her own theories on genre and use that as a springboard into her research, she seems to lay it all out in front of the reader and then use this knowledge (an extremely surface one at that) to lay down the rest of her claims in the following section(s).  Personally, I was unable to truly absorb and comprehend the vastness of the theories to which she was referring, and I was especially unable to place each theory with a name or duo, as each was complexly and "intertwiningly" referred to as the introduction progressed.

Solitary Classification

"I will be arguing that 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 151). 

I know this is in one of the first paragraphs in Carolyn Miller's article, but I personally love this point. I believe it allows for things that are completely different but if they serve the same purpose/motivation, they're classified in the same category. If something is meant to scare you but it's written in a poetic format, it should still be in the horror category, not something like non-fiction poetry. Also, her definition can be used to help describe controversial gender roles, like if she has the body part of a woman but acts and has the intent of acting/thinking like a man, then that person is a man etc. I feel like that connection creates a sort of bridge between gender roles and genre. Both are extremely similar since they're both labels, things are classified into a certain category.

Genre As Social Action

“Rhetorical criticism has not provided firm guidance on what constitutes a genre.” (151) In this first line, Carolyn Miller attempts to layer multiple claims from other theorists on the subject of genre.  The first claim that Miller comes to is from Kinneavy and Fisher stating that genre comes from an open classification that is “organized around situated actions.” (155) Genre is pragmatic in the sense that it is based on intention by focusing on four components of communication. These four components are sender, receiver, code, and reality. Miller claims that genre is ethnomethodological, a big word that explains the social interactions and activities. She gets to this claim by putting genre into categories based upon what is being discussed in the discourse. We create categories with every day language because we are immersed in our situations. Genre is rhetorical action in its context, the way in which it combines the situation with formal features, and the way genre is classified in the four components of communication.      

Miller: Genre as Social Action

At the beginning of Carolyn Miller's essay, she is basically listing a bunch of shortcomings in linguistic theories which have attempted to classify genre before her. Some of the major faults she finds are that classifications are generally closed-system, a priori, and based on formal rather than pragmatic elements within a work. That last reason is huge to Miller, and especially so in a discussion about genre as social action. Genre is and must be a connection between what you want to be done and what you have done with your rhetorical actions in a situation that is by default social. Basing a genre off of its formal elements is too objective and materialistic (which is to say, isolated) for Miller.
 

Miller: Blame Your Senses on Your Interpretations

In Carolyn R. Miller’s “Genre as Social Action” she wrestles with issues in rhetorical criticism, specifically those dealing with problems surrounding what constitutes a genre.  Miller’s work originally makes an effort to construct a definition of genre.  However, as I continued to read her work I found that it fleshed out much more than what her thesis had suggested.  One specific part of Miller’s writing that I found a particularly interesting was one that dealt with issues surrounding “perception” and “definition.”  Miller made claims that I believe are somewhat revolutionary, her writing suggests that human perception is not only something that is relative, it is a concept that human’s have created.  That is, “Situations are social constructions that are the result, not of ‘perception,’ but of ‘definition.’ Because human action is based on and guided by meaning, not by material causes, at the center of action is a process of interpretation” (Miller 156).  In other words, for as long as they have been alive, humans have been gathering sensory data and using it to build their opinions on certain situations.

Genre Criticism Obscured by Grandeur (Miller and Longinus)

After reading “Genre as Social Action” by Carolyn R. Miller, I found what I thought could possibly be a connection between her discussion of genre criticism and Longinus’ discussion of grandeur.  First, I compared my notes on both subjects.

Creating Genres

In reading Carolyn Miller’s “Genre as Social Action” I found that I could agree with a lot of the claims that she makes. For example, I feel that the duty of classifying of rhetorical situations into genres is a difficult if even possible task. The subjectivity that comes with rhetoric and each situation makes it seem impossible to come to a specific set of genres. Like the subject of rhetoric itself, there is nothing concrete about the rhetorical situation. After reading Miller’s text, I did raise a few questions. First, in order to come up with a set of genres, what steps need to be taken in order to narrow down the process? The number of possibilities to classify genres of rhetorical situations is endless and if we cannot come up with some way to narrow it down there is no way to create enough genres.

Sublimity and Rhetorical Velocity

Longinus’s On the Sublime and Ridolfo and DeVoss’ "Composing for Recomposition" were two articles in class that we recently covered just last week. By far my favorite out of the two was On the Sublime because Longinus wrote about how making a good oration or constructing a good speech has supernatural elements to it, much like Hesiod’s Theogony or the Biblical writers who wrote the Hebrew and Christian Bible; it makes you think that he does have a point. However, another point that interested me last week in class was a question proposed by Dr. Graban, which was: Are rhetorical velocity and sublime the same thing, or could rhetorical velocity be a form of sublimity? Well my goal it today is to answer this question.

There are similarities in the goal of the objectives both in Longinus’s 5 Sources and Ridolfo and DeVoss’ Concerns for Invention. So are they trying to achieve the same thing? The answer is yes, they are trying to achieve the sublime, but can rhetorical velocity actually achieve sublimity? That is a different question. 

Miller and Bakhtin

For me, heteroglossia and Miller's explication of what a genre is felt as if they need to be put into conversation with one another.  Miller's genre is shown to be rooted in social exigences that are displaced from both the individual and from a concrete material object.  Therefore the exigence of a rhetorical situation can only be understood by looking at the overall social perspective and what "types" are being used to understand this situation.  In this I see a big similarity to the idea that language contains within itself multiple social discourses or "languages."  The types that Miller describes arise from the growth and understanding of languages.  Therefore shouldn't different genres arise from different social exigences and situations?
 

Miller's Multi-Layered Claims

As soon as I realized Miller's text played heavily on the work of Campbell (and Jamieson), I took a second to go back in our syllabus to check in what section we had previously read her work, and what work that was. In mid- September we read Campbell's Agency: Promiscuous and Protean, and I can kind of connect that reading with Miller's because of the notion that Campbell and Jamieson might possibly say that genre is also promiscuous. However, I also get the sense that Miller wants to relinquish that promiscuity.     

Genre as Social Action -- Miller

To make rhetorical genre a stable classifying concept and to ensure the concept is rhetorically sound is an aspect of rhetorical theory that can be obtained, but I believe that it cannot and will not be collectively placed into a box with limited features. First of all we have rhetoric which is not a definite definable term, it is expressed in so many different ways, I think that we can all agree in some way that rhetoric is the study of words or the study of the effective use of language,  but others could argue that rhetoric entails much more. Genre is also an expandable term that has many argumentative definitions but I think that most of us could agree that it is mainly the way in which we classify information, objects, and many other things. My point is when we get into combining two terms that have expandable meanings, there are sure to be problems, or we should first look for a clear exigence which can evolve into discourse.