Foss Genreric Criticism - JPG PDF
Foss Genreric Criticism - JPG PDF
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138 Chapter Six
was organized around the idea of significant form, which referred to recur-
ring patterns in discourse or action. These patterns include the "repeated
use of images, metaphors, arguments, structural arrangements, configura-
tions of language or a combination of such elements into what critics have
termed 'genres' or 'rhetorics."' 9 The result of the conference was a book,
Form and Genre: Shaping Rhetorical Action, edited by Karlyn Kohrs Campbell
and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, which provided theoretical discussions of the
concept of genre and included samples of generic criticism.
Anthony Pare and Graham Smart expanded the study of genre by focus-
ing specifically on rhetorical genres in organizational settings. They define
genre as a distinctive profile of regularities across four dimensions: (1) tex-
tual features such as styles of texts and modes of argument; (2) regularities
in the composing process such as information gathering and analysis of
information; (3) regularities in reading practices such as where, when, and
why a document is read; and (4) the social roles performed by writers and
readers so that no matter who acts as social worker, judge, or project man-
ager, the genre is enacted in much the same way. Pare and Smart believe
this view of genres in organizations explains how the effective production
of discourse and knowledge occurs within organizations. 10
The work of Mikhail Bakhtin also has been influential in the develop-
ment of genre studies. Bakhtin asserts that we
speak only in definite speech genres, that is, all our utterances have def-
inite and relatively stable typical forms of construction of the whole. Our
repertoire of oral (and written) speech genres is rich. We use them con-
fidently and skillfully in practice, and it is quite possible for us not even
to suspect their existence in theory.
Bakhtin suggests that even "in the most free, the most unconstrained conver-
sation, we cast our speech in definite generic forms, sometimes rigid and trite
ones, sometimes more flexible, plastic, and creative ones." Among the speech
genres that are widespread in everyday life are the various genres of greet-
ings, farewells, congratulations, information about health, and the like. These
genres have official, respectful forms as well as intimate, familiar ones. 11
The Sydney School of genre studies, named after its primary institu-
tional base in the University of Sydney's Department of Linguistics, offers
another contribution to genre studies--:the study of genres to effect social
change. Michael Halliday, who once headed the department, sought to bring
linguists and educators together to create a literacy pedagogy appropriate for
a multicultural society. 12 The result was the use of generic analysis to probe
Be sure you can define
systems of belief, ideologies, and values. The work of the members of tliis
"valorization" in order to
school encourages critics to ask questions about genres such as: How do
understand what these
some genres come to be valorized? In whose interest is such valorization?
questions are trying to
What kinds of social organization are put in place or kept in place by such
uncover ....
valorization? What does participation in a genre do to and for an individual
or a group? What opportunities do the relationships reflected in apd struc-
tured by a genre afford for humane creative action or, alternatively, for the
domination of others? Do genres empower some people while silencing oth.,'
ers? What repre_sentations of the world are entailed in genres? These ques-
140 Chapter Six
tions suggest as an agenda for the next phase of generic studies a critical
examination of issues such as the nature of the sanctioned representations
in genres and their implications for people's lives, the degree of accessibility
of a genre to potential users, and genre maintenance as power maintenance.
More generally, the Australian genre researchers contribute to generic criti-
cism an explicit acknowledgment of the political dimensions of genres. 13
Other efforts to link genres to issues of power and ideology include
those of critical discourse analysis (CDA) scholars. CDA is primarily con-
cerned with demonstrating issues of power and dominance in private and
public discourse, and critics who work in this tradition go beyond identify-
ing the components of genres and seek to expose the v.alues and beliefs of
the society that shape the construction of particular genres. Their efforts,
then, are devoted to discovering the role that power and ideology play in the
construction and interpretation of genres. 14
Procedures
Using generic criticism, a critic analyzes an artifact in a four-step pro-
cess: (I) selecting an artifact; (2) analyzing the artifact; (3) formulating a
research question; and (4) writing the essay.
salactlna an Artifact
Your choice of an artifact or artifacts for generic criticism depends on
the kind of analysis you are doing. As explicated below, generic criticism
involves three options-generic description, generic participation, and
generic application. If you are interested in generic description, your arti-
facts should be a variety of texts that appear, on the surface, to share some
rhetorical similarities. These artifacts can come from different time periods
and be of various forms-speeches, essays, songs, works of art, and adver-
tisements, for example-if they all seem similar in nature and function. If
your goal is generic participation, choose an artifact that seems like it
should belong to or has been assigned to a particular genre but does not
seem to fit. If you are doing generic application, your artifact should be one
that you want to assess in terms of how well it conforms to the genre of
which it is a part. This should be an artifact that, for some reason, leads you
to question how it is functioning in the context of its genre.
Fourth Edition
Sonja K. Foss
University of Colorado at Denver
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