Loading...
Generalizing about Genre: New Conceptions of an Old Concept
Devitt, Amy J.
Devitt, Amy J.
Citations
Altmetric:
Abstract
Our field has become riddled with dichotomies that threaten to undermine our
holistic understanding of writing. Form and content (and the related form and
function, text and context), product and process, individual and society-these
dichotomies too often define our research affiliations, our pedagogies, and our
theories. If we are to understand writing as a unified act, as a complex whole,
we must find ways to overcome these dichotomies. Recent conceptions of genre
as a dynamic and semiotic construct illustrate how to unify form and content,
place text within context, balance process and product, and acknowledge the
role of both the individual and the social. This reconception of genre may even
lead us to a unified theory of writing.
The most recent understandings of genre derive from the work of several
significant theorists working with different agendas and from different fields:
from literature (M. M. Bakhtin, Tzvetan Todorov, Jacques Derrida), linguistics
(M. A. K. Halliday, John Swales), and rhetoric (Carolyn Miller, Kathleen
Jamieson). However, this work has not yet widely influenced how most scholars
and teachers of writing view genre. Our reconception will require releasing old
notions of genre as form and text type and embracing new notions of genre as
dynamic patterning of human experience, as one of the concepts that enable us
to construct our writing world. Basically, the new conception of genre shifts the
focus from effects (formal features, text classifications) to sources of those
effects. To accommodate our desires for a reunified view of writing, we must
shift our thinking about genre from a formal classification system to a rhetorical
and essentially semiotic social construct. This article will explain the new
conception of genre that is developing and will suggest some effects of this new
conception on our thinking about writing.1
Description
This is the published version, also found here: http://www.ncte.org/cccc/ccc/issues/v44-4
Date
1993
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
National Council of Teachers of English
Collections
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Keywords
Citation
Devitt, Amy J. (1993) Generalizing about Genre: New Conceptions of an Old Concept. College Composition and Communication, 44:4, 573-586.