TY - CHAP

T1 - Utterance and Function in Genre Studies: A Literary Perspective

AU - Auken, Sune

PY - 2015

Y1 - 2015

N2 - Purpose Though contemporary Genre Studies, and especially American Rhetorical Genre Studies (RGS), has made great progress through prioritizing the functional aspect of genre, there is now much to be gained by giving renewed space to the formal and thematic sides of genre as well, granting the concrete utterances, making up particular genres, equal weight in the theory and analysis of genre. The purpose of this shift is emphatically not to take anything away from current Genre Studies; I admire what is being done in genre research today and want to add to it and expand it by demonstrating some of the possibilities enabled by a modified approach.Findings Current Genre Studies, as encountered in RGS, is an impressive and highly organized body of knowledge. By re-introducing literary and high rhetorical subject matter, which has been under-studied in RGS, into it, the chapter demonstrates some of the complexities involved when Genre Studies confront genres whose utterances are more complex than the “homely discourses” usually discussed in RGS. Formal and thematic features play a far too significant role in literary works to be explicable simply as derivations from function alone. But this is not limited to works of literature. The chapter finds that though more complex genres, literary and high rhetorical, most consistently invite utterance-based interpretations, other genre-based studies can benefit from them as well.Originality/value The chapter offers a perspective on genre which gives renewed weight to formal and thematic interpretations of genre, by allowing the utterances themselves to re-enter center stage. This enables an improved understanding of complex genres. It also revives close reading as a viable approach to understanding genre and thus to inform the rhetorical, linguistic, and sociological perspectives dominant in current genre scholarship. Finally, it improves our understanding of genre in both a systematic and a historical perspective. The chapter demonstrates, thus, that an understanding which puts as much weight on a genre’s utterances, as it does on its function is viable as an interpretation of genres, and is fruitful as an approach to them.

AB - Purpose Though contemporary Genre Studies, and especially American Rhetorical Genre Studies (RGS), has made great progress through prioritizing the functional aspect of genre, there is now much to be gained by giving renewed space to the formal and thematic sides of genre as well, granting the concrete utterances, making up particular genres, equal weight in the theory and analysis of genre. The purpose of this shift is emphatically not to take anything away from current Genre Studies; I admire what is being done in genre research today and want to add to it and expand it by demonstrating some of the possibilities enabled by a modified approach.Findings Current Genre Studies, as encountered in RGS, is an impressive and highly organized body of knowledge. By re-introducing literary and high rhetorical subject matter, which has been under-studied in RGS, into it, the chapter demonstrates some of the complexities involved when Genre Studies confront genres whose utterances are more complex than the “homely discourses” usually discussed in RGS. Formal and thematic features play a far too significant role in literary works to be explicable simply as derivations from function alone. But this is not limited to works of literature. The chapter finds that though more complex genres, literary and high rhetorical, most consistently invite utterance-based interpretations, other genre-based studies can benefit from them as well.Originality/value The chapter offers a perspective on genre which gives renewed weight to formal and thematic interpretations of genre, by allowing the utterances themselves to re-enter center stage. This enables an improved understanding of complex genres. It also revives close reading as a viable approach to understanding genre and thus to inform the rhetorical, linguistic, and sociological perspectives dominant in current genre scholarship. Finally, it improves our understanding of genre in both a systematic and a historical perspective. The chapter demonstrates, thus, that an understanding which puts as much weight on a genre’s utterances, as it does on its function is viable as an interpretation of genres, and is fruitful as an approach to them.

KW - Faculty of Humanities

KW - Genre

KW - Utterance

KW - Carolyn Miller

KW - Amy Devitt

KW - Aviva Freedman

KW - John Frow

KW - Alastair Fowler

KW - Rhetorical Genre Studies

KW - Mikhail Bakhtin

KW - Speech Genres

KW - Genre Studies

KW - PhD application

KW - Genre as Social Action

KW - Peter Vandenberg

KW - Jack Andersen

KW - Charles Bazerman

KW - Anis Bawarshi

M3 - Book chapter

SN - 978-1-78441-255-5

T3 - Studies in Information

SP - 155

EP - 178

BT - Genre Theory in Information Studies

A2 - Andersen, Jack

PB - Emerald Group Publishing

ER -