User:MTibbett/Genre

Rhetoric
In the field of rhetoric, genre theorists usually understand genres as types of actions rather than types or forms of texts. On this perspective, texts are channels through which genres are enacted. Carolyn Miller's work has been especially important for this perspective. Drawing on Lloyd Bitzer's concept of rhetorical situation, Miller reasons that recurring rhetorical problems tend to elicit recurring responses; drawing on Alfred Schütz, she reasons that these recurring responses become "typified" – that is, socially constructed as recognizable types. Miller argues that these "typified rhetorical actions" (p. 151) are properly understood as genres.

Building off of Miller, Charles Bazerman and Clay Spinuzzi have argued that genres understood as actions derive their meaning from other genres – that is, other actions. Bazerman therefore proposes that we analyze genres in terms of "genre systems", while Spinuzzi prefers the closely related concept of "genre ecologies". Reiff and Bawarshi define genre analysis as a critical reading of people's patterns of communication in different situations.

This tradition has had implications for the teaching of writing in American colleges and universities. Combining rhetorical genre theory with activity theory, David Russell has proposed that standard English composition courses are ill-suited to teach the genres that students will write in other contexts across the university and beyond. Elizabeth Wardle contends that standard composition courses do teach genres, but that these are inauthentic "mutt genres" that are often of little use outside of composition courses.

Genre is effective as a tool in rhetoric because it allows a speaker to set the context for a rhetorical discussion. Devitt, Reiff, and Bawarshi suggest that rhetorical genres may be assigned based off of careful analysis of the subject matter and consideration of the audience.