A Classroom Lesson on Language and Genre

Dick Thomas Johnson, Showa Women's University, flickr (CC BY 2.0)

A Different Definition of Genre

Genre is a conventional system of signs that allows for the creative communication of meaning.

Maybe it's the end of the academic semester, when I'm reflecting on what we've studied in our courses over a semester.

Or maybe it's because this time of the academic year is so full of graduate student exams, when I'm devising questions that allow students to show what they know while ranging widely over their readings.

Or maybe it's because I'm so swamped with work at this time of year. OK, maybe it's mostly that one.

Whatever the reason, I found myself returning to a blog post I had written two years ago but never published. Those were my early days, my days of trying to figure out what this blog writing is supposed to do and who might want to read what I write. I'd noticed some similarities between language and genre, and I started exploring the ways genre might be like language.

​It's a little academic--well, maybe a lot academic--but I still find it interesting. So those of you willing to go highfalutin theoretical with me, even on a nice spring day, here are some earlier thoughts connecting genre as conventional, systematic, and creative, just like language

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In Spring 2016, I was teaching two undergraduate courses —an advanced writing course I’ve called Writing with Confidence, and a survey of English language studies. The two suddenly converged for me one week in a surprising way. On the first day of class in Introduction to the English Language, I had explained the textbook’s definition of language:

“Human language is a conventional system of signs that allows for the creative communication of meaning”

(From page 8 of Anne Curzan and Michael Adams’ text How English Works: A Linguistic Introcution)

In class, I showed how English is systematic, conventional, and creative. So we looked at the systematic way we make new words plural—if we have one poozy, we will have two poozies—and the systematic way we combine sounds—English allows “brat” but not “bfat,” so we have to pronounce “bff” as [bee-eff-eff] not as [bff]. And of course we made sentences out of words, with English allowing “The boy and a girl ran in the house” or “The girl and the boy ran in a house” but not “In ran girl house the a boy the and” or even “The house ran in the girl and a boy” (as a student explained, “Houses don’t run.”)

But we also talked about the fact that this language system is conventional, not somehow inherently right or inherently meaningful. We could just as well make plurals by adding an –a, so one poozy two poozya. We could call our sneaker an oosh rather than a shoe.

And we spent a lot of time on how this conventional system enables us to communicate whatever meaning we want because of its creativity. We can create new words for new meanings (google, bae, bff) and new meanings for old words (mouse, cool, web). We can create sentences that go on forever—"I know that you know that we know that she knows that I know that he knows that you know that . . .”

So language is a conventional system of signs that allows for the creative communication of meaning.

But the next day I was prepping class for my advanced writing course, where we were starting to explore the concept of genre and how genres shape what we write, sometimes unawares and even when we’re trying to work against a genre. So I created a list of things to notice about genre from the readings on genre they did.

Thing to notice about contemporary rhetorical conceptions of genre:

• Not just literary or bookstore genres. Everyday writing like syllabus, tweet, academic research paper, and so much more
• Conventional, expected, shape what we do unconsciously
• Used in particular settings about a usual subject matter for purposes with roles for writers and readers
• Have conventions of content and structure (organization), language and style
• Every particular text is unique and creative, even as it works with generic expectations

And then it hit me. Flash. The definition of language fit genre, too.

Language is a conventional system of signs that allows for the creative communication of meaning.

Genre is a conventional system of signs that allows for the creative communication of meaning.

Let me try to work this out.

Genres, too, are conventional. Although they’re not arbitrary, the way language systems are, they take on certain forms because the groups that use them agree to interpret their meanings in the same ways. And different groups develop different systems out of their different shared cultures.

So academic research papers have to cite their sources in specific ways and give credit for each bit of information, conventional and appropriate for a group that depends on and highly values intellectual property. Tax accountants, though, include direct copying of the IRS Tax Codes and Regs without so much as a quotation mark (yes, I studied the writing of tax accountants, and I discovered they treated sources differently). Their assumption is that, within their group of readers and writers, everyone will recognize the source. No need to point it out. Like the use among some writers of quotations from Confucius and other known authorities. Who better than those wise ones to speak on a subject? And how insulting to point out a source that the reader surely knows.

Genres are conventional in their use and interpretation of signs.

Genres are systematic. They have elements (structures, styles, content) that combine in rule-governed ways.

This claim might be the one I’m most uncertain of. The elements of genres aren’t as clearly defined as the elements of a language. And they probably aren’t as systematic. Their “rules” are expectations, and violating the rules probably doesn’t make a text unacceptable. About genres, we probably wouldn’t say “Houses don’t run” (Horror stories don’t do that) but instead “Houses don’t usually run” (Horror stories don’t usually do that). But thinking about genres as systematic opens up ways of talking about the formal conventions of genres in new ways.

And Genres allow for the creative communication of meaning.

That’s an easy one for me. Genres help us make meaning. You know how to interpret a sales letter because you’ve seen them before. And I’ve argued lots of times before that genres also help writers be creative. Because they mark out what’s expected, writers can focus on the places where they can vary from what’s expected, can make decisions in places that aren’t spelled out, can adapt the genre to the particular, unique writing task. [Wow, this has gotten way academic]

The combination of conventional and creative, in language and in genres, also gives me a better way, maybe, of recognizing that genres do indeed constrain writers.

Their existence pushes people into particular ways of seeing the world and of acting in it. Here is maybe a way to distinguish genre from language, too. People can be more creative with genres than with language. Either people act wholly within a genre, as they do in speaking or writing in a language, and they use only the creativity allowed within that conventional system. Or they become conscious of the constraints of that system and those conventions, and they act creatively against them. You can’t do that in a language and still be understood (well, James Joyce can, but that's because genre). You wouldn’t be communicating meaning. But in a genre, you can. There are limits, but you can write in ways that violate the “rules” of a genre and still be understood. That’s a creative part of writing that goes beyond the creativity in language.

What do you think? Does it work to think of genres as systems? Does this connection of genre to a definition of language give you any helpful ways of thinking about genres? Or is this just another sign that my view of genres is influenced by my work in language as well?

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I think those two-year-old thoughts still hold some interesting ideas, including helping to see how those conventional generic forms can matter (which I think I was writing about in my scholarly work at the time). But those connections also may help my thinking today, especially as I've been working more with the ways that people can use genres to resist or disrupt conventional expectations and still be meaningful. Language is generative--we can always say something that's probably never been said before.

Purple penguins can buy roast beef at the garage sale

And people will try to make sense of it, to make it meaningful (maybe the penguins are sports fan of the Pittsburgh Penguins? and someone is selling roast beef at a food truck there!)

Genres, too, are generative. We always do or say something in a genre that hasn't been said before. No two texts are identical. And however we might vary from those expected formal conventions, people will try to make sense of it, to make it meaningful. 

So this exploration was fun for me two years ago, and I enjoyed returning to it today. ​I see the similarities still

But as a blog post? Phew. That's hard slogging. I hope I've learned a bit about making my blog more readable and fun as well as thoughtful. That balance remains tricky for me.

But hey, I continue to learn how to be creative within this genre, this conventional system of signs, for the creative communication of meaning. I'm just grateful to have you readers stick with me to the end of this post.

And maybe I now have one question prepared for one of the graduate exams this week:
How is genre like language? And how is it unlike language? Discuss

Britt-knee, 30/365 the scream, flickr (CC BY-ND 2.0)