Language and Culture Claire Kramsch

1. Genre
What is genre?

2. Genre
• A style, especially in the arts, that involves a particular
set of characteristics. (Cambridge English Dictionary)
• A category of artistic composition, as in music or
literature, characterized by similarities in form, style, or
subject matter. (Oxford English Dictionary)
• "kind" or "sort“, is any form or type of communication
in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with
socially-agreed upon conventions developed over time.
(Wiki)
Meaning of Genre

3. Genre
• A socially approved type of communicative
event, either spoken or printed. (P.128-Glossary)
Meaning of Genre

4. e.g. spoken
interview
joke
lecture
Meaning of Genre

5. e.g. printed
novel
press report
Meaning of Genre

6. Activity
• Find one example of an oral and a written
genre respectively that might give its users
‘social influence’.

7. Genre
• Dependent on specific context of situation or
culture. (in social cultural perspective)
• Related to text type & language choice

8. Genre
e.g. one convention of scientific research papers
is that they inform researchers of scientists’
findings and in a manner that furthers future
research.
French and Anglo - Saxon genre research paper
a collection of
communicative
events
communicative
purposes
a genre

9. Summary
• Writing and the printing press have changed the
relation of language and culture.
• Textual culture has become the dominant culture
of research and scholarship.
• 2 ways of looking at written language:
fixed and stable text
interactive and highly inferential process between text and readers discourse