Re: genre/social languages

Judy Diamondstone (diamonju who-is-at rci.rutgers.edu)
Sat, 13 Jul 1996 19:07:40 -0400

I've taken my understanding of the relationship between
genre and voice from Jay Lemke and Terry Threadgold. The
distinction helped me in a paper I wrote last spring.
In the Systemic Functional Linguistics tradition they take from,
AS I UNDERSTAND IT "genre" connotes more than "symbolic material
that fits into typified activities" (Phil's definition) - it also
connotes a particular sequencing of parts, correlating to the sequential
structuring of activities. In this tradition, genre is distinguished
from "register," which does not connote _sequence_. But genres are
realized through their registers, which realize in typical ways
the three metafunctions of language that Halliday calls "field"
(ideational), "tenor" (interpersonal), and "mode" (textual).

I use "voice" in Bakhtin (& Wertsch's) sense, of "social voice"
-- that is, the particular perspective signaled by
a socially located speaker. Since genres are voiced (more and more) by
speakers from different sociocultural groups (in my paper, the example
was Thurgood Marshall voicing in a quite distinctive way a closing
argument before the Supreme Court)- No, conflicting voices are not
the same as conflicting genres. Marshall toyed with the "tenor"
dimension of register to make points about the law that were not
allowed by a strict conformity to the genre. On the other hand,
a different voicing WILL count as out-of-genre if the speaker is not
ascribed legitimacy by virtue of his or her position (Marshall as
seasoned legal professional).

Threadgold, T. (1986), "The semiotics of Volsinov, Halliday, and Eco."
_American Journal of Semiotics, 4_ nos. 3-4, 107-142.

Threadgold, T. (1989), "Talking about genre: ideologies and incompatible
discourses." _Cultural Studies, 3_ no. 1, 101-125.

Jay Lemke & Jim Martin both are working out the resources available
for exploiting the tenor dimension of register.

- Judy

>Phil,
>
>Among the following interesting comments in your note on genre, the following
>struck me particularly, even though I had seen it before in an earlier
>note:
> * their genres (the forms of symbolic material that fit into their typified
> activities),
>------
>I am wondering about the polymorphous nature of the term "forms
>of symbolic material" in relation to this defintion of genre.
>
>What does one call the different "kinds of form" and how do we
>identify them? I am thinking here of another term, trope. Isn't
>a trop a kind of form of symbolic material too?
>
>I am wondering, too, how genre and voice are related, as well
>as "social language" which Jim Wertsch has adopted from Bakhtin
>as another kind of form.
>
>These questions may be too complicated to answer in this forum,
>but if you have someplace where these issues are dealt with, I
>would appreciate a ref.
>mike
>
>
>

....................
Judy Diamondstone diamonju who-is-at rci.rutgers.edu
Graduate School of Education Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
10 Seminary Place New Brunswick, NJ 08903

Wise men [sic] see outlines, therefore they draw them - Wm. Blake