Make-up Blog Week 10

In their article “Materiality and Genre in the Study of Discourse Communities”, Devitt et al. attempts to explain the concept of genre analysis and what genres are. Devitt explains that sometimes people need professionals to understand the many genres we as the citizens of the U.S. must complete. Most of the time, the forms we must fill out require additional help because many of the items on them are in a jargon that citizens who are unfamiliar with that area do not understand. She says this is to bring the specialist and non-specialist communities together. Bawarshi explains that a genre belongs to a particular discourse community and it is a specific type of writing that most outsiders cannot understand. The members use a particular kind of language that sets it apart from normal English speak. Reiff explains the concept of genres being “roadmaps” for people to use as guidelines while they learn to write. She explains three goals that include just simply learning a new genre that they can add to the others they have already learned, creating awareness of that genre, and using genres to understand certain situations. She believes this will make students “researchers” who are active and learning in the world around them.

I am able to make a connection to the Swales article because he also talks about the concept of a genre. In his article he only simply defined the term as writings of different types, whereas in this article it loaded much more meaning onto the term. For example, there were three different opinions on what “genre” meant. It can mean anything from something only people in a particular discourse community understand to using a genre as a learning tool. I am also able to relate this to Porter’s article about discourse communities because he explained that a discourse community has a certain language that others may not understand. This article explained that sometimes the genre of a certain group may not be comprehended by non-members.

In Bawarshi’s essay, he clarifies what the term “genre” means in other meaningful languages such as French and Latin. In French it means “sort” or “kind”, and in Latin it means “to generate”. He then goes on to explain that a genre is a “transparent lens” for classifying texts and different kinds of things but maybe we should be trying to study the things themselves. He also says that genres can generate the exchanges of language in discourse communities.

Swales defines genre simply as a particular type of writing or text that belongs to a certain discourse community. He explains that when we write, we tend to look to a familiar genre that is appropriate for the type of writing we are doing. A genre is normally easily recognized by outsiders, meaning anyone can identify what genre a piece of writing belongs to. Genres are able to change with new members or old members leaving, or even if the group just thinks it’s best to critique the genre.

These two authors both would agree that a genre is a type of writing or text that belongs to a specific group. Bawarshi went about the definition in a different way explaining it as transparent. He said maybe we should focus on studying the particular “thing” instead of just the pieces of writing, or maybe consider both. He also said that genres allow members of discourse communities to communicate easily. Swales argues that a genre can usually be identified by non-members of the group. He also does not distinguish the group as a discourse community as did Bawarshi. Swales says that non-members tend to use these different genres for themselves easily as guidance for their own writing.

In my opinion, I think Swales’ definition is most appropriate because we as students use different genres in our writing. We are familiar with the different genres and we are knowledgeable about the different types. I also think this is most appropriate because we use them as “tools” to help us with our writing skills. We learn how to write in different genres and it is not too difficult to understand. Bawarshi makes it sound like genres can only be used by the members of the discourse community because they will be the only people reading and understanding their genre.

Overall, I thought this article was quite interesting because I had no idea there were so many interpretations of genres. I never thought about the concept of a genre being so complicated and in depth but at the same time I understood it. It makes sense that a genre can be used to learn about other groups and discourse communities to enhance your own learning.