Digital genres: a challenge to traditional genre theory

Gattungsgeschichte und ihr Gattungsbegriff am Beispiel der Novellen

Genre analysis has become a prevalent approach in the linguistic analysis of various specialized genres. A concept of genre, emerging from literature, has received a broader dimension in the last decade, focusing on establishing recognized structures and language exponents of a specific genre in a particular discourse community. In addition, the expansion of ESP and the rise of subgenres in many rising professional vocations require users to have competence in the English language. In addition, language researchers need ‘to dig into’ the pragmatic context of genres. With this mind and resting on the concept of genre and discourse communities, the paper sheds light on how the genre analysis approach can be applied in teaching different marine electrical genres to students and future ETO officers. The marine electrical engineering discourse community is specific and relatively novel. In this paper, the focus is placed on seafarers, future electro-technical officers and the analysis of genres they utilize in their professional work on board ships. The results of the paper can be inspiring to ESP teachers involved in teaching specialized and technical genres.

<i>Genre Matters: Essays in Theory and Criticism</i>. Edited by Garin Dowd , Lesley Stevenson , and Jeremy Strong . Bristol and Portland, OR: Intellect Books, 2006. Pp. 178.

This paper explores the possibility of extending the functional genre analysis model to account for the genre characteristics of non-linear, multi-modal, web-mediated documents. The extension involves a two-dimensional view on genres which allows us to account for the fact that digital genres not only act as text but also as medium. Genre theoretical concepts such as 'communicative purpose', 'moves', and 'rhetorical structure' are being adapted to accommodate the multi-modal, non-linear characteristics of web texts. The homepage (the first, introductory page on a website - not to be confused with the 'personal homepage' genre) constitutes the material for the theoretical discussions and the exemplary analyses.

This thesis is focused on discursive interactions between teachers and students, and of them with some objects -specifically chat and forum digital genres -in a situation of on-line teaching and learning. For this, we selected two sequences of chats and forums: three chats and three forums of the course "Games em Education no Second Life" and three chats and three forums of the course "Pesquisa Acadmica na Web", free courses taught entirely on-line, in the first half of 2010, mainly on the Second Life and TelEduc platforms. For the analysis of twelve statements, we used the French or Discursive Semiotics in greimasians bases and in newer developments that open new issues that pervade the whole theory, mostly Sociossemiotics and Tensive Semiotics. Allied to this approach, we employed Bakhtin's postulates (2010) about textual and discursive genres and the study of genre's style, initiated by Our goal is to understand the mechanisms of meaning production in these practices, as they are linked to sensitive adjustments and "contaminate" the structure of genres as a whole. From the analysis, we inferred recurrences that point to the style of the genre chat and the style of the genre forum, which still allow, therefore, the identification of more general characteristics that refer to the style of digital genre of the educational sphere. From this study emerged issues which are still unexplored, such as the style of digital genres and categories to their apprehension; modes of teaching and learning that specify digital educational practice; pedagogical-digital life forms; adjustment procedures developed by subjects, among others consistent with our goals. Some findings of this study point to freer conditions of participation in on-line interactions regarding digital genres, especially the spatial flexibility, the interchangeability of conversational roles and, in some cases, the discursive position that refer to social defined roles (teacher/student). With the weakening of the regulatory presence of the school in these interactions, the teacher gains space for every meeting, set up their practice in accordance with their own ways of composing and theme choices and guiding styles that are more suited to students' learning modes. The position of digital genres in an unstable place on the threshold -between speech and writing, between formality of teaching and informality of fun approach, for example -already hints at the profile of the subject that seeks to reframe their pedagogical practice by mixing, which is favored by way of being in the digital environment, thus constituting a space that, while still anchored in the school culture, spreads on the possibilities of new ways of inhabiting the world, as offered by contemporary technologies.

Documents are artifacts, based on an idea and following a plan produced by human beings. From a management point of view they are the results of a design - an engineering, manufacturing, and communication process. This paper presents and discusses a methodical approach, which is based on the thesis that genre theory and the fundamental analysis and managed application of genres is of the utmost importance in the new product development process. Furthermore, we assume that a new digital product can only be implemented successfully with an adequate communication strategy based on common and shared knowledge - a common logical system - between consumers and producers. We present the media reference model (MRM) as an enhanced approach to genre theory. Research regarding digital genres and the further development of digital genres profit from this methodical approach, since each design area can be examined from different view points. The MRM's potential for digital genre research is illustrated by the analysis of an innovative Web application product.

Writing and genre scholarship has become increasingly attuned to how various nontextual features of written genres contribute to the kinds of social actions that the genres perform and to the activities that they mediate. Even though scholars have proposed different ways to account for nontextual features of genres, such attempts often remain undertheorized. By bringing together Writing, Activity, and Genre Research, and Multimodal Interaction Analysis, the authors propose a conceptual framework for multimodal activity-based analysis of genres, or Multimodal Writing, Activity, and Genre (MWAG) analysis. Furthermore, by drawing on previous studies of the laboratory notebook (lab book) genre, the article discusses the rhetorical action the genre performs and its role in mediating knowledge construction activities in science. The authors provide an illustrative example of the MWAG analysis of an emergent scientist’s lab book and discuss its contributions to his increasing participation in medical physics. The study contributes to the development of a theoretically informed analytical framework for integrative multimodal and rhetorical genre analysis, while illustrating how the proposed framework can lead to the insights into the sociorhetorical roles multimodal genres play in mediating such activities as knowledge construction and disciplinary enculturation.

Speech Genres in Cultural Practice

Approaching digital genre composing through reflective pedagogical praxis

General Editor's Preface Preface Acknowledgements Part 1: Genre Analysis-Theoretical Preliminaries 1. From description to explanation in discourse analysis 2. Approach to genre analysis Part 2: Genre Analysis in Action 3. Product and self promotion in business settings 4. Research genres in academic settings 5. Legal discourse in professional settings Part 3: Applications 6. From description to explanation in language teaching 7. Generic integrity and language reform Bibliography Subject Index Author Index.

Over the past thirty years, there has been a massive change in research practices, with a great deal of research now being conducted and disseminated in the digital medium. This movement has been accompanied by a corresponding surge in the number of digital genres in which researchers can share and discuss research, both with peers and an interested public. The objective of this article is to identify some of the challenges that the online dissemination and production of research may pose for genre theory. After first reviewing the criteria traditionally used to define genres in English for Specific Purposes, Systemic Functional Linguistics and Rhetorical Genre Studies, we focus on three central aspects of the digital medium that impact research genres: multimodality and hypertextuality, audience and identity, collaboration and interactivity. We discuss to what extent existing genre analysis can accommodate digital genres or whether new criteria are needed.

Digital genres: What they are, what they do, and why we need to better understand them

This article is synthesis of a Master's dissertation in Education, which aimed to analyze the digital textual genres that are addressed by Portuguese language textbooks, in the final years of elementary school. It is a qualitative research of the case study type and was developed in a public school in the municipal education system, in a city on the southern coast of the State of Alagoas. To achieve the objective, documentary analysis and meetings in focus groups with Portuguese language teachers who worked in elementary school were carried out. The methodological procedures used were documentary analysis of textbook volumes from the sixth to the ninth year of elementary school, as well as interviews with teachers. To understand the concepts of the speech genres, we used Bakhtin (1997, 2016), Marcuschi (2008, 2010) and Miller (2012) as a basis. As for the specific knowledge of digital genres, we rely on Marcuschi and Xavier (2010). The results show that textbooks from the sixth to the ninth year present the digital genres, however, it is only in the sixth year book that this type of genre is worked in a more meaningful way, in the others they are cited as pretext to work with others language categories. They also point out that the textbooks for elementary school provide guidance on the use of digital genres in elementary school classes. We also found that teachers have a positive perception of the textbook used by the school and that they have knowledge about digital genres and use them in practice.

The notion of 'translation loss' has been at the core of numerous publications and theorisations in Translation Studies (Nord 2011). This paper revisits this notion in the light of new dynamic digital genres with open hypertextual structures that are constantly enlarged and updated. The localisation of these websites, understood as a process constrained by finite time and financial resources, normally entails deciding or prioritising which sections or blocks will appear in the localisation and which will not. These strategies have an impact in the configuration of the localised websites and their potential impact on the communities they address. The present genre-based study analyses from a descriptive perspective a representative corpus of the 'non-profit website' genre in the United States and contrasts non-translated original websites to their Spanish localised versions. After a descriptive study of this digital genre, a contrastive superstructural study shows the differences between these two distinct textual populations in terms of 'localisation loss,' or the chances of sections of the source website not being localised. This analysis sheds some light on the perspective of producers and translation commissioners on the genre, and on the potential differences between non-translated and translated digital genres.

In my essay I argue for a rethinking of the concept of literary genre. I criticize the static, logico‐empirical approach still favoured by structuralist scholars of various stripes. I make the case for, and describe a dynamic and pragmatic model of literary genre as part of an interactive process of literary interpretation. I also outline one promising way to formulate such a model, based on interdisciplinary work in philosophical pragmatics and game theory.Specifically, I begin with a look of the concept of genre theory within Uri Margolin's tripartite system of deductive models in genre theory. I follow with a critique of the classical logic‐based, nonpragmatic view of literary forms as well as their reliance on structuralist kernel primitives, both of which characterize most deductive models. Using Kendal Walton's classical thought‐experiment from aesthetics, I argue against the persistent belief that literary forms are somehow empirically definable and immutable. On my view, aesthetic qualities of artworks are determined not just by purely structural (pictorial, textual, etc.) features, but by these features as seen through the work's category. In the remainder of my essay I develop an analytic model of genre‐guided strategies of reception, employed cooperatively and reflexively (in the Gricean sense) by the author and the reader.