Genre Hybrids As Manifistation Of Language Creativity In Modern American Microfiction

Abstract

The paper looks at the notion of genres and genre hybridity in terms of creativity as a meaning-making process. The author provides a brief overview of various approaches to genre and genre classifications in an attempt to prove that in the modern sociocultural setting a more flexible approach to genre attribution is needed and genres should be seen not as fixed conventional forms but as entities with blurred boundaries. The concept of hybridity in literature is considered, particularly with reference to modern microfiction. The author argues that genre hybridity can be viewed as manifestation of creativity in postmodern literature. The goal of the paper is to analyze genre characteristics of modern American microfiction, to demonstrate how different genres can blend in a short text resulting in a variety of original configurations which create and convey new complex meanings. A holistic integrated genre analysis of microfiction is carried out to identify dominant genre characteristics of the hybrid texts, as well as to establish which genres tend to form blends. As the microfiction texts are often published online, the author also discusses whether cyberspace as a new communicative context has a role to play in creating genre hybrids in modern microfiction.