Genre Studies
Genre Studies is an academic discipline focused on analyzing and categorizing various forms of artistic expression, including literature, visual arts, language, and rhetoric. Originating from the French word for "kind," genres serve as classification systems that help convey meaning across different contexts. This field traces its roots back to ancient Greece, where scholars classified works based on themes and societal roles, a practice that evolved significantly with the advent of the printing press and modern communication technologies.
Genres encompass various categories, with literature commonly divided into poetry, prose, and drama, each containing numerous subgenres. Similarly, visual arts and media such as film and television also adopt genre classifications. In rhetoric, genres are identified based on their persuasive functions, such as forensic, deliberative, and demonstrative rhetoric. Additionally, in linguistics, genre studies investigate how language facilitates social interaction and reflects historical trends, employing approaches like systemic functional linguistics and corpus linguistics.
As society evolves, so too does the understanding of genres, which now reflect complex interactions of culture, politics, and identity. This ongoing evolution highlights the dynamic nature of genre studies and its significance in comprehending artistic and communicative practices.
Genre Studies
Genre studies is an academic approach to examining critical theory within a variety of disciplines. These disciplines, or subjects, include the literary or visual arts, language, and rhetoric. The word genre comes from the French word gender, which means "kind" or "type." Genres are most often associated with literature but can also apply to functional texts, speech, learning, social interactions, and cultural constructs. The study of genres provides academics with an opportunity to assign meaningfulness through a classification system.
Historical Context
The process of studying genres can be traced as far back as ancient Greece. Greek scholars felt it was important to classify works according to their overall themes or content. This concept was known as mimesis, a theory that one’s experience with the natural world is imitated by his art. In other words, the aristocracy would create works revolving around aristocratic endeavors, while commoners would create works revolving around common themes. Ancient Romans continued this tradition, and scholars kept these essentialist principles intact even after the fall of Rome. Classical genre theory came apart, however, during the Enlightenment. The invention of the printing press brought information to the masses, enabling people from different class or caste systems to share thoughts and ideas. Genre theory continued to change throughout the next three centuries based on the historical context of each era, but traditional genre categories remained mostly the same. Inventions of the twentieth century such as television, film, and the Internet have challenged these traditional categories, however, as modern genre theorists recognize the importance that politics, sociology, culture, religion, race, and gender play in the examination of modern genre studies.
Literary and Visual Arts
The study of genres began with literary texts, as classical theorists sought to categorize written works. In literary systems, the broadest categories are poetry, prose, and drama. These categories can be broken down further into subgenres such as tragedy, comedy, or history. Media such as fine or performing arts, films, and television mirror this type of classification, with a few main genres branching out into infinite subgenres. For example, fine or performing art works typically are classified by era, followed by movement and style. A point of contention exists among genre theorists about the proper method for categorizing literature and visual art works. Some scholars contend that genres should describe the contents of a text, such as a romance or mystery, whereas others argue that genres should be assigned according to a prescriptive set of rules, as in certain types of poetry such as the epic or sonnet. Additionally, some genre types are highly specialized and only recognizable by academics within certain fields. For example, a film scholar might consider the film Pulp Fiction to be of the neo-noir genre, as others might simply consider it part of the genre made popular by the film’s director, Quentin Tarantino. This demonstrates the fluidity and dynamics of literary and visual arts genres.
Rhetoric
Rhetorical genres typically focus on spoken methods of persuasion. Three traditional rhetorical genres are forensic, deliberative, and demonstrative. Forensic, also known as judicial, is a form of rhetoric first recognized by the Greek philosopher Aristotle. This type of rhetoric attempts to persuade through facts and evidence. In contrast, deliberative rhetoric examines hypothetical situations that could happen in the future. This type of rhetoric seeks consensus by determining the best outcomes. Finally, demonstrative rhetoric, also known as the celebratory or ceremonial genre, seeks to persuade through praise or blame. Examples include funeral eulogies or wedding toasts.
Linguistics
Linguistics is the study of language that examines how words are formed (morphology), how words are arranged together (syntax), how and why words sound the way they do (phonetics), and how language creates meaning (semantics). Linguistic genre theory applies to texts that aid in the learning and understanding of language. Two major schools of thought pertain to linguistic genre studies. The first, systemic functional linguistics (SFL), examines how language helps humans relate to one another, complete tasks, and otherwise move throughout society. According to SFL, genres should function as social processes. The second type of linguistic genre is corpus linguistics. This branch examines the historical importance of language. Unlike the ancient Greeks’ classical approach, corpus linguistics focuses on prototypical features of language. Instead of classifying texts based on shared characteristics, the corpus approach considers how the texts relate in generic terms to other similar types.
Function of Genre Studies
The function of genre studies has evolved throughout time. What began as a system of classification changed as societies grew and as new cultures developed. Since the 1980s, theorists have attempted to use genre studies to explain communicative purposes and goals. For example, the purpose of a literary novel is to entertain, whereas the purpose of a functional text such as a financial firm’s prospectus is to inform. These texts may have underlying goals as well. A novel such as George Orwell’s Animal Farm, typically filed under such genres as literature and dystopian fiction, also contains elements of history and political warnings about the dangers of dictatorships. A prospectus contains information about a particular stock or investment but also seeks to sell that stock or investment. The complexities of genre studies exist because the possibilities for genre classification are endless. Furthermore, genres are not limited to classification systems but also reflect society and culture as a whole.
Bibliography
Aldredge, Jourdan. “Everything Filmmakers Need to Know About Genre Theory.” Soundstripe, 11 Mar. 2022, www.soundstripe.com/blogs/everything-filmmakers-need-to-know-about-genre-theory. Accessed 30 Dec. 2024.
Auerbach, Erich. Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2003.
Bawarshi, Anis S., and Mary Jo Reiff. Genre: An Introduction to History, Theory, Research, and Pedagogy. West Lafayette: Parlor, 2010.
Chandler, Daniel. "An Introduction to Genre Theory." Daniel Chandler (2000), visual-memory.co.uk/daniel/Documents/intgenre/chandler‗genre‗theory.pdf. Accessed 30 Dec. 2024.
Duff, David. Modern Genre Theory. London: Pearson, 2000.
Garver, Eugene. “Aristotle on the Kinds of Rhetoric.” Rhetorica, vol. 27, no 1. 1 Feb, 2009, 1-18, doi.org/10.1525/rh.2009.27.1.1. Accessed 30 Dec. 2024.