So what are genres? When most people are asked this question they will reply with something like science fiction, horror, mystery, or romance. While these are not fundamentally wrong answers, those with such responses do not understand the full breadth of what genres truly are. According to the dictionary, a genre is “a class or category of artistic endeavor having a particular form, content, technique, or the like” (Genre). Still though this does not capture the full breadth of what a genre really is. To explain how genres form, dynamically change, and serve their purposes we must first take a step back and look at some other fundamental concepts. A popular model designed by Bruce W. Tuckman suggests that all groups experience five phases: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning (Gulati 439-440). At our cores, humans seek to be accepted and acknowledged by others. We seek to form social hierarchies to find meaning the areas we are passionate about. This part of human nature is nothing new, it is something programmed deep into our genes for millennia. It happens before our eyes every day; sports fans meet in stadiums, video game fans meet at conventions, artists meet at exhibitions, and so on. People of similar interest meet, one way or another, and are drawn together by their passion. Some groups remain small friend circles, while others may grow vastly to be composed of millions of members. These vast communities, known as discourse communities,
A discourse community comprises of a group of people sharing a common and distinct mode of communication or discourse, especially within a particular domain of intellectual or social activity (Oxforddictionaries, 2017). Some of the discourse communities I consider to be a part of, include an Indian joint family, my peer group, high school education in India, the Apple community and education at Pace university.
James T Porter describes a discourse community as a group who “Shares assumptions and what objects are appropriate for examination and discussion”, in other words; a group of people who are in some way or form connected. So, take engineers for example where every member pays the same price for entry, an engineering degree. This would mean that from day one every member is indoctrinated with the same way of thinking and share a common knowledge at the core of their education. The shared goals of the community are to design, develop and create new feats of engineering in their respective fields. In order for engineers to accomplish their goals, they need to work together and communicate. But, how exactly does an engineer communicate if they are
John Swales defines the term discourse communities as "groups that have goals or purposes, and use communication to achieve these goals" (Swales). A discourse community is defined by the following six characteristics: The community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals, the community has mechanisms of intercommunication among their members, the community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback, the community utilizes and possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims, the community also owns genres and has some acquired lexis that are specific to the community in terms of jargon, and the community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discourse expertise. In such communities, members often come as novices, and due to their high level of commitment to the community, they “leave by death or other less involuntary ways” (Swales, 27).
We now know what would be the necessary threshold levels for members who wish to join in such a community, but now we must realize the rest of the questions that need to be answered when talking about the discourse communities. But, what is a discourse community? Well, by definition, a discourse community is a group of individuals whom share similar ideals to one another, and are able to communicate with one another so that they all may be able to achieve a goal. However, as any other term within the English dictionary, there is something more than what was stated to be the definition. And John Malcolm Swales, a linguist best known for his work on genre analysis, would agree with that train of thought. He had stated that when it comes to a
Genre is the French word for 'type'. Type is the kind of text it is.
As people we tend to associate with others with a common interest working together to accomplish something great for others or for ourselves. Amongst us there are an infinite of numbers of a discourse communities, which is limitless to identify each one. John Swales, author of “The Concept of Discourse Community”, describes it as group of individuals that share a common goal and sub-goals as a whole. Or as James Porter definition of a discourse community: “is a group of individuals bound by a common interest who communicate through approved channels and whose discourse is regulated. These community represent certain ideology and views of the world that defines them apart from others. Swales states it must meet six specific criteria
The idea of social groupings is very prevalent in today’s society. It can be seen amongst work colleagues, player’s on your team, and even your friends at school. A social group is a group of two or more people who all share a common interest. A social group can range from being a group of athletes, people who enjoy the same video games, and even people who carpool together. Majority of the population belongs to a social group, they might not even know it. Social groups come natural, and often form unintentionally. There will always be someone out there that shares your likes and dislikes. Due to that, the idea of social groups will always be prominent in our world.
Category, classification, type, and style are all words that could be used to define the term genre. Most people automatically relate genre to specific forms of entertainment like music or television, but varying forms of writing should be added to that list. The way a piece of writing is presented or formatted is extremely telling of the author’s purpose and reasoning for writing a particular work.
In todays society we work together as Discourse Communities with out our consent. For instance in my life I have been daily involved in activities that form part of different communities such a nurse community, dance community, educational community and family and friend community. This miscellaneous community's experience specific and uniform goals, audience ,convention genres and specialized vocabulary.Nevertheless even though the have all these things in common all discourse communities own different purposes.
According to Swales he describes a discourse community as a group of people that have goals, specific vocabulary, values, genres, a specific language, and criteria to get in the group. While this is how Swales describes a discourse community, Erik Borg describes a discourse community as an actively shares goals and communicate with other members to purse those goals. For this paper, I will be describing how my discourse community, a football teams, falls into the description of what Swales describes a discourse community as.
In Kerry Dirk article “Navigating Genres”, Dirk elaborates on the true definition of genre and help writers understand how genre is incorporated in all types of writing material. Starting off, he explains how genre can be expanded beyond than what we know and how we write. Using Bitzer to back his thoughts up, he describes how new genres can be created by people. Dirk gave many examples on how genre has no limits, and the ways on how it’s more than conversation of styles; such as a fictitious newspaper using their headlines to show their genre. According to Dirk, two texts may have the same genre but, can also be different. While it is important to know that genre changes over time, Dirk explains how there are no set rules that apply to genre
What is a horror genre? What is the horror genre about? What do you wont to know about the horror genre? The Tell-Tale Heart and The Monkey’s Paw are entertaining short stories that meet the criteria to be categorized in the horror genre because contain fear , scary, horror.
Genre can be defined in many different ways. The word genre is something that can be very flexible; it’s not something that is classified under a rigid definition. Genre is the way you separate different things into different categories; it’s how you classify items based on something that they have in common. Also, there are many different digital artifacts that can be categorized into many different genres; basically anything can be put into a genre; my digital artifact, which is a Kobe Bryant tweet from 2014, can be categorized under the genre of a motivational athlete tweet.
A genre is a category, and in film it is a way to describe the best fit of the direction a movie will display. There are many subgenres within a genre that also help to give definition. Genres are used to support a system of grouping instead of disarray by leaving others to decipher it themselves. Scarface is a crime film that also has the sub-genre of gangster. Even though it does not dramatize a social statement on a need for change, Scarface fits into the crime/gangster genre because it distinctly characterizes the severe bloodshed and assaults that are customary in the world of organized crime and demonstrates the calamity of the gangster lifestyle; however, oddly enough with the way the murders occurred it also fits into the horror film genre as well.
For starters, there are so many different genres I do not have enough fingers to count them all.My favorite genres are romance, horror, and action packed adventurers so now you know mine what are you favorite