More literature on genre analysis

[Randy Popken]

Mr. Rahm:

Thanks for your response with some further information on your own research.
When you finish your PhD, what are the prospects for university teaching in
Sweden?

I am a professor here at Tarleton State University, one of the satellite
schools of the Texas A&M System.  It's a "teaching institution," which means
that we don't really get paid to do research, but I've been working on genre
(and other aspects of discourse theory) for several years.  Specifically,
I've been interested in how genres are acquired.

For the most part, the European tradition(s) of discourse analysis aren't
taught in American graduate schools.  Fortunately, I had two professors at
the University of Kansas who had studied and taught at Michigan.  Both
considered themselves sociolinguists, but they were (this was the 1980s)
trying to make connections from the work of people like Dell Hymes and
William Labov to composition studies.

Ultimately, they moved into Firth, the Prague School, and then to Halliday.
It was from this basis that I got interested in discourse analysis and to
its application to the teaching of writing.  I've published some stuff on
genre from a number of angles, but, quite frankly, I can't ever get much of
an audience.  In fact, when I give a conference paper on genre, people
usually sort of scratch their heads and say to themselves, "well, that's
nice.  But let's talk about literature.  Or, better yet, let's talk about
race and culture."  They don't ever seem to put it together that what I'm
talking about has implications for race, culture, gender, literature, and a
lot of other topics that are important to Americans in English Departments.

Anyway, I very much appreciate what is going on in European text linguistics
and genre theory.  This winter I read Anna Duszak's book on genre and
contrastive rhetoric, and I've also been reading a book on a similar topic
by Anna Mauranen.  I look forward to reading more.  If you can think of
other works (besides those on your list) that I might look at, I'd
appreciate it very much. I'll be sure to email the people you listed to see
if I can get their papers.

Best wishes,


Randall Popken
Box T-0300
Tarleton State University
Stephenville, Texas 76402


PS.  My great grandmother was Swedish.  I grew up in a German/Swedish
Lutheran community in Nebraska.  My best friends are Johnsons, Nielsens, and
Olsons.
















At 10:00 AM 5/3/01 +0200, you wrote:
>A good theoretical point of departure would be:
>
>Bachtin, Michail (1986): Speech genres and other late essays. Austin:
>University of Texas Press.
>
>Partly inspired by Bakhtin, however introducing a theory for
>explaining how changes in society influence text changes and vice
>versa:
>
>Fairclough, Norman (1992): Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press
>
>Genre specific texts:
>
>Hauptmeier, Helmut (1987): Sketches of theories of genre. In: Poetics 16
>
>Jansson, Rowena (2000): Getting it Together.A genre analysis of the
>rhetorical structure of Open University television programmes in
>science and technology. (diss.) Lund University: Department of English
>
>Freedman, Aviva & Medway, Peter (ed.) (1994): Genre and the New
>Rhetoric. London: Taylor & Frances
>
>Paltridge, Brian (1997): Genres, frames and writing in research
>settings. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins
>
>Swales, John (1990): Genre analysis. English in academic and research
>settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
>
>Within the research project Non-literary prose in Sweden genres have
>been investigated. The main part of the work is in Swedish, but there
>are summaries in English. If you are interested, contact me
>(Henrik.Rahm at nordlund.lu.se).
>
>Genre regards,
>
>Henrik Rahm
>
>
>
>
>
>--
>Henrik Rahm
>Lund University
>Department of Scandinavian Languages
>Helgonabacken 14
>S-223 62 Lund
>SWEDEN
>E-mail:Henrik.Rahm at nordlund.lu.se
>Phone:+46 46 222 78 47
>Fax:+46 46 222 42 41
>