1. By Lillianie T. Millan ENGG 630 Prof. Evelyn Lugo
Genres Criticism
By Lillianie T. Millan
ENGG 630
Prof. Evelyn Lugo

2. Objective Explain what is Genre Criticism? Identify characteristics
Describe the approaches
Talk about the potentials and pitfalls

3. Genre criticism
Genre: “a distinct group, type, class, or category of [texts] that share important characteristics that differentiate it from other groups” (Foss, 2004)

4. What is Genres? Definition from Dictionary.com: Genre (noun)
1: a kind of literary or artistic work
2: a style of expressing yourself in writing [syn: writing style, literary genre]
3: a class of artistic endeavor having a characteristic form or technique.”
Additional Explanation:
The two major categories, or genres, are fiction (about things, events, and characters that are not true) and nonfiction (about things, events, and people that are based on fact). From these two major categories, we can classify even further. For example, fiction can be divided into poetry, drama (plays), or prose. Those categories tell us something about the form of the work.

5. Knowledge of Genre
Whatever genre is, most of us appear to have a knowledge of what it is.
Even young children are receptive to it: many of them, for example, know what a tale or nursery rhyme is, even before they go to primary school.

6. Doing genre criticism
Foss identifies four steps in doing genre criticism:
Selecting a text
Analyzing the text
Formulating a research question
Writing the analysis (answering the question)

7. Some History
Genre criticism can be said to have begun with the Greek philosopher Aristotle, who mentions different genres in the first sentence of his book De Poetica (Poetics)
"Our subject being Poetry, I propose to speak not only of the art in general but also of its species and their respective capacities...Epic poetry and Tragedy, as also Comedy...are all, viewed as a whole, modes of imitation."

8. Genre Criticism Every genre has its own “rules” or procedures,
The choice of a genre reflects the intention and purpose of the author.
Knowing how a genre works can prevent misinterpretation.

9. Two fundamental approaches to genre criticism
Generic Description (inductive)
1) Identify defining characteristics
One cannot select artifacts at random to discover genres; the critic must be able to clearly define the candidate genre in order to select appropriate particular rhetorical artifacts for analysis.
Generic rhetorical criticism helps critics decide which artifacts to examine but does not prescribe how to analyze artifacts. Thus, critics using the generic approach should be familiar with several methods of rhetorical criticism and with rhetorical theory in general.
2) Identify similarities
Harrel and Linkugel write about the "organizing principles found in recurring situations that generate discourse characterized by a family of common factors" (94). The point is that the common rhetorical features that are discovered through generic description must be explained by the genre's identifying features.
3) Explain observed similarities

10. Generic Application (deductive)
The process of generic application can occur only after someone has already conceptualized a genre.
1) First, a genre must have already been described
2) Second, an artifact that is a member of the genre is identified and shown to participate in it.
3) Finally, we are ready to begin making arguments about the "new" artifact based on the claim that it is a member of the genre and how it conforms to or violates the expectations established during generic description.
**The artifact could be a generic hybrid, which means it "belongs" to two genres at once.

11. Potentials and Pitfalls
1) It is well designed for attempting to understand the nature of rhetorical practice.
2) Generic description can help rhetorical theorists and practitioners alike.
3) Generic application can help rhetorical critics understand and evaluate new examples of speeches or other forms of communication.
4) Any particular method of rhetorical criticism can be used to guide the critic's analysis of the speeches in a genre.

12. Pitfalls
1) One limitation of generic analysis is that the method lumps good messages with mediocre and bad ones. Sampling can be problematic
2) It can also be objected that generic rhetorical criticism ignores the nuances of individual rhetorical discourse. Because the critic is attempting to discover what these texts have in common, the differences are truly irrelevant. Generic application, however, can and should take particulars into account.

13. References
Coe, Richard, Lorelei Lingard, and Tatiana Teslenko, eds. The Rhetoric and Ideology of Genre: Strategies for Stability and Change. Cresskill: Hampton Press, 2002.
Fowler, Alistair. Kinds of Literature: An Introduction to the Theory of Genres and Modes. Cambridge: Harvard UP, (on the nature of literary genres and how they are formed) PN F6