Genre: An Introduction to History, Theory, Research, and Pedagogy

By Anis S. Bawarshi and Mary Jo Reiff

Cover Genre: An Introduction to History, Theory, Research, and Pedagogy provides a critical overview of the rich body of scholarship that has informed a "genre turn" in Rhetoric and Composition, including a range of interdisciplinary perspectives from rhetorical theory, applied linguistics, sociology, philosophy, cognitive psychology, and literary theory. The book presents an historical overview of genre; describes key issues and theories that have led to the reconceptualization of genre over the last thirty years; examines current research and lines of development in the study of genre; provides examples of various methodologies for conducting genre research; and explores the possibilities and implications for using genre to teach writing at various levels and within different disciplines. While the book examines various traditions that have shaped the field's understanding of and approaches to genre, what connects these various approaches is a commitment to the idea that genres reflect and coordinate social ways of knowing and acting in the world and thus provide valuable means of researching how texts function in various contexts and teaching students how to act meaningfully in multiple contexts.

About the Authors

Anis S. Bawarshi is Associate professor of English and Director of the Expository Writing Program at the University of Washington and author of Genre and the Invention of the Writer: Reconsidering the Place of Invention in Composition (2003); Scenes of Writing: Strategies for Composing with Genres (2004; with Amy Devitt and Mary Jo Reiff); A Closer Look: A Writer's Reader (2003; with Sidney I. Dobrin)

Mary Jo Reiff is Associate Professor of English at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and author of Approaches to Audience: An Overview of the Major Perspectives (2004), co-author (with Amy Devitt and Anis Bawarshi) of Scenes of Writing: Strategies for Composing with Genres (2004), and co-editor (with Kirsten Benson) of Rhetoric of Inquiry (2009).

Open the entire book: 1.5 Mb

Front Matter and Table of Contents (68K)

Series Editor's Preface (47K)

Acknowledgements (35K)

1. Introduction and Overview (72K)

2. Genre in Literary Traditions (118K)

3. Genre in Linguistic Traditions: Systemic Functional and Corpus Linguistics (108K)

4. Genre in Linguistic Traditions: English for Specific Purposes (104K)

5. Genre in Rhetorical and Sociological Traditions (124K)

6. Rhetorical Genre Studies (181K)

7. Genre Research in Academic Contexts (141K)

8. Genre Research in Workplace and Professional Contexts (119K)