The Problem of Speech Genres

 Class notes -
This is development of discourse communties
(Swales - discourse and societies)
Werstch - what is unique and universal

class notes:
 p. 60
what the course is about - genres

78
are they equal? no - choice of speech genre (we make choices)

material form - speech? writing? - affordance/ constraint? - what is the material form?




 from Wikipedia
"The Problem of Speech Genres" deals with the difference between Saussurean linguistics and language as a living dialogue (translinguistics). In a relatively short space, this essay takes up a topic about which Bakhtin had planned to write a book, making the essay a rather dense and complex read. It is here that Bakhtin distinguishes between literary and everyday language. According to Bakhtin, genres exist not merely in language, but rather in communication. In dealing with genres, Bakhtin indicates that they have been studied only within the realm of rhetoric and literature, but each discipline draws largely on genres that exist outside both rhetoric and literature. These extraliterary genres have remained largely unexplored. Bakhtin makes the distinction between primary genres and secondary genres, whereby primary genres legislate those words, phrases, and expressions that are acceptable in everyday life, and secondary genres are characterized by various types of text such as legal, scientific, etc.^[33]

Class notes - definitions

From notes last spring:
Bakhtin Speech Genre

121

“Language is realized in the form of

individual concrete utterances (oral and written) by participants in the various

areas of human activity. These utterances reflect the specific conditions and

goals of each such area not only through their content (thematic) and linguistic

style, that is, the selection of the lexical, phraseological, and grammatical

resources of the language, but above all through their compositional structure.

All three of these aspects- thematic content, style, and compositional

structure are inseparably linked to the whole of the utterance and are equally

determined by the specific nature of the particular sphere of communication.”

“The wealth and diversity of speech genres are boundless because the

various possibilities of human activity are inexhaustible, and because each

sphere of activity contains an entire repertoire of speech genres that differentiate

and grow as the particular sphere develops and becomes more

complex”

122

Difficulty of speech genre:

“One might think that

such fum:tional heterogeneity makes the common features of speech genres

excessively abstract and empty. This probably explains why the general

problem of speech genres has never really been raised.”

Why we should focus on speech genres:

“A clear idea of the nature of the utterance in general and of the

peculiarities of the various types of utterances (primary and secondary), that

is, of various speech genres, is necessary, we think, for research in any special

area. To ignore the nature of the utterance or to fail to consider the peculiarities

of generic subcategories of speech in any area of linguistic study leads

to perfunctoriness .md excessive abstractness, distorts the historicity of the

research, and weakens the link between language and life.”

Act of language – how does that fit in with signs we were discussing?

Individuality – speech – can genres of speech not lend itself to individuality (what does individuality mean here?)

“therethe

individuality of the speaker (or writer); that is, it possesses

individual style. But not all genres are equally conducive to reflecting the

individuality of the speaker in the language of the utterance, that is, to an

individu,ll style.”

123

literary vs. the standard form

“In the vast majority

of speech genres (except for literary-artistic ones), the individual style does

not enter into the intent of the utterance, docs not serve as its only goal,

but is, as it were, an epiphenomenon of the utterance, one of its

products. Various genres can reveal various layers and facets of the individual

personality, and individual style can be fouml in various interrelations with

the  national language. The very problem of the national and the individual

in language is  basic.1lly the problem of the utterance”

“to a historical explanation of these changes,

one must develop a special history of  speech genres (and not only secondary,

but also primary ones) that reflects more directly, clearly, and flexibly

all the changes taking place in social life. Utterances and their types, that is,

speech genres, are the drive bdts from the history of society to the history

of lauguage. There is not a single new pheomenon (phonetic, lexical, or

grammatical) that can enter th,; system of language without having traversed

the long and complicated path of generic' stylistic testing and modification.

Slang through time

124

critique – Saussure’s graphic –schematic

link to social implications – readings from last week

“Moreover, any speaker is himself a respondent to a greater or lesser

degree. He is not, after all, the first speaker, the one who disturbs the eternal

silence of the uniYerse. And he presupposes not only the existence of the

language system he is using, but also the existence of preceding utterances

his own and others' - with which his given utterance enters into one kind

of relation or another (builds on them, polemicizes with them, or simply

presumes that they arc alreatly known to the listener). Any utterance is a

link in a very complexly organized chain of other utterances.”

125

utterances – concrete beginning & end – utterance as “real unit”

dialogue – classic form of speech communication – BUT REJOINDERS RELATED TO EACH OTHER!

“These specific relationships among rejoinders in a dialogue are only subcatergories of specific relations among whole utterances in the process of speech communication” Theater.

“Relationships among whole utterances  cannot be treated grammatically since, we repeat, such relations are impossible among units of language, and not only in the system of language, but in the utterance as well”

126

“Science”

“while retaining their external clarity, acquire here a special internal

aspect because the speaking subject - in this case, the author of the work

manifests his own individuality in his style, his world-view, and in all aspects

of the design of his work. This imprint of indi~ality marking the work

also creates special internal boundaries that distinguish this work from other

works connected with it in the overall processes of speech communication

in that particular cultural sphere: from the works of predecessors on whom

the author relies, from other works of the same school, from the works of

opposing schools with which the author is contending, and so on.”

…

“The work, like the rejoinder in dialogue, is oriented toward the response

of the other (others), toward his active responsive understanding, which can

assume various forms: educational influence on the readers, persuasion of

them, critical responses, influence on followers and successors, and so on.”

“The speaker's speech will is manifested primarily in the choice cJ a particular

speech genre. This choice is determined by the specific nature of the given

sphere of speech communication, semantic (thematic) considerations, the

concrete situation of the speech communication, the personal composition

of its participants, aml so on. And when the speaker's speech plan with all

its individuality and subjectivity is applied and adapted to a chosen genre, it

is shaped and developed within a certain generic form.”

“we speak in

di\erse genres \Vithout suspecting that they exist. Even in the most free, the

1:10st unconstrained conversation, we cast our speech in definite generic

lorms, sometimes rigid and trite ones, sometimes more flexible, plastic creative ones”

127

“We assimilate forms of

language only in forms of utterances and in conjunction with these forms.

The forms of language and the typical forms of utterances, that is, speech

genres, enter our experience and our consciousness together, and in close

connection with one another.” (Again, looking at treatment of environment – Genre

Speech and action!! (policy)

Engelder and Ingraffea

“Speech genres organize our speech

in almost the same way as grammatical (syntactical) forms do.”

Diversified speech genres – many ways to utter a greeting

“for example, the generic form of greeting can move from the

official sphere into the sphere of familiar communication, that is, it can be

used with parodic-ironic re-accentuation”

128

Fascinating!!!!

“But to use a genre freely

and creatively is not the same as to create a genre from the beginning; genres

must be fully mastered in order to be manipulated freely.”

“Any utterance is a link in the chain of speech conuuunion. It is the active

position of the speaker in one referentially semantic sphere or another.

Therc.fore, each utterance is characterized primarily by a particular referentially

semantic content.”

No neutral utterance

129

speech genre – way of utterance – expression

speech – rearticulation

word is expressive…but this expression does not inherent in the word itself. It originates at the point of contact between the word and actual reality, under the conditions of that real situation articulated by the individual utterance”

130

Our speech is filled with others’ speech – “varying degree of otherness”

Utterances – responses to construction of utterance
131
" Any utterance, when it is studied in greater depth under the concrete
conditions of speech communication, reveals to us many half-concealed or
completely concealed words of others with varying degrees of foreignness."