Genres of War: Informing a City
06 Feb 2015-Vol. 11
TL;DR: This chapter presents a case study of the communication of information in Copenhagen during the siege in 1807 to investigate how information was formed by different genres and how these genres relate to different genre systems.
Abstract: Purpose
This chapter presents a case study of the communication of information in Copenhagen during the siege in 1807. The purpose of this chapter is to investigate how information was formed by different genres and how these genres relate to different genre systems. Finally, a purpose of this chapter is to shed light over how information from different genre systems merged into an information network mainly found on the streets and squares of Copenhagen.
Findings
This chapter has not aimed at generalized findings. If any findings should be recounted it would be that the chapter has mapped how, for example, a specific genre as the proclamation was shaped by different genre systems and directed its readers to a desired field of actions. Those actions depended on the specific purposes of the proclamations.
Originality/value
A traditional focus on the siege has been political and military issues. Lately, research has focused on a cultural approach within the frames of urban history. This chapter contributes to this cultural approach by investigating the informational aspects from a genre perspective.
Citations
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Journal Article•
TL;DR: Text genres used by so-called information organizers in the processes of information organization in information systems were explored, and the case of the Polish union catalogue database helped to present temporo-spatial dependencies appearing in the regulated genre system.
Abstract: Introduction. Text genres used by so-called information organizers in the processes of information organization in information systems were explored in this research.
Method. The research employed text genre socio-functional analysis. Five genre groups in information organization were distinguished. Every genre group used in information
organization is described. Empirical evidence for genre group two was obtained through specific analysis of genres used by cataloguers cooperating within the Polish union catalogue. Analysis. A qualitative genre analysis concerning the choice and description of five groups of genres most important for information organization was carried out. Most attention was paid to the second group of text genres, consisting of vocabularies and rules used in cataloguing.
Results. The text genre system used in information organization and showing the roles of any specified text genre group is described. The case of the Polish union catalogue database helped to present temporo-spatial dependencies appearing in the regulated genre system.
Conclusions. Information organization involves the creation of representations of published texts with a variety of text tools. The creation of these texts and their use (reading) results in individual knowledge reorganization (modification) of all people involved in these processes, that is both writers (including authors of vocabularies, cataloguing rules and bibliographic records) and readers.
5 citations
Cites background from "Genres of War: Informing a City"
...This activity is always conducted in relation to another society member in the specific context of place and time (Skouvig, 2015, p. 136)....
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Journal Article•
TL;DR: The purpose is to present library OPAC as a communication genre in its mutability based on the idea of OPAC development as a transition to subsequent OPAC generations.
Abstract: The purpose is to present library OPAC as a communication genre in its mutability. The paper is based on the idea of OPAC development as a transition to subsequent OPAC generations. Every generation, in the light of genre theory, can be treated as a subgenre with its own communication purpose. As such, it is subject to transformations caused by information technology development. OPAC development is described as an electronic genre transition process, which allows for distinguishing eight OPAC subgenre generations. They were distinguished based on socio-historical development of the genre system and were described according to Shepherd and Watters1 genre development model. These subgenres are then subjected to genres analysis revealing their basic characteristics (purpose, form and functionality).
4 citations
TL;DR: In this paper , the authors argue for reformulating and pinpointing legitimacy and relevance as core issues characterizing information history and for drawing on theoretical input from historical disciplines such as conceptual history and microhistory.
Abstract: abstract:This article contributes to the ongoing conversation about information history. The article argues for reformulating and pinpointing legitimacy and relevance as core issues characterizing information history and for drawing on theoretical input from historical disciplines such as conceptual history and microhistory. Different notions about history reflect how the individual historian approaches information as an object for historical scrutiny that ultimately allows for multiple research strategies. Information history also deals with traditional history topics such as structures versus actors, change versus continuity, and context. The article argues for seeing information history as histories of information.
20 Jul 2017
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors suggest a genealogy of the concept of information beyond the 20th century and discuss how information culture might provide a way of formulating such a genealogic strategy.
Abstract: The purpose of this chapter is to suggest a genealogy of the concept of information beyond the 20th century. The chapter discusses how the concept of information culture might provide a way of formulating such a genealogic strategy. The chapter approaches this purpose by providing a general narrative of premodern information cultures, examining works on early-modern scholars and 18th century savants and discussion of what seems to be a Foucauldian rupture in the conceptualization of information in 19th century England. The findings of the chapter are situated in the thinking that a genealogy of information would reveal that information had specific purposes in specific settings.
20 Nov 2020
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present the possibilities of using the interdisciplinary theory of genres, developed in the study of linguistics, literary studies, rhetoric, sociology, philosophy, psychology and other disciplines, in library and information science (LIS).
Abstract: Purpose/Thesis: The article presents the possibilities of using the interdisciplinary theory of genres, developed in the study of linguistics, literary studies, rhetoric, sociology, philosophy, psychology and other disciplines, in library and information science (LIS). The article argues the application of genre theory to LIS offers a new and interesting interdisciplinary perspective.
Approach/Methods: A critical analysis of the literature on the subject introduces the basic premises of the interdisciplinary theory of text/information genres in its historical development in the world and in Poland. A similar method was used to present the most important directions genre theory opens to LIS.
Results and conclusions: Before genre theory was first applied to LIS, it was developed in disciplines such as linguistics, literature, rhetoric, communication and media, discourse analysis, sociology, pedagogy and others and in many countries on all continents (mainly in the USA, Australia, Brazil and Scandinavian countries). The theory’s success is a result of its interdisciplinary development, beginning from linguistic and classical rhetorical genres approach and problems of categorizing texts to “de facto genres” and their function in everyday communication activities (social/rhetoric approach). Applied to LIS, it frames information objects as social constructs whose meaning is constructed in social discourse, driven by genre knowledge. The library and other information systems should be treated as a social communication activity in the recurrent situation of organizing and retrieving information. It means that the work of a librarian (or other information organizers) involves rhetorical activity of creating information objects, as does the work of other information creators, e.g. authors of scholarly publications. The functioning of information system, i.e. production and organization of textual information should be investigated using methods applied in other disciplines, especially humanities and social sciences, as it allows for a broader research perspective.
Originality/Value: The article describes the possibilities of applying genre theory in LIS research, which still do not receive the attention they merit. A wider knowledge of the genre theory would make possible collaborative research involving scholars of other disciplines such as linguistics and sociology.
References
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors propose a synthesis of a number of elements from these theories, drawing most heavily on Charles Bazerman's (1994) analysis of genre as systems of speech acts within an overarching framework of Vygotskian activity theory (Leont'ev, 1981; Engestrom, 1987, 1993).
Abstract: This article attempts to expand and elaborate theories of social "context" and formal schooling, to understand the stakes involved in writing. It first sketches ways Russian activity theory in the tradition of A. N. Leont'ev may expand Bakhtinian dialogism, then elaborates the theory in terms of North American genre research, with examples drawn from research on writing in the disciplines in higher education. By tracing the relations of disciplinary genre systems to educational genre systems, through the boundary of the classroom genre system, the analyst/reformer can construct a model of the interactions of classroom practices with wider social practices. Activity theory analysis of genre systems may offer a theoretical bridge between the sociology of education and Vygotskian social psychology of classroom interaction, and contribute toward resolving the knotty problem of the relation of macro- and microstructure in literacy research based on various social theories of "context." ***** What makes one conversation more meaningful than another? For either an individual, a dyad, a collective, or even a culture? When three African American students who hope to be doctors some day sit down on one particular day to write a laboratory report in a college cell biology course, what are the stakes involved in those marks on a screen? For the students and their families and their neighborhoods and churches? For the instructor and his university and his profession of biology? For the profession of medicine and its patients and its government regulators? How can a student or teacher or researcher understand the meaningfulnessthe stakesof some (act of) writing. Vygotsky and his immediate successors did not use genre as a category of analysis. But in the last decade, a number of Vygotskian theorists have incorporated into their work various theories of genre. I will propose a synthesis of a number of elements from these theories, drawing most heavily on Charles Bazerman's (1994) analysis of genre as systems of speech acts within an overarching framework of Vygotskian activity theory (Leont'ev, 1981; Engestrom, 1987, 1993). The goal is to move toward a theory of writing useful in analyzing how students and teachers within individual classrooms use the discursive tools of classroom genres to interact (and not interact) with social practices beyond individual classroomsthose of schools, families, peers, disciplines, professions, political movements, unions, corporations, and so on. In other words, I am attempting to expand and elaborate theories of social "context" and formal schooling, to understand the stakes involved in writing. Literacy, Brandt (1990) persuasively argues, is "not the narrow ability to deal with texts but the broader ability to deal with other
684 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a map of R&D knowledge production for the US Department of Defense Observing Genres in Action: Toward a Research Methodology Genre and the Pragmatic Concept of Background Knowledge.
Abstract: Introduction: Locating Genre Studies: Antecedents and Prospects. Genre Theory: Genre as a Social Action Anyone for Tennis? Rhetorical Community: The Cultural Basis of Genre Systems of Genres and the Enactment of Social Intentions. Research into Public and Professional Genres: The Lab vs. the Clinic: Sites of Competing Genres On Definition and Rhetorical Genre A Genre Map of R & D Knowledge Production for the US Department of Defense Observing Genres in Action: Toward a Research Methodology Genre and the Pragmatic Concept of Background Knowledge. Applications in Education: "An Arousing and Fulfillment of Desires": The Rhetoric of Genre in the Process Era...and Beyond "Do as I Say": The Relationship between Teaching and Learning New Genres Traffic in Genres, In Classrooms and Out.
599 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1991
TL;DR: The role of text and action in the formation of discourse communities is discussed in this article, where a sociocognitire model of literacy is proposed for discourse communities and the operational force of texts is discussed.
Abstract: Part 1 Textual construction of the professions: how natural philosophers can co-operate, Charles Bazeman stories and styles in two molecular biology review articles, Greg Myers the rhetoric of literary criticism, Jeanne Fahnestock and Marie Secor medieval art of letter writing, Les Perelman the role of narrative structure on the transfer of ideas, Ann Harleman Stewart scientific rhetoric in the 19th and early 20th centuries, James P.Zappen. Part 2 The dynamics of discourse communities: toward a sociocognitire model of literacy, Cheryl Geisler social context and socially constructed texts, Carol Berkenkotter et al meaning attribution in ambiguous texts on sociology, Robert A.Schwegler and Linda Shamoon texts in oral context, Gail Stygall. Part 3 The operational force of texts: text and action, James Paradis understanding failures in organizational discourse, Carl G.Herndl et al creating a text - creating a company, Stephen Doheny-Farina intertextuality in tax accounting, Amy J.Devitt a psychiatrist using DSM-III, Lucille Parkinson McCarthy.
303 citations
01 Jan 2014
TL;DR: Weil and Snapper as mentioned in this paper discuss the role of genres in the development of the patent system in the UK and the U.S. and their role in the reissuance of patents to correct defects.
Abstract: ed out and in which the acts have been turned to a logical calculus, while still learning from Searle how rigorous systems of action may be realized. This understanding of the way genres structure social relations could be highly conservative in that decorum would urge repeating only the familiar, reproducing old dramas, prompting only replayings of the old songs at the familiar moments. But it can also give us the understanding to lead old hopes and expectations down familiar-seeming garden paths, but that lead to new places. Only by uncovering the pathways that guide our lives in certain directions can we begin to identify the possibilities for new turns and the consequences of taking those turns. When we are put on the spot, we must act, and in acting we must act generically if others are to understand our act and accept it as valid. Without a shared sense of genre others would not know what kind of thing we were doing. And life is mysterious enough already. I would like to thank all the participants in the Rethinking Genre conference for their discussion of this paper, and particularly John Dixon for his penetrating critique of my use of Searle in an earlier version of this paper. I would also like to thank Charles Goodwin and the students in my fall 1992 Language Theory course for helping me think through the puzzle John handed me. For outlines of the history and operations of the patent system in Britain and the U. S. see Bugbee, Davenport, Gomme, Jones, MacLeod, Vaughan, the various articles by P. J. Federico in the Journal of the Patent Office Society, and the special issue of Technology and Culture devoted to patents (32:4, October 1991). A comprehensive bibliography on patents appears in Weil and Snapper. A further feature of the patent system at that time, the reissuance of patents to correct defects created other opportunities to redefine the object being patented and the scope of the claim. Abuse arising from this opportunity to readjust patents on the basis of later knowledge about competition, workability of ideas, further developments of the product andmarketplace considerations, led to the reissue option to be removed in the middle of the nineteenth century. One can even suggest that in creating property (as all property is created by legal identification) our legal system, courts, etc serve to create the primary value of our society which allows the continuation of the life of society built on those values. In a Durkheimian sense we can see this as a sacred and sacralizing activity. See also McCarthy on the relationship between psychiatric reports and DSMIII and Blakeslee on the relationship between Physical Review and Physical Review Letters.
253 citations
DOI•
08 Dec 2003
TL;DR: In this article, the authors propose a set of conceptual and analytic tools for viewing the work that texts do in society, including the conditions under which they accomplish this work and the regularity of texts in carrying out recognizably similar tasks.
Abstract: Part I of this book provides conceptual and analytic tools to show how texts
evoke worlds of meaning by representing content and using the resources
of language, including relations with other texts, and other media, such as
graphics Part II to this point provides tools to examine how texts arise
within and influence the living world of people and events This final chapter proposes one more set of conceptual and analytic tools for viewing the
work that texts do in society This chapter provides means to identify the
conditions under which they accomplish this work; to notice the regularity
of texts in carrying out recognizably similar tasks; and to see how specific
professions, situations, and social organizations can be associated with a
limited range of text types Finally, it provides methods to analyze how the
orderly production, circulation, and use of these texts in part constitutes
the very activity and organization of social groups The analytical approach
of this chapter relies on a series of concepts: social facts, speech acts, genres, genre systems, and activity systems These concepts suggest how people using text create new realities of meaning, relation, and knowledge
156 citations