G is for Genre

Definition 

Genre ( /ˈʒɑːnrə/ or /ˈdʒɑːnrə/; from French, genre French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃ʁ], “kind” or “sort”, from Latin: genus (stem gener-), Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time as new genres are invented and the use of old ones are discontinued. Often, works fit into multiple genres by way of borrowing and recombining these conventions.

from Wikipedia; also follow this Wikipedia link for a list of literary genres

Thinking Task

Watch this video of Peter Sellers and think about the features of the genre he is delivering.  How exactly has he achieved his intended effect?

Comments 

Peter Sellers delivers the words of the famous Beatles song “A Hard Day’s Night” in the same manner that a Shakesperean actor would deliver a monologue from Richard III – he is not only dressed and surrounded by the props which we associate with William Shakespeare’s Richard III but his spoken style of delivery imitates the spoken features of this particular theatrical genre.

The effect is intended to be hilarious and for the writer of these lines, it is, though not everyone laughs at the same jokes!

Is he insinuating that the manner of delivery may sometimes assign some kind of aura to the words that they might otherwise not have? I am not certain but what he has created is a wonderful starter for discussions on the notion of genre.

Peter Sellers is flouting Grice’s conversational maxim of manner in the deliberate way that artists do in order to generate thought or to create a comical effect. If you consider the various literary devices – metaphors, similes, personifications, hyperboles and more – they all flout one or another of the Gricean maxims.

A brief summary of the principle of cooperation and its four maxims will be linked  here soon so watch this space for more.

Genre Analysis and Language Teaching

Teaching English language learners about the different genres and their characteristics is considered quite important, especially at higher levels or even if they are required to understand or produce specific text types for work or in their academic life.

The question of how many different genres there are doesn’t have one definitive answer. The number of genres depends heavily on:

• The field you’re referring to: Literature, music, film, video games, etc., all have their own systems of genre classification.
• The level of detail: Do you count broad categories or very specific subgenres? For example, “fiction” is a broad genre, but it contains many subgenres like “fantasy,” “science fiction,” “mystery,” “romance,” and many more.These subgenres can be further divided (e.g., “high fantasy,” “urban fantasy,” “paranormal romance”). 
• Who is doing the classifying: Different organizations, scholars, and even online retailers (like Amazon) have their own ways of categorizing genres, leading to varying numbers.

Some further reading on Genre Analysis

There are quire a few books on this subject on Google Books – a selection of titles can be found here