Genre, Antigenre, Intergenre

Genre, Antigenre, Intergenre Jeff Rider T HE GENERIC SYSTEM of a discursive tradition is in many ways analogous to a phonological system, a genre in many ways analo­ gous to a phoneme. According to Oswald Ducrot, a phoneme is a phonic segment that (a) has a distinctive function, (b) cannot be decom­ posed into a succession of segments each having a distinctive function in turn, and (c) is defined only by those of its characteristics that have differentiating value, characteristics that phonologists call distinctive.1 A phoneme is thus a collection of distinctive traits defined in opposition to other such collections, defined as much by the traits it lacks as by those it possesses. The distinctive traits which make up a phoneme, moreover, may enter into the composition of any number of other phonemes, and a series of phonemes may have several traits in common. Each phoneme will be distinguished from every other phoneme, how­ ever, by at least one trait, although not always by the same trait. Like a phoneme, a genre may be defined “ only by those of its charac­ teristics that have differentiating value,” as a bundle of distinctive traits defined in opposition to other such bundles, thus receiving its value from its place within a generic system of oppositions. The elementary traits which make up a genre may enter into the composition of any number of other genres and a series of genres may have several traits in common. Each genre will be distinguished from every other genre by at least one trait, but no single trait will distinguish a genre from all other genres. The lay and the verse romance, for example, share a common verse form and refer to the same fictional world of the chivalric past, but the lay is dis­ tinguished from verse romance by its length, from lyric by its narrative element, from the fabliau by the type of fictional world it projects, etc. A further similarity between genres and phonemes is that neither has a material existence. It is the conceptual grasp of a language’s phono­ logical system which permits a listener to distinguish an utterance’s dis­ tinctive features from its non-distinctive ones—to recognize the elemen­ tary traits which combine to form, and simultaneously to identify, a phoneme—and, thereby, to make sense of the endless flux and variety of speech sounds. Similarly, genres are not discourses, but classes or types 18 W in t e r 1993 R ider of discourses, elements of a conceptual system. Just as no two realiza­ tions of a given phoneme will be identical, so no two realizations of a genre will be identical. Each romance, for example, is a combination of distinctive and non-distinctive features; it is the latter that make it dif­ ferent from every other romance. It is precisely the conceptual grasp of a discursive tradition’s generic system which permits a listener or reader to distinguish a discourse’s generically distinctive features from its nondistinctive ones—to recognize the elementary traits which combine to form, and simultaneously to identify, a genre—and, thereby, to situate it in that tradition. Yet a third similarity between genres and phonemes is that both are historically and culturally determined. The distinctive traits of discursive systems have not been studied in the same way or to the same degree as the distinctive traits of languages, but the number of such traits in any system must be relatively small when compared to the essentially infinite field of discursive variations. Like the distinctive traits which constitute phonemes, moreover, the distinctive traits constitutive of genres vary from one discursive tradition to another, as will the set of genres they combine to create. Traits distinctive in one discursive tradition may not be so in another; traits distinctive in a discursive tradition at one time may not be so in an earlier or later form of that same tradition. A dis­ cursive tradition’s system of genres thus evolves over time as previously non-distinctive traits become distinctive and previously distinctive traits cease to be so, creating new genres—new possible collections of distinc­ tive traits—and modifying or eliminating existing ones. Like languages, moreover...