Jose Fonte
Introduce Your Genre
- Identify your tentative “underappreciated” genre (or subgenre)
Using lots of words but saying absolutely nothing
- What is interesting to you about this genre? Or, why might it be significant or otherwise worth paying attention to?
Saying a lot of words while not saying anything of substance in my opinion is an art form, as seems a lot easier than one might think, using linguistic manipulation and certain words that pop. I would mostly focus on corporate speak and politicians. Possibly people who are in a tough situation like a scandal.
- Tentatively, define/describe your corpus (collection of texts/examples)
I will mostly use videos either explain the topic or example of people saying a lot with any substance
- Provide links (and/or titles) of five samples. (Try to gather samples from more than one “place” [or type] in order to obtain a diverse and accurate representation of the genre. For now, choose samples without significant deviations).
https://www.betterworldsolutions.eu/speech-say-everything-without-saying-anything/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scSSELy0aZc
Describe the Context
- Setting: Where (in what context or medium) does the genre appear? How and when is it used? With what other genres does this genre interact? How?
Speeches, interviews, addresses
- Subject: What topics, issues, ideas, etc. are common to this genre? When people use this genre, what are they communicating about?
apologies, explanations, trying to get people on your side politically. People are usually trying to get other people to agree or support them when using this technique
- Writers: Who writes the texts in this genre? Are multiple writers possible? What roles do they perform? What characteristics must writers of this genre possess? Under what circumstances do writers write the genre (e.g., in teams, on a computer, in a rush, for their profession? for fun?)?
The writers in this sense are the speakers. For big PR situations, there can be a team that issues an apology/explantation. They must be persuasive and be able to have a goof poker face under pressure
- Readers: Who reads the texts in this genre? Is there more than one type of reader for this genre? What roles do they perform? What characteristics must readers of this genre possess? Under what circumstances do readers read the genre (e.g., at their leisure, on the run, in waiting rooms)?
The reader are the audience. The audience is very genral and can consients of supporters, opposition, or unopinionated. Readers don’t need any characteristics. There is no spefic circumstances in which reader is active
- Exigency/Purpose(s): Why do writers write this genre, and why do readers read it? What purposes does the genre fulfill for the people who use it?
Writers write it because they need to because of public outrage/opionion, or for the need of public support
“Using lots of words but saying absolutely nothing”
So… bullshit?
Your under appreciated genre is very interesting. The idea of empty promises, apologies, threats, and conversations are an art. Just thinking about this genre makes me think of academic writing, where we stretch out an idea just to meet a word or page count.