Cinnabar and Alabaster

basically: he spends a long time reconstructing the evolution of the distinctions genre theory makes in order to conclude the above.
133. old field texts--Sapir, for example, who writes that "the arrangement of the texts [being studied] under the heads of [their placement categories] is self-explanatory and need not be commented on"--gloss over these distinctions miss stuff.
135. in Boas--his "repeated insistence on how 'perfectly clear in the mind of the Indian' is the distinction between myths and historical tales" shows that he "apparently...did not encounter--or chose to disregard--instances in which his consultants saw particular narratives as generic hybrids or as categorically ambiguous" (oversimplifies linguistic complexity)
138. "genre occurs...[within a] matrix of longer discourse, or of nonverbal behavior" (which is "the province of anthropology")
139. in examining a community & classifying its genres, part of the challenge is that not everything fits: "the task becomes one of discovering what portion of the speech economy is generically organized, what portion escapes generic regimentation, and why" (hence a "rigorously taxonomic classificatory perspective on genre" is "limit[ing]")
140-1. "in establishing the place of genre in the conceptual repertoire of the ethnography of speaking, one important task has been to articulate the relationship between genre and other core concepts and units of analysis, such as speech act, speech event, and speech style"; "genre styles...are constellations of co-occurrent formal elements and structures that define or characterize particular classes of utterances"
142-3. hanks in 1987 "conceives of genre as an orienting framework for the production and reception of discourse," "defines genre as 'the historically specific conventions and ideals according to which authors...compose discourse and audiences receive it....and sets of expectations that are not part of discourse structure, but of the ways actors relate to and use language'"
147. "genre cannot fruitfully characterized as a facet of the immanent properties of particular texts or performances. like reported speech, genre is quintessentailly intertextual. when discourse is linked to a particular genre, the process by which it is produced and received is mediated through its relationship with prior discourse"; "the creation of intertextual relationships through genre simultaneously renders texts ordered, unified, and bounded, on the one hand, and fragmented, heterogeneous, and open-ended, on the other"; when genre is "viewed synchronically," "the invocation of genre thus provides a textual model for creating cohesion and coherence"--tells us what to expect. when viewed diachronically "invoking a genre...creates indexical connections that extend far beyond the present setting of production of reception, thereby linking a particular act to other times, places, and persons"
151. "although genres tend to be linked to particular sets of strategies for manipulating intertextual gaps, it is clearly not the case that selection of a particular genre dictates the manner in which this process will be carried out"
156-8. there are many factors influencing the variability in genre's impact on communicative action & classification; one "with respect to the degree to which generic relations create order, unity, and boundedness lies in the fact that all genres are not created equal--or, more accurately, equally empowered--in terms of their ability to structure discourse."
158. a cautionary note: "naturalizing the connections between genre, gender, and emotional experience can in turn rationalize the subordinate status of particular social groups or categories of persons"; "on the other hand, individuals who enjoy less social power due to gender, age, race, or other characteristics may draw on particular genres in expressing the injustice of their situation or in attempting to gain a more active role in social and political processes"
159. the point: "generic intertextuality cannot be adequately understood in terms of formal and functional patterning alone--questions of ideology, political economy, and power must be addressed as well if we are to grasp the nature of intertextual relations"
161. "the association of genre with order" needs to remain spotlit.
162. "ethnographers can be easily misled as to the types of generic intertexuality that their 'informants' are using in framing their discourse. as in other types of discourse production and reception, what is negotiated is not just what types of intertexual links are being established, but who gets to control this process; race, class, gender, status, institutional position, and postcolonial social structures in general affect the production and reception of intertextual relations in fieldwork"
164. "ethnographically based studies often portray the situated use of ethnic genres as a process of applying relatively stable, internally consistent, mutually exclusive, and well-defined categories in the production and reception of texts. in representing such an orderly process, scholars run the risk of doubly mystifying the problem by failing to discern the ideologies and power arrangements that underlie local impositions of generic order as well as by covering up their own rhetorical use of genres in ordering ethnographic data"