Cinnabar and Alabaster

2 33-4. genres are inherently social because: "genres require multiplicity, multiple actions by multiple people"--more than two, "acting repeatedly, thus creating the perception of recurrence" that "comes from socially developed understandings of situations"; "genre analyses in the past have sometimes been primarily situations...and insufficiently cultural. because genres operate within society, they are enmeshed in the complex relationships that are society, including such issues as power differentials and ideological identities"

36-9. Swales on genre & discourse community: his analysis is both useful & flawed; Harris's city metaphor may work better b/c it "reveal[s] the diversity of membership, among other things"--d says "the concept of discourse community privileges discourse above other group activities, motives, and purposes; and it disguises social collectivity that shapes the very nature of the group and of its discourse (and its genres). as a result, it emphasizes too heavily the role of discourse in constructing groups and not enough the role of groups in constructing discourse"

42-4. Swales on groups: "[h]uman beings are not chameleons" & "participation in some groups is more significant for constructing people's identity than participation in other groups"--but we do move among them with mutable identity; definitions: communities = "groups of people who share substantial amonts of time together in common endeavors"; collectives = "groups form[ed] around a single repeated interest, without the frequency or intensity of contact of a community"; networks = loosely linked groups of people with limited contact (kevin bacon!)

48. metaphors: to define "genre as the routinzied use of tools" removes it from social action & equates it w/form, but arguing that "genre is a common way of using tools rather than the tools itself" makes it an attribute of an activity system rather than something humans choose/do--gives genre an agency that "magnif[ies] its force too much" in making it independent of human action--"it is instead the nature of genre both to be created by people and to influence people's actions...to be both-and"

51. "functions are not simple nor usually singular," "are ideological as well as practical," & "generic functions must not be confused with discourse modes or aims, which attempt to reduce the complexity of all discourse to single characteristics. instead, generic functions must remain complex and multiple and socially embedded" (they don't just "take care of business")

56-7. genres don't work in isolation but in sets, "systems" = sets codified by "interacting to achieve an overarching function within an activity system", & "repertoires" = "the set of genres that a group owns, acting through which a group achieves all of its purposes"

58. other possible categories: "overlapping genres," "super-genres" and "metagenres"

63-4. "six principles of the social nature of genre"
1. "genres usually develop through the actions of many people, in groups"
2. "genre is a human construct, not a material tool or an agent"
3. "genres function for groups" multiply & ideologically, not just situationally
4. genres "reveal" their "social functions with characteristic discourse features" but a complete catalogue or matching is impossible
5. "a group usually operates through a set of genres to achieve the group's purposes" & those genres have many different relationships
6. "a genre reflects, constructs, and reinforces the values, epistemology, and power relationships of the group from which it developed and for which it functions"

8 214. the magic word is *both*: "by definition, genres are both form and context, and they both shape and are shaped by contexts of situation, culture, and other genres. socially, genres reflect and reinforce the group but are acted individually. historically, genres require both cultural support and individual action in order to change, and they require both stability and flexibility in order to endure"

216-17. Bawarshi's critique of LeFevre for leaving genre out of her inspection of the social nature of invention

218. proposition: "school genres may serve as antecedent genres for more complex genres learned later," & if antecedent genres play the "role" she suspects "in individuals' learning to write new genres, then perhaps all writing is rewriting"; things we need to learn more about--> "the distinction between acceptable variation and unacceptable violation of a genre": "how does a group sanction or reject variations?" | "some genres admit more creative choice than others. which ones, and why?" | "what marks the difference between effective and ineffective variation?" | "who starts a new genre and how?"