H809-4. 3 roads converged in a dusty wood

I was sitting on the shuttle on the way home as it wormed through the murderous traffic leading to the Bosphorus Bridge, reading Genre in the Classroom: Multiple Perspectives. I grabbed this book off the library shelf the other day because I am studying genre theories in my Translation Studies course and I am teaching a research paper this semester to my non-native speaker Freshmen and need to develop some lesson plans that focus on genre and text type. I wanted to see what kind of overlap I would find between the two understandings of genre. I came across these points in an article by Ann M. Johns entitled 'Destabilizing and enriching novice students' genre theories' (2002, p. 239):

1. Genres evolve and change to meet the growing and changing sociocognitive needs of discourse communities;
2. Genres evolve and develop to meet the needs of changing technology;
3. Genres evolve to adapt to changes in ideology and worldview in discourse communities;
4. Genres change as individuals take liberties with textual conventions.

(Ramanathan and Kaplan, 2000, pp. 180-83)

It would seem that all four points are relevant to the debate going on Grainne Conole's blog about the possibility of 'academic blogging' gaining formal recognition.

And thus genre analysis has neatly encircled my two courses as well as my teaching practice...more later.