Response To: Genre Theory by Deborah Dean

This reading was hard for me because I never thought genres were that complex. I always thought a genre was the type of book you were reading like science fiction, non-fiction, or a biography. I really thought it was interesting once I read further.
Dean first starts off telling us what a genre is, which helped me because I wasn't clear on what they were. She tells us that genres are not about literary texts anymore but instead genre can have a social aspect. Imagine how you talk around your friends then imagine how you talk to your employer. The different ways you talk are different genres of social interaction. Dean also says that Genres are more than forms. You can't define a genre because there are so many different aspects that contribute to a genre. Genres are also not fixed, Dean states. A genre can be change by a certain event. For example, the communication between spouses would be different after one lies or cheats on the other.
Then Dean goes on to characterize genres so it can be easier to understand what a genre is. The characterizations of genres are social, rhetorical, dynamic, historical, cultural, situational, and ideological. Genre can be social because you talk to certain people different ways like I mentioned before. Genres can also be rhetorical because they establish and enforce relationships. A leader has to talk like a leader to assert himself as the leader. If a leader talked with a tone of a friend or a follower then his followers will feel like he's not a very good leader. The common change in genres makes it easy to understand that genres can be dynamic. Also history can effect a genre. If your friend has often lied to you, that history is going to affect your genre of communicating with him. Culture has a huge effect on your genre. Many cultures have different ways of communicating and they definitely speak and write with a genre unique to there culture. For example, many languages have different contexts they speak in so learning a new language can be difficult cause it may have different genres than your first language. Genres can also be varied on the situation your in. Imagine going to your friends birthday party and talking with the people there, would you act the same way at a classy charity event? Finally genres vary highly on your ideas. A democratic politician would have a completely different genre than a dictator. They both have different ideas and they will communicate differently because of these ideas.
 After all that Dean goes on to explain the genre theories. The theories are about how genres are constructed. There are three different theories how genres should be developed and they are genres as text, genres as rhetoric, and genres as practice. The genres as text theorist look directly at the genre and what makes it that genre. Theorist who choose the genre as rhetoric look what effected the genres and how it came to be that genre. Finally, the genres as practice examine class rooms to see how students learn their genres.
I thought this text was similar to learning what literacy's were. It was interesting and often made made think of my own genres. I thought about how my genres came to be and who influenced my genres. Dean said that this text is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to genres so I would like to learn more about the theories and how genres develop.