Building Genre Knowledge. Christine Tardy
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acknowledging that both are important in writing expertise. According to Carter, when writing in unfamiliar domains, novices apply global strategies to guide their performance, allowing them to acquire more local knowledge, which in turn allows them to rely less on global strategies. Thus, when expert writers encounter new tasks in their local domain, they can draw on highly-contextualized strategies.
Carter applies his global-local knowledge continuum to five stages of expertise described by Dreyfus and Dreyfus (1986). The first level is the novice stage, then “advanced beginners,” followed by “competence.” Local knowledge becomes crucial after the level of competence, and “it is only when writers work in one or more domains for a while that they begin to develop the local knowledge of that domain” (p. 282). Carter suggests that such knowledge is gained through experience in reading and writing within a local domain, as well as through guidance from teachers. He describes a cyclical process in which “as students continue to work in a domain, their knowledge becomes more local as their experience grows and their domain becomes more specific” (p. 282).
Applying expertise theory specifically to L2 writing, Cumming (1989) examines the relationship between writing expertise and second-language proficiency in an empirical study of adult ESL writers. Cumming’s main finding is that both writing expertise and second-language proficiency contribute to writing processes and products, but to different aspects of writing. The characteristics of writing expertise that Cumming outlines for second language (L2) writers reflect characteristics of expert writers performing in their first language, such as the use of heuristics in problem-solving. An additional important finding in Cumming’s research is that L2 writers seem to improve their writing performance as their language proficiency increases. However, increased proficiency may not affect qualitative changes in the writers’ processes of thinking or decision-making as they compose. Cumming concludes that writing expertise may be an intelligence that is separate from L2 proficiency, employing cognitive skills that are applicable across languages rather than being specific to a first or second language.
These theories of expertise have illuminated an understanding of writing performance as encompassing a range of interacting domains. It appears that expert writers draw on strategies at various levels as well as domain-specific experience in their problem-solving process. While Cumming’s work suggests that expertise may not be a language-specific skill, there remain questions as to how language proficiency and expertise may interact in domain-specific writing tasks.
Genre Knowledge
In order to communicate actively, appropriately, and successfully within a specific domain or disciplinary discourse community—that is, to communicate as an expert—writers must develop2 genre knowledge. At the outset, I need to emphasize that I see genre knowledge as related but not identical to general second language (or even first language) writing skills. In a thorough and thoughtful exploration of the construct of writing, Grabe (2000) lays the groundwork for moving toward a theory of second language writing. He argues that a useful starting point for theory building is to generate a taxonomy of research on aspects of writing, or “conditions on learning to write” (Grabe, 2000, p. 52). Along with categories like knowing the language, processing factors, and social context, Grabe lists “discourse, genre, and register knowledge” as one category that needs to be fully researched in order to gain a more complete picture of L2 writing. Exploring this category is the goal of this book; the first hurdle is to define the construct of genre knowledge.
On the most salient level, genre knowledge is an understanding of text form, including elements like text organization, disciplinary terminology, or citation practices (Beaufort, 1999). But genre knowledge extends beyond form to less visible knowledge such as an understanding of a discourse community’s ideologies and discursive practices, or even domain-specific content knowledge (Berkenkotter & Huckin, 1995; Bhatia, 1999). Knowledge of genre also requires writers to understand a text’s rhetorical timing, surprise value, or kairos, including a sense of how a text may be received at a given time within a given community. In addition, expert writers share an understanding of genre membership, knowing the in-group generic label (Johns, 1997) or recognizing prototypes or exemplars of the genre (Paltridge, 1997; Swales, 1990).
In her research of specialized writing in the workplace and disciplinary content classrooms, Beaufort (1999, 2004) has mapped the knowledge domains that constitute disciplinary writing expertise. Her model foregrounds “discourse community knowledge” as encompassing the overlapping domains of writing process knowledge, subject matter knowledge, rhetorical knowledge, and genre knowledge. Another model of disciplinary writing is proposed by Jolliffe and Brier (1988), who describe writer’s knowledge in academic disciplines as composed of knowledge of discourse community; subject matter and methods of investigating subject matter; organization, arrangement, form, and genre; and ways of speaking. These components correspond roughly to four of the five canons of rhetoric: audience, invention, arrangement, and style, respectively. Both of these models are intended to describe disciplinary writing knowledge, of which genre is considered one element. In these models, genre knowledge itself is represented as essentially textual knowledge that intermingles with knowledge of discourse community, rhetoric, subject matter, and writing processes. Both models aptly situate genre knowledge as embedded within broader knowledge of disciplinary discourse, but if we adopt a fully rhetorical view of genre, genre knowledge (as a category) must represent more than form.
Because of my interest in the learning and teaching of specialized genres, I focus here specifically on defining and theorizing genre knowledge. In the model I offer, genre knowledge cannot exist separately from formal, process, rhetorical, or subject-matter knowledge; instead, it is a confluence of these four dimensions. Drawing on my earlier discussion of genre theory, I see genres as social actions that are used within specialized communities; that contain traces of prior texts in their shape, content, and ideology; and that are networked with other genres in various ways that influence their production and reception. Taking this definition, expert genre knowledge must contain knowledge in all of these areas. While the architecture of this model implies distinct knowledge domains, it is important to stress that the boundaries here merely serve a heuristic purpose. Rather than representing any kind of epistemic reality, they provide a framework for understanding the writers’ knowledge at different points in time and the ways in which various practices influence knowledge development.
I use the term formal knowledge to refer to the more structural elements of genre—the genre’s prototypical form(s), discourse or lexico-grammatical conventions of the genre, the contents or structural moves that are common to the genre, and the various modes and media through which the genre may be communicated. This knowledge focuses on the textual instantiation of the genre, in either oral or written form. Knowledge of a genre’s contents or modality is used here to refer to a relatively “arhetorical” understanding based primarily on knowledge of conventionalized form rather than a focus on the rhetorical context. Formal knowledge also includes knowledge of linguistic code—an issue that is of special relevance to those writing in their second language or dialect.
Process knowledge refers to all of the procedural practices associated with the genre—that is, how a genre is carried out. Such knowledge would encompass the process(es) that users of the genre go through in order to complete their intended action, such as the oral interactions that might facilitate effective reception of a genre or the actual composing processes that aid the writer in text completion. Process knowledge also encompasses an understanding of the distribution of the genre to its audience and the reading practices of the receivers of the genre. Finally, process knowledge includes knowledge of the larger genre network and a grasp of how the networked genres work together in chains, sets, or systems.
Both formal knowledge and process knowledge have great potential to overlap with rhetorical knowledge, which captures an understanding of the genre’s intended purposes and an awareness of the dynamics of persuasion within a sociorhetorical context. Writers need, for example, a sense of what the genre is intended to do within a local context and how power is distributed within that context. They also need to anticipate the readers of the genre, in terms of their purposes for reading the text, their expectations for the text, and their values that may influence their reception of the text. Rhetorical knowledge further includes the writer’s understanding of his or her own positioning vis-à-vis the context