The Definition and Categorization of Genre

This chapter comes to grips with the working definition of genre. The history and concepts of genre that will not be treated are discussed. Genre – the same as authorship – changes over time. The concentration here is not on the purpose or form of genre but on its measurable stylistic traits – although some examples of form are given. A hierarchical tree model and the closeness of some genres are shown. The problem of a transcribed speech or a text that was written to be delivered orally is gone over. The importance of the changing concept of genre in the eighteenth century is discussed. The statement is made that the discussion of genre in this monograph is descriptive and not prescriptive. The concept of tagging all input data (e.g., the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI)) is introduced. Examples are given to show that genres are not monolithic. The difficulty of separating fiction from non-fiction is discussed. Douglas Biber’s contributions and importance to the linguistic, stylistic, and statistical study of genre is emphasized. An attempt is made to disentangle genre and register. DocuScope is introduced. The place of Information Retrieval in the study of genre is situated. The problem of cross-domain and cross-topic considerations is shown to be important.