Writing and Writing Instruction in Different Academic Contexts
MULTIPLE CONTEXTS AND THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF ACADEMIC WRITING: RETHINKING MILLER’S GENRE AS SOCIAL ACTION
David R. Russell
Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, USA
How do students learn to write in a new discipline? In most contexts they do so without explicit instruction. And many are successful (though not enough of course) at mastering the new genres, often within a few years. Yet we know little about this common sociocognitive process, as writing studies has focused on giving students explicitly defined “genre knowledge” or “genre moves.” Miller’s theory of genre as social action suggests an answer to this prior question of how uninstructed genre acquisition occurs: “writing without teachers.” It is based on Schutz’s concept of typification: humans respond to a repeated social situation by constructing generalizations (typifications) about what actions and motives are possible or appropriate, and develop (discursive) habits of action accordingly. Both the late Schutz and MerleauPonty, who influenced Schutz’s later concept of typification, argue that situations are the result of perception and not definition (which occurs after typification, if at all). Both call this process “harminziation” of one individual with others, and it has a bodily and affective core. Session participants will do a phenomenological exercise, in which they write about their own experience of learning a new discipline’s discourse. They will recall the ways they came to “harmonize” their discourse with that of their chosen field. The insights from this exercise can be applied to understanding how students appropriate genres and discourse tacitly, often unconsciously, from reading and listening to the discourse of a new discipline. Handouts with helps for leading students through a similar exercise will be provided.
References
Bazerman, C., 2013. A Rhetoric of Literate Action volume 2.
MerleauPonty, M. 2012. Phenomenology of Perception. Translated by Donald A. Landes. London/NY, Routledge.
Miller, C.R., 1984. Genre as social action. Quarterly Journal of Speech 70, 151–167.
Russell, D. R., 2010. Writing in multiple contexts: Vygotskian CHAT meets the phenomenology of genre. Traditions of writing research 353–364.
Schutz, A., 1950. Language, language disturbances, and the texture of consciousness. Social Research 17, 365–394.