Translating for Readers - The Challenges and Opportunities of Genre and Expectation

THE CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES OF GENRE AND EXPECTATION

88054:

Translating for readers

Literary

Dr Sarah Maitland

www.facebook.com/transcast

GENRE?

• Poem

• Novel

• Drama

• Short story

• Novella

• What else?

• Drama

• Romance

• Satire

• Thriller

• Coming-of-age/Hero’s Journey

• Tragedy

• Comedy

• What else?

• Biography

• Autobiography

• Essay

• Speech

• What else?

• Quality?

• Plot? Style? Tone?

• Intention?

• Audience?

• Fitting the expected norms of a genre vs. some ‘higher’ purpose?

GENRE?

“A number of perennial doubts plague genre theory. Are genres really 'out there' in the world, or are they merely the constructions of analysts? Is there a finite taxonomy of genres or are they in principle infinite? Are genres timeless Platonic essences or ephemeral, time-bound entities? Are genres culturebound or transcultural?... Should genre analysis be descriptive or proscriptive?” (Stam 2000:14)

A genre is known by the meanings associated with it. In fact the term "genre" is a short form for the more elaborate phrase "genre-specific semantic potential" … Genres can vary in delicacy in the same way as contexts can. But for some given texts to belong to one specific genre, their structure should be some possible realisation of a given GSP Generic Structure Potential [...] texts belonging to the same genre can vary in their structure; the one respect in which they cannot vary without consequence to their genre-allocation is the obligatory elements and dispositions of the GSP. (Halliday & Hasan, 1985:108)

Genre categories are determined on the basis of external criteria relating to the speaker's purpose and topic; they are assigned on the basis of use rather than on the basis of form.

(Biber, 1988:170)

Genre as "staged, goal-oriented social processes"

(Martin, Christie, & Rothery, 1987)

A"message type that recurs regularly in a community" (Ferguson, 1994:21)

• Does genre have a significance to writers?

• Can writing be marketed without genre?

• Can writing me evaluateed without genre?

• Does genre impede fair evaluation?

• Does genre impede open-mindedness

• “Readers also bought...” “If you like this, try...”

Classification of genre “seems at times to be heading in the direction of a new formalism, where the 'correct' way to write is presented to students in the form of generic models and exegeses of schematic structure.” (Kress, 1993:12)

“There is a problem in using such a term with a meaning that is relatively uncontrollable. In literary theory, the term has been used with relative stability to describe formal features of a text - epitaph, novel, sonnet, epic - although at times content has been used to provide a name, [e.g.] epithalamion, nocturnal, alba. In screen studies, as in cultural studies, labels have described both form and content, and at times other factors, such as aspects of production. Usually the more prominent aspect of the text has provided the name. Hence "film noir"; "western" or "spaghetti western" or "psychological" or "Vietnam western"; "sci-fi"; "romance"; or "Hollywood musical"; and similarly with more popular print media.

(Kress, 1993:31-2)

THE CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES OF GENRE AND EXPECTATION

88054:

Translating for readers

Literary