Why is it of special importance to me? Because publishing
it is a bit of a leap of faith. I got the basic idea for the article well-nigh
a decade ago, and I always thought that is was a good idea, but I didn't really
know how to get it right. So, for several years I simply did not write it, and
once I started writing it I think I fretted over every single sentence. It did
not come easy. Several years ago I had a first, finished version. But publish
it? Aaaaagh, isn't that a bit much? I left it in my drawer for years. I took a
deep breath and showed it to Anthony Paré who is possibly the friendlies of all
genre researchers - and genre researchers are one of the friendliest groups
you'll ever meet. Alas, he is not just friendly. He is also sharper than a
razor's edge, and without being in the least negative, he left it with major
holes.
Several years of further fretting ensued.
Deep breath. I started teaching it and used it for
conference papers. There it fell into the hands of first Anne Freadman, then Ashley Rose Mehlenbacher—both masters of their
trade. After several back-and-forths - and, you guessed it, a lot more fretting
- it finally found a fairly usable form, and I submitted it to Discourse
and Writing/Rédactologie where it fell into the hands of the great Kim M.
Mitchell. And after the usual bumpy ride
through peer review. Here it is. And looking like an actual piece of research,
too.
So why did I fret?
—Well, it's a piece of pure genre theory.
Why is that frightening?
First, it means that you don't have a data set. Usually
you have a good clear test for whether you analyses are valid: If they are
supported by the data, they are valid, if not: try again. Pure theory has
examples, sure, but they can be cherry picked in so many ways, many of them
unconscious. And they are there to illustrate not to validate the theory.
Without a data set, you have both feet solidly planted in thin air. Several
times along the way, I considered adding a data set, but I never could find one
that didn't skewer the central argument. It was Pure Theory or it was nothing.
Second, there was very little done on the topic before
me. It's in Bakhtin, who is a genius, albeit sometimes a problematic one, it's
in Frow's introduction to genre studies, and he is very very good—and much
better than me. But I didn't fully agree with either, and beyond that, there
was very little to build on. Fret-worthy. So I had to try and build a theory
from precious few building blocks. The more reason to fret about whether you've
built it in any way right.
Third, being theory the range of data-sets to which it
applies, is staggering. Some of these sets it will fit like a foot in a glove.
Also, some of these data sets will reveal holes in the theory, and they will
require you to reformulate the theory—sometimes fundamentally.
Did I fret about that? You bet I did!
But here it is. And it may not be much, and it may not be
the best possible rendering (actually, it surely isn't). But it's there, and
it's mine.
Obviously, I fret a bit about the fact, that I couldn't
be prouder.
But not too much.
