Carolyn Miller, Anne Freadman, some responses, and the joy of theory

 Theory for theory's sake is usually the sole realm of pure blooded nerds within a given research field. Thus, much as I may go on about genre and much as I will insert a discussion of genre into well-nigh everything, I could not come up with sufficient students for a full-on genre theory course if my life depended on it. To make matters worse, there is at present no dedicated journal for genre research, so the field has an uneasy existence publication wise—having to recurrently insert itself into scholarly debates about other topics. It's doable, but it requires a fair bit of intellectual dexterity and all but excludes genre theory. Publication wise, Genre research thus exists mainly in individual articles and in topical anthologies. Many are excellent, but genre theory has a hard life fitting into these formats.

So, it's a rare and treasured moment when you get the chance to dive into genre theory with other researchers. The Canadian Journal for Studies in Discourse and Writing/Rédactologie graciously hosted a section of genre theory in its most recent issue (here), and I was even more graciously invited to participate. The occasion was an article by Anne Freadman (here) containing a response to Carolyn Miller's pioneering study "Genre as Social Action" (1984) (here). 

If you are in the know about genre research, you'll see at once that this is one of the most interesting meetings you could ever establish. Both researchers belong in the category, I once called "Eminent women in genre research" and for good reason. Miller's article is usually seen as at least one of the central starting points for contemporary genre research. In my own article I try to frame her influence like this:

Carolyn Miller’s (1984) “Genre as Social Action,” the primary topic—or target—of Anne Freadman’s brilliant and thought-provoking article, holds a special place in genre research. If I pick up an unknown piece of research on genre, the first thing I do is look for Miller’s article in the bibliography. If it is not there, the text in my hand will probably be of little value to my work for lack of orientation. (161)

 Anne Freadman on her side is a later influence, but it's not unfair to say that the last decade or so has seen a meteoric rise in her reception. If you read contemporary genre research her  seminal concept "Uptake" is everywhere. So, if we see this as battle, it is a Clash of the (Genre) Titans. The exchange is everything you could possibly hope for. Freadman lucid, friendly, unexpected (as you would, paradoxically, expect from her) and completely to the point. Miller on her side (here) is brief, clear, and very good at knowing when to hold and when to fold. 

This is all brilliant. I've known for quite a while that the exchange would come out, and I've been terribly excited to read the whole thing. But the Canadian Journal for Studies in Discourse and Writing/Rédactologie knew what they had and chose to go over and beyond, so they added three more articles—each a commentary on Freadman's original article. The two other commentators, Janet Githrow and Charles Bazerman, are both forces to be recognized  in genre research with a long line of brilliant publications to their name.  I'm not going to say very much about their contributions at this point as I'm only beginning to figure out what their place in the debate is. Suffice it to say that both contributions display the intellectual rigor  and breadth of vision, I've come to expect from the authors.  I will learn a lot from both, once I get my head fully around them (Gilthrow here, and Bazerman here as well as mine here). It is worth noting that we were only given Freadman's article, not Miller's response, and I think that was a prudent move because it took away the urge to adjudicate between the two.

Be that as it may. The whole section now reads not "just" like an exchange between two brilliant researchers, but as an exploration of the foundation and scope of genre research. There is food for thought for many a year ahead. I cannot congratulate  the Canadian Journal for Studies in Discourse and Writing/Rédactologie enough for this section. 

Genre in the Climate Debate - longer presentation

In the previous post I worked through a presentation of the upcoming De Gruyter-anthology on Genre in the Climate Debate which I have co-edited with Christel Sunesen. With help from good friends over at Twitter, it came out fairly ok. I also need to write a longer presentation. Below is my first full draft. Comments welcome. 

Benefits

•  The volume establishes a dynamic interplay between two high-level research fields: humanistic climate studies and genre research
• The volume offer an understanding of the way the structural and ideological issues in the debate over anthropogenic climate change are determined by the genres in play in the debate.
•  The volume continues key developments in contemporary genre research, in particular the use of genre in political campaigning and the uptake of genre information and action across genre systems.

Aims and Scope

The greatest conundrum concerning anthropogenic climate change may prove to be in the humanities and the social sciences. How is it even possible that highly exigent information for which overwhelming evidence exists does not make an immediate and strong impact on ideologies, policies, and life practices across the globe? This volume offers an intriguing and enlightening new approach to the the climate debate by taking it as a question of genre. Genres are the cultural categories that structure human understanding and communication, and genre research therefore offers a central key to unlocking the conundrum. From a genre perspective, if there is one thing the climate debate demonstrates, it is the inertia inherent in genre use. Patterns of understanding and interpretation once established seem to carry on even when they have long outlived their usefulness.

However, it is also evident that uses of genre can work to change this inertia.Genres play a vital role in human interaction, as we use them to learn, express ourselves, and to act. How individual actors utilize or manipulates genres determines to what extent knowledge of climate change spreads from the scientific community to the public, how it is debated, and to what extent it leads to positive action. 

 Authors

Amy Devitt, Charles Bazerman, Josh Kuntzman, Graham Smart, Matthew Falconer, Sune Auken, Mette Møller, Esben Bjerggaard Nielsen, Felix Paulsen, Mary Jo Reiff, Anis Bawarshi, Ashley Rose Melenbacher, Brad Melenbacher.

Eminent women in genre research

For a pastor's wife such as myself, one of the great and enduring advantages of working in genre research is the pervasive influence of a number of excellent female scholars. Indeed, genre research is to a very large extent defined by this powerful line-up of eminent women. I have a deep admiration for scholars such as Carolyn Miller, Amy Devitt, Anne Freadman, Ashley Rose Melenbacher, Mary Jo Reiff, Catherine Schryer, Janet Gilthrow, Carol Berkenkotter, and many many more.

The term "defined" in the above paragraph marks the role of these researchers precisely. In my first draft of this blog post I wrote that the field was "dominated" by them, but on reflection it struck me that the field was, in fact anything but dominated; it was indeed defined. The framework of existing genre research depends on the work of these researchers. It is unthinkable without them. The rest of us live and breathe in their intellectual world. Are men involved in this framework? Yes of course. Names? Sure: Swales, Bazerman, Paré, Bhatia, Medway, Bawarshi, Perkins, Smart. But that doesn't in the very least diminish the defining power of the work of the excellent scholars mentioned earlier. Also, it is worth noting that the defining power of excellent researchers is the gift that keeps on giving. If I have ever made, or will ever make, an actual contribution to genre research it will be because these scholars taught me and defined my thinking.

A few links to earlier posts on this blog to show how this is basically what I live and breathe as a genre researcher. Here first my acknowledgment (or if you will: hagiography) of the best genre blogger around. Unsurprisingly, that person is a woman, Amy Devitt. Then, my reflections on high impact studies. The text? Carolyn Miller's "Genre as Social Action" (1984). If you know the first thing about genre research you will know that there are no actual competitors for the position of "most influential genre study". The crown belongs to Miller. Final exhibit is a suggested reading list in "Rhetorical genre studies for literary PhDs". A selection of eigth excellent texts. Five are written by women.

So, is this me being a feminist? Nope. I aspire to be one (my blog-bio says that I am " Recovering mansplainer, wannabe feminist"), but that is besides the point. This is me being a genre researcher. And as a genre researcher I depend upon the work of women. The three studies I quote the most is one written by Carolyn Miller and two written by Anne Freadman. The researcher I quote the broadest is Amy Devitt. Because I work in a research field that is defined by these researchers. And lucky me—because their work opens up so many perspectives for me to pursue, and so many insights for me to enjoy.

This blog post was originally written as a twitter thread to mark the International Women's Day, 2018. The thread can be found here.

Landmark Essays on Rhetorical Genre Studies

Two of my scholarly heroes, Amy Devitt and Carolyn Miller have joined forces and edited a volume of core texts from the dominant movement in genre research called Rhetorical Genre Studies; with a few small excursions to other, but strongly related, approaches to genre.

The book, Landmark Essays on Rhetorical Genre Studies has been given the following presentation on the publisher's homepage:

Landmark Essays on Rhetorical Genre Studies gathers major works that have contributed to the recent rhetorical reconceptualization of genre. A lively and complex field developed over the past 30 years, rhetorical genre studies is central to many current research and teaching agendas. This collection, which is organized both thematically and chronologically, explores genre research across a range of disciplinary interests, but with a specific focus on rhetoric and composition. With introductions by the co-editors to frame and extend each section, this volume helps readers understand and contextualize both the foundations of the field and the central themes and insights that have emerged. It will be of particular interest to students and scholars working on topics related to composition, rhetoric, professional and technical writing, and applied linguistics.

The choice of texts is also present on the homepage. Here is the table of content as rendered on the publisher's homepage:

Acknowledgements

Introduction

 Section 1 Foundations

Aristotle, On Genre (On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse, Book I, Ch. 3)

Karlyn Kohrs Campbell and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, "Form and Genre in Rhetorical Criticism: An Introduction" (1978)

Carolyn R. Miller, "Genre as Social Action" (1984)

M. M. Bakhtin, "The Problem of Speech Genres" (1986)

John M. Swales, "A Working Definition of Genre" (1990)

Amy J. Devitt, "Generalizing about Genre: New Conceptions of an Old Concept" (1993)

Section 2 Systems and Interactions

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, "Antecedent Genre as Rhetorical Constraint" (1975)

Charles Bazerman, "Systems of Genres and the Enactment of Social Intentions" (1994)

Anne Freadman, "Uptake" (2002)

Section 3 Culture, Ideology, Critique

Catherine F. Schryer, "Genre Time/Space: Chronotopic Strategies in the Experimental Article" (1999)

Anis S. Bawarshi, "The Genre Function" (2000)

Anthony Paré, "Genre and Identity: Individuals, Institutions, and Ideology" (2002)

Section 4 Teaching

Aviva Freedman, "Show and Tell? The Role of Explicit Teaching in the Learning of New Genres" (1993)

Sunny Hyon, "Genre in Three Traditions: Implications for ESL" (1996)

Elizabeth Wardle, "’Mutt Genres’ and the Goal of FYC: Can We Help Students Write the Genres of the University?" (2009)

Index

The ambition  expressed in the description is completely to the point, and the selection of texts is a full roster of neo-classics—except, of course, Aristotle whose is merely a classic without any "neo" added. 

The only text here I don´t know beforehand is the very last one, but looking it up I find that it has a full  256 citations on Google Scholar which is fairly impressive, so I shall make myself acquainted with it at once. 

I notice in passing that the anthology has a four-item overlap with my list of RGS-studies for literary PhD students (Bakhtin, Miller, Freadman, Paré), and that no author present on my list is absent from Miller & Devitt's anthology. Obviously, I like the book for that. Personally, I would have switched Devitt's text for her 1991 article on the genre use of tax accountants because it corresponds so well with the 1994 text by Bazerman. But that's probably a personal preference, and the choice here is perfectly viable. Anyway, to each her own.

I don´t need to read the book to know that the choice of texts, the weight of the editors, and the scope of the volume makes this a well-nigh ideal reader of classic core texts in genre research. That it leaves off at 2009 is perfectly understandable. 

Of course, if you want to be completely up to speed in genre research you have to add later texts. But this is not the ambition of the present volume. And even if that had been the ambition it would be well-nigh impossible to pick the core text with so little distance in time and you would get an overlap with several of the important volumes of genre research that have been published since 2009. So, the cut-off is prudent.

In conclusion: if you want to know about genre research this is the book to buy. Incidentally, every text is itself a pleasure to read, so Landmark Essays on Rhetorical Genre Studies won´t even scare the academic bejesus out of you, just make you very much smarter very fast. Do not handle with caution. Dive in. Enjoy!

(Hey, reading this hagiography you'd think somebody paid me to write this. If only they would. But nobody paid me anything. The book is just going to be that good.)

Genres, a tentative definition

Genres are flexible and versatile cultural categories structuring human understanding and communication. On the one hand, they are strongly regulative, but on the other hand, they allow considerable freedom on the part of both the utterer and the recipient. Genres combine to form larger patterns through social and organizational structuring into genre sets, systems, hierarchies, and chains, and through creative uptakes on the part of individual genre users. 

Genres and media landscapes in virtual-physical learning spaces. Moving frontlines?

International conference of the CCD network, School of Education and Communication, Jönköping University, 12-14 September 2018

The international conference Genres and media landscapes in virtual-physical learning spaces. Moving frontlines?, GeM 2018, aims to create a multi-disciplinary platform for dialoguing on the every-day uses of modality rich, parallel, linked, and hybrid, communicative genres that are embedded in media landscapes and circulate in learning spaces inside and outside institutional settings. The digitized era and the global world of mobility and migration have brought about a shift for human-beings in general and the research enterprise more specifically, thus, making it necessary to (re)consider conditions for communication or languaging as well as for learning and identity production. Today, analogue and digital dimensions are seen as being blurred and interdependent, just as accumulation, density and change, are fundamental features of media landscapes. Genres for representation and communication are created, renewed, transformed and fluid in these flexible and expanding environments 

More information and full CfP here.

Oh, and I am there as a featured speaker and so are a plethora of other highly fascinating researchers. 

When does a high-impact study make its impact?

The epithome of a high-impact article in my field is Carolyn Miller's "Genre as Social Action" from 1984. It is to a wide extent the center piece of genre research. It is so influential that you cannot simply insert it into an article as "Miller (1984)". You have to call it something along the line of "Miller's groundbreaking/trailblazing/influential/seminal 1984-study". 

You don't write that just to pay homage (though homage is indeed due), but more to demonstrate that you know the field well enough to be aware that this is the study you have to pay homage to. It's sort of a rite of passage. 

Moreover, with too many texts to read and too little time to read them, it is also an excellent shibboleth to protect your time. If a text on genre does not have Miller on its bibliography, it is well-nigh certain that it's not worth your time to read. Miller may be replaced by a solid line-up of other central genre researchers, Freadman, Devitt, Bakhtin, Bazerman, Schryer, and others (see, for instance, this list), but still, there is a kind of vacuum present in a genre research-article that does not somehow quote Miller. 

So, the article is as influential as such things ever get. However, the article's impact wasn't immediate. It would require a thorough bibliometric tracking to trace its full reception history, but insofar as I have been able to determine, "Genre as Social Action" did not conquer the center stage until after the publication of another crucial work, Aviva Freedman and Peter Medway's anthology Genre and the New Rhetoric. It did have quite a lot of happy readers before that, but Freedman and Medway's anthology seems to mark the turning point after which Miller's study had become so crucial it could no longer be simply "Miller (1984)".

So, the question presents itself: When do you know that a study is high-impact? If you measure a study's impact as something taking place within a certain window, how do you know that you actually have the right window? If high-impact is what you are looking for, then to a certain extent you cannot even know when a study is taken up and suddenly gets hurled towards the academic stardom of the "trailblazing" study?

This is particularly relevant since funding bodies, promotion commitees etc will look to promote researcher's who can make an impact, but often this means that anything older than, say five, years, is counted less because it does not reflect the current stature of the researcher, and its impact is already in the past. 

But don´t trust the administrators. (Quoth the administrator). Research itself seems to be a much more patient endeavor, and in particular within the Humanities the possibility always remains that somewhere a long time ago, somebody wrote just that article that will blaze your trail, break your ground, or be your seminal influence. 

Oh, and if you are interested in narratives, I did a slightly backwards, literary homage to Miller here. 

Rhetorical genre studies for literary PhDs

A very learned friend just now asked me a pertient question of cross-disciplinary research communication. She asked:

If you were giving a reading on our rhetorical view of genres for literary doctoral students, what would you consider giving them?

That is indeed a very good question. There is no standard text and no standard curriculum to work from. So what would my curriculum look like. Leaving aside any of my own texts that might apply, this is my suggestion for a minimal reading list:

Bakhtin, M. M. (1986). The Problem of Speech Genres (V. W. McGee, Trans.). In C. Emerson & M. Holquist (Eds.), Speech Genres and Other Late Essays (pp. 60-102). Austin: University of Texas Press.

Bazerman, C. (2002). What Activty Systems Are Literary Genres Part of? Readerly/Writerly Texts, 10(1 & 2), 97-106.

Devitt, A. (2000). Integrating Rhetorical and Literary Theories of Genre. College English, 6, 698-718.

Devitt, A. (2009). Re-fusing form in genre study. In J. Giltrow & D. Stein (Eds.), Genres in the Internet (pp. 27–47). Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Freadman, A. (2002). Uptake. In R. Coe, L. Lingard, & T. Teslenko (Eds.), The Rhetoric and Ideology of Genre (pp. 39-53). Cresskill Hampton Press Inc.

Miller, C. (1984). Genre as Social Action. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 70(2), 151-167.

Miller, C. (2017). "Where do Genres Come From". In C. Miller & A. R. Kelly (Eds.), Emerging Genres in New Media Environments (pp. 1-34). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

Paré, A. (2002). Genre and Identity: Individuals, Institutions, and Ideology. In R. Coe, L. Lingard, & T. Teslenko (Eds.), The Rhetoric and Ideology of Genre (pp. 57-71). Cresskill: Hampton Press Inc.

The list is made specifically with literary PhDs in mind. There are three main considerations involved:

1. I want my students to read texts central to the RGS-tradition
2. I want to connect to knowledge they already have
3. I want them to find their reading relevant and to stay interested

So why these texts? Here are a few of the reasons for each.

Bakhtin's text is the only text in the batch with a claim to literary studies. And his name is known to literary scholars. So it's a good way to connect the two fields. There are, of course, reasons why this text has had a long history in RGS. It is immensely inspiring and full of starting points for discussions of central points in RGS; genre use, genre variance, interlocking of genre, the lingustic basis for genre etc etc. 

Bazerman would definitely be represented by another text if I were to just teach RGS, and not RGS to literary PhDs. He, or at least one of his peers, (Russel or Andersen come to mind), should be here to represent the sociologically oriented side of RGS. I choose this one for the literary PhDs, because it deals with literary subject matter, is a quick read, and will annoy them constructively.

Devitt is the RGS researcher who has engaged most prominently with literary studies. Again: other texts might be more viable if I were to just teach RGS, but for literary PhDs I choose these two. The first, because it brilliantly represents the potential for dialogue between literary studies and RGS. (And also displays an actual interest in literature.) The second, challenges some of the basic assumptions in RGS, in a progressive and constructive way. This will accomodate some of the more critical views that a literary PhD would be likely to hold in approaching RGS, and thus open up the conversation

Freadman is quite a headache. You can´t do contemporary RGS without her concept of "uptake". And to do RGS proper you´d want to have PhDs read "Anyone for Tennis?". But getting a grip on "uptake" is hard enough, without having to actually grasp that text. The 2002-article is, of course, less of a heavyweight in terms of influence and originality, but it is much more accessible.

Miller, yeah you have to do Miller. It's just not RGS without "Genre as Social Action". So, grap those recurrent situations for a rhetorically sound definition of humble de facto genre. Then, send a loving thought to Campbell and Jamieson, and go do some social action. The 2017 text is interesting, not just because it's excellent, but also because I have had several literary colleagues recommend it to me already, so has already struc a bell with some literary reseachers. Moreover, I personally like it because Miller returns a little bit to one of my own favorite books on genre, Alastair Fowler's ultra-literary Kinds of Literature which IMHO is long overdue for a renaissance.

Finally, Paré's text. It is one of a batch of texts that work with the dangers inherent in the ideological nature of genre; the way genres control how we think and how we can act, even if this does not reflect reality, or our own best interests. There are several other options on this point, but I like this one, not just because it is a pleasant read, but also because it is very very sharp. 

So that would be my bid. Other suggestions are welcome.

Norms and creativity in genre use

In late 2015 a satiric article from The New Yorker took a turn around my SoMe circles. It was titled “Academic Job Listings for my Exes” and contains what might reasonably be described as a clash of form and content. One of the listings read:

The renowned Department of Psychology at Dartmouth College is soliciting applications for a tenure-track Associate Professor of Hypochondria. We seek a candidate with an affinity for Peter Pan shoes, extensive experience diagnosing resting bitch face, and a willingness to see other people. Teaching responsibilities include courses in Recreational Ambien Use and upper-division seminars in Neediness and/or Polyamory. Successful applicant will be expected to establish a research agenda of panic attacks, puppy-dog eyes, germaphobia, and a chronic mistrust of happiness.

 The text is, of course, an uptake (Freadman) on the genre of the job listing, it is parodic, but in keeping with the theory of parody of Linda Hutcheon it is not directed at the “high” genre that it mimics, but rather at the low material, fitted into it.

                 The uptake into this satiric article, obviously, voids the original function–and thus the original raison d´être–of the job listing genre. There are no job opening to be filled, and no place to send the application. In terms of Rhetorical Genre Studies, the job listing would usually be part of (at least) one genre set (Devitt), a genre system (Bazerman), and a genre chain (Swales) leading to the actual hiring of an applicant. No such patterns exist in this case. Or rather: The genre patterns into which these listings fit are very different and have to do with news publications rather than job hirings. Furthermore, the basic job description, and the qualifications described, are such that nobody in their right mind would ever search for a person with those rather dubious qualities. So you´d have to be a fool to take these job listings seriously–not that such fools don´t exist: There is at least one homepage dedicated to tracking people who foolishly buy into stories from the satiric news service The Onion (and its equally prankish sister site Clickhole)–and it has plenty to report.

                 However, despite the fact that there clearly is no job listing at all, the genre of the job listing is still there as a template on which the text is molded. There is the institution hiring, the actual job to be filled, and a description of the needed candidate. To specify this as an academic job offering the job listing given here also specifies the teaching obligations and the research expected of the chosen candidate. Moreover, the style, choice of words, sentence structure etc., is largely compliant with the job listing as a genre. I say “largely compliant”, of course, because some of the wording used to describe the required applicant is exactly what is off compared to the usual job listings.

                 This, of course, begs the question “why?” What is achieved by this alternate uptake on the genre of the job listing? Well, first of all we have the fundamental method and effect of almost all parody: The clash of styles. These two elements belong together: It is a method, because it is effective, and the effect usually is comical. This kind of entfremdung or making the known slightly strange as a way of making you see differently, is a mainstay of generic manipulation.

                 What you see differently is something which is usually presented in another, less formally organized genre: the rant. Each individual job listing draws a picture of a perfectly insufferable boyfriend, whose faults will make him a living nightmare to be with. However, if presented simply as a listing of the bad qualities of the boyfriend it would come off as a pitiful or aggressive rant, however the choice of an alternate genre gives it a form which makes it humerous, ironic, and even somewhat elegant.

So why the choice of the job listing? Probably because it has a certain affinity to the search for a partner. In both cases there is a sort of “open” need that can be filled by one person or another, but where the person actually chosen to fill the need will be an important presence to the employer/partner. Thus, making a viable choice is of crucial importance. Both the would-be employer and the person who searches for a partner will have certain requirements that they want to have met in order to commit to a hiring or a relationship.  Even if in the case of the search for a partner the demands are rarely made completely specific.

                 The title of the piece clearly marks the retrospective character of the job listings, they are “for my exes”, and thus there is a clash between the open character of the call on one side, and the specific person, they claim to have be molded on, on the other. By presenting the deplorable qualities of the person in the genre of the job listing, the article makes their shortcomings abundantly clear, and also exposes the stupidity of dating them. The contrast between the usual content of the genre and its actual realization in the article makes evident that nobody in their right mind would ever search for a person with those qualities. And thus even the hiring purpose of the job listing-genre, which the text so evidently discounts, has a role to play in the interpretation of it.

As is evident even from this very simple example, picked up more or less at random, the normative and the creative elements in the text intertwine, and though the text itself is some kind of generic novelty, it is clearly determined by the formal, thematic, and rhetorical character of the job listing as genre. This does not entail that the relationship between norm and creativity always follows this exact pattern, quite the opposite: The relationship is highly mutable and hard to put on a fixed formula. So it has to be examined and re-examined according to the particular context over and over.

                 To belabor my point: Genres are not, nor have they ever been, immutable. Genres have a strong regulative influence on our interpretation of a given utterance or situation. This influence, however, is of a special nature, as regulations imposed by genre can be broken at a moment’s notice or made the subject of manipulation or interpretation. Depending on the character of this break, it can lead either to an ingenious use of the genre, to a break between genre and utterance, or to a work that moves into, or even defines, an entirely different genre. Generic knowledge may not be a result of what is written “between the lines” on the lines as such; but all the necessary information certainly is not written on them either. What happens is that the text generates meaning by referring to or making a play on our structure of expectation.

                 As we move from simple examples to more complex ones, it will come as no surprise that fitting a given text into a genre becomes more and more difficult, and that the generic patterns involved become increasingly complex. However, the tacit interpretative interchanges between reader and genre persist into the more advanced cases. Indeed, in such cases the task of much scholarly interpretation becomes simply to make explicit what has in fact already been communicated tacitly. 

                 This may well be one of the great advantages of generic interpretation. By focusing on the relationship between an utterance and the kinds of utterances that it is involved with, or that have been shaping it, we highlight a central point in the communication between utterance and receiver: the textual or cultural knowledge that is assumed by the utterance to be known. This enables us to see what the text does with the assumed cultural knowledge, how it repeats it, reinterprets it, twists it, or develops it into something new.