A case for historical "wide-angle" genre analysis: A personal retrospective

This paper describes a mixed-method approach to conducting historical genre analysis of case history narratives in psychiatry from the late eighteenth to the beginning of the twenty-first century. Using my recent book-length study, Patient Tales: Case Histories and the Uses of Narrative in Psychiatry, as an example of this approach, I describe what researchers may gain by integrating the techniques of discourse analysis with textual exegesis and rhetorical analysis. Such a repertoire is needed in “wide-angle” studies of histories of the professions in order to capture the complex interactions among sociohistorical, technological, demographic, and epistemological factors in professions that traverse the boundaries between the natural and human sciences

Genre Systems at Work: DSM-IV and Rhetorical Recontextualization in Psychotherapy Paperwork

In this article, I describe four interrelated analytical concepts useful for studying the discursive practices of professional writers: intertextuality, interdiscursivity, genre systems, and recontextualization. Drawing on structuration theory and neo-Vygotskyan activity theory to provide a framework for the above concepts, I present three theoretical assumptions: (a) genre systems play an intermediate role between institutional structural properties and individual communicative action, (b) a central means for identifying texts in a genre system is their intertextual activity, and (c) the concept of “genre systems†enables the analyst to foreground the discursively salient components of human activity systems. An elaboration of each of these assumptions is followed by an illustration of genre systems at work in one psychotherapist\u27s session notes and the process I call rhetorical recontextualization. © 2001, Sage Publications. All rights reserved

Voices in the text: The uses of reported speech in a psychotherapist\u27s notes and initial assessments

A psychotherapist\u27s initial written assessment document (based on notes taken during an initial interview as well as material in the client\u27s record) recontextualizes information provided by that client into an institutionally viable account. This assessment, designed to provide readers with a clinical picture of the client\u27s problems, justifies the therapist\u27s particular diagnosis of mental disorder which, in turn, supports the therapist\u27s treatment choice. An analysis of reported speech in a therapist\u27s notes written during a therapy session and the written assessment that followed reveal some devices used by the therapist for reporting client\u27s speech in ways that would: (a) depict the client\u27s experiential meanings, as represented in the therapist\u27s notes, and (b) construct a clinical case to support her diagnosis, as can be seen in the assessment. We suggest that the devices function to recontextualize the client\u27s lifeworld perspective, thereby subsuming this perspective (and implicit structure of meanings) into the therapist\u27s psychiatric perspective. © Walter de Gruyter

Rethinking Genre from a Sociocognitive Perspective

This article argues for an activity-based theory of genre knowledge. Drawing on empirical findings from case study research emphasizing “insider knowledge” and on structuration theory, activity theory, and rhetorical studies, the authors propose five general principles for genre theory: (a) Genres are dynamic forms that mediate between the unique features of individual contexts and the features that recur across contexts; (b) genre knowledge is embedded in communicative activities of daily and professional life and is thus a form of “situated cognition”; (c) genre knowledge embraces both form and content, including a sense of rhetorical appropriateness; (d) the use of genres simultaneously constitutes and reproduces social structures; and (e) genre conventions signal a discourse community\u27s norms, epistemology, ideology, and social ontology. © 1993, SAGE PERIODICALS PRESS. All rights reserved

Written Communication 28(2) 220 -250 Occult Genres and the Certification of Madness in a 19th-Century Lunatic Asylum

Abstract Using archival admissions records and case histories of patients at a British asylum from the 1860s to the 1870s, the authors examine the medical certification process leading to the asylum confinement of individuals judged to be "of unsound mind." These institutional texts are, the authors suggest, "occult genres" that function as complex acts of argumentation, whose illocutionary force depends on the success of their felicity conditions. Through the lens of Austin's concept of "uptake," the authors analyze the role of medical certification in the admissions history of two patients at Ticehurst House Asylum in the 1860s-1870s. The authors contend that historical genre analysis plays an important role in the rhetoric of medicine and health, shedding light on the performative power of medical certification, an act essential to the practice of psychiatry

Symposium on Peer Reviewing in Scholarly Journals

The idea for this symposium began when Sheryl Fontaine and Susan Hunter told Rick Gebhardt about two studies they had made of manuscript reviewing practices in composition studies--one surveying experiences and perceptions of authors and one dealing with journal referees. The subject of peer reviewing seemed an important one for a field working, as ours is, to definie its scholarly identity. Rick sensed that his efforts to bring blind refereeing to composition\u27s oldest journal might prove useful in exploring the subject and, for addtional views, he contacted several of CCC\u27s consulting readers. Carol Berkenkotter, who had been studying peer reviewing in the sciences, agreed to attempt a brief theoretical perspective. Phillip Arrington decided to explore the subject personally, from his experiences both as author and referee. And Doug Hesse chose to use personal experience, chaos theory, and MLA panels to discuss referees\u27 reports as scholarship