Bakhtin's "The Problem of Speech Genres"

(Excerpted in Bizzell & Herzberg's The Rhetorical Tradition)

Summary: 

“Speech genres” (oral and written) are so heterogeneous, numerous and widespread that they have not been adequately studied. But this is a major omission from “any research whose material is concrete language” (1229), particularly linguistics and philology. This is because speech genres define how we speak and write in any social situation, from the simplest face-to-face conversation to the most complex writings of science and literature. This is essentially a methodological problem, one that is serious enough to call into question the major premises of any “concrete language” discipline.

Terms:

- Speech genres: “[E]ach sphere in which language is used develops its own relatively stable types of . . . utterances. These we may call speech genres” (1227).

- Primary (simple) genres: simple conversation, “rejoinders,” letters and other short documents.

- Secondary (complex) genres: novels and other long artistic works, scientific papers, government reports, etc.

- Utterance: I’m a little unclear on this one, which is a shame because it’s one of the major terms here. I think it’s the essay’s most general term, encompassing nearly any act of language, but it’s also meant to include the surrounding context of the language act.

 Major points:

-Speech genres define all utterances at all levels. Specifically, Bakhtin shows how genre defines style and grammar. In terms of style, some genres allow for expression of individuality (literature, for example), while others are so circumscribed that there’s very little room for individual expression (as in scientific reports).

- . . . but this does not remove subjectivity from speech (written or oral). Because there are so many speech genres and so many possible situations in which to use them, we are free to choose our genre.

- Genre, like language itself, is “necessary for mutual understanding” (1240). When we hear someone speak we recognize the utterance as a particular genre. People who don’t understand particular genres can’t communicate in situations that demand them – for example, scholars who can present an academic paper but are awkward in social situations, because they’ve mastered one genre but not the other.

- Linguistics has focused on the “expressive function” (1232) of language and ignored its communicative function. As a result, linguistics has imagined an unrealistic “passive listener”: “[T]he listener who understands passively, who is depicted as the speaker’s partner in the schematic diagrams of general linguistics, does not correspond to the real participant in speech communication” (1233).

- Utterances are situational, not grammatical. Unlike sentences, an utterance has an absolute beginning and an absolute end. These ends of the utterance are defined by a change of speaker. Every utterance is a response and looks for a response.

Going further:

In focusing on language’s communicative function, Bakhtin suggests that words on their own, apart from human usage, have no inherent meaning. For me, this argument either makes no sense or is pointless, a bit like “guns don’t kill people, people do.” Words, like guns, are made by and for people and would not exist without them, so to say that they only acquire meaning in their use is to suggest that they have any existence independent of that use, which they do not.