An Introduction to Genre Theory Essay

An entrance demeanor to lit durationry musical virtuallyoneal manner possibleness Daniel Chandler 1. The problem of definition A amount of perennial doubts plague musical style guess. Are music music musical musical musical musical literary musical styles really out in that respect in the cosmos, or be they how perpetually the constructions of analysts? Is in that location a finite taxonomy of musical literary write styles or argon they in principle eternal? Are literary literary literary writing styles ageless Platonic essences or ephemeral, time-bound entities? Are writing styles culturebound or transcultural? Should musical style analysis be descriptive or proscriptive? (Stam 2000, 14) The word genre comes from the French (and superiorly Latin) word for patient of or syllabus.The term iswidely utilisationd in rhetoric, literary theory, media theory, and to a greater extent recently linguistics, to bear on to a distinctive type of school school textual matter edition edition*. Robert Allen n 1s that for most of its 2,000 years, genre study has been earlier nominological and typological in function. That is to say, it has sweep upn as its jumper lead t drive the percentage of the world of literary actions into types and the naming of those types such(prenominal) as the botanist divides the realm of flora into varieties of course of studyts (Allen 1989, 44). As leave behind be encountern, however, the analogy with biologic variety into genus and species misleadingly suggests a scientific sour.Since mere times literary work invite been classified as be to superior general types which were conglomerately delineate. In literature the broadest division is among poetry, prose and drama, in state of wardly which there atomic number 18 save divisions, such(prenominal)(prenominal) as catastrophe and comedy at he artisanic production the category of drama. Shakespeargon elevatered satirically to mixtures such as catastrophe, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comicalhistorical-pastoral (Hamlet II ii).In The Anatomy of Criticism the forma disceptation literary theorizer Northrop Frye (1957) presented original universal genres and modesas the come upon to organizing the entire literary corpus. modern media genres fly the coop to strike to a greater extent to specific forms than to the universals of tragedy and comedy. Nowadays, motion pictures argon routinely classified (e. g. in idiot box listings magazines) as thrillers, westerns and so on genres with which every adult in innovational society is known.So besides with television genres such as game shows and sitcoms. Whilst we pay back names for countless genres in umpteen media, well-nigh idealogues encounter argued that there atomic number 18 in every case legion(predicate) genres (and sub-genres) for which we stick no names (Fowler 198 9, 216 Wales 1989, 206). Carolyn Millersuggests that the number of genres in both society depends on the complexity and multifariousness of society (Miller 1984, in freedwoman & Medway 1994a, 36).The classification and hierarchical taxonomy of genres is non a neutral and objective procedure. thither atomic number 18 no undis targeted maps of the system of genres indoors either(prenominal)(prenominal) strong point (though literature whitethorn peradventure lay many agreeuce to a loose consensus). Further much, there is applicatoryly librateable sup inclineal disagreement round the definition of specific genres. A genre is ultimately an abstract conception kinda than something that comprises existentially in the world, nones Jane Feuer (1992, 144). One theorists genre may be anothers sub-genre or tear down super-genre (and indeed what is technique, style, mode, formula or thematic grouping to 1 may be treated as a genre by another).Themes, at least, take in m s posteriort(p) as a basis for formation genres since, as David Bordwell notes, any theme may appear in any genre (Bordwell 1989, 147). He asks Are animation and infotainment films genres or modes? Is the filmed play or comedy performance a genre? If tragedy and comedy argon genres, perchance then domestic tragedy or slapstick is a formula. Inpassing, he offers a useful stocktaking of categories utilise in film criticism, numerous an(prenominal) of which do been accorded the status of genres by various commentatorsGrouping by period or country (Ameri smoke films of the 1930s), by director or star or let outr or writer or studio, by practiced military operation (Cinemascope films), by cycle (the locomote women films), by series (the 007 movies), by style (German Expressionism), by structure (narrative), by political theory (Reaganite cinema), by venue (drive-in movies), by purpose (home movies), by audience (teenpix), by subject or theme (family film, paranoid-politi cs movies).(Bordwell 1989, 148) another(prenominal) film theorist, Robert Stam, overly refers to common shipway of categorizing films While some genres atomic number 18 base on story content (the war film), other are borrowed from literature (comedy, melodrama) or from other media (the musical). near are performer- base (the Astaire-Rogers films) or budget- grant (blockbusters), while others are based on artistic status (the art film), racial identity (Black cinema), location (the Western) or sexual druthers (Queer cinema).(Stam 2000, 14). Bordwell concludes that wizard could argue that no doctor of incumbent and sufficient conditions peck crisscross off genres from other sorts of groupings in slipway that all experts or ordinary film-goers would mystify An Introduction to musical style Theory satisfying (Bordwell 1989, 147). Practitioners and the general public crystallize use of their own genre labels (de blushto genres) quite by from those of academic theorists . We might therefore ask ourselves Whose genre is it anyway? Still further problems with definitional approaches go away become unmistakable in due course. formation genres may not initially regardm tokenly rugged still it should already be apparent that it is a theoretical minefield.Robert Stam identifies four advert problems with generic labels (in sexual congress to film) extension (the breadth or narrowness of labels) normativism (having preconceived ideas of criteria for genre membership) monolithic definitions (as if an item belonged to only one genre) biologism (a kind of immanentism in which genres are chinkn as evolving through and through a standardised sprightliness cycle) (Stam 2000, 128129). Conventional definitions of genres melt down to be based on the ruling that they mention concomitant conventions of content (such as themes or constitutetings) and/or form (including structure and style) whichare divided by the texts which are regarded as belongi ng to them.Alternative characterizations will be discussed in due course. The attempt to define withalt genres in monetary value of necessary and sufficient textual properties is sometimes seen as theoretically attractive but it poses many an(prenominal) herculeanies. For instance, in the case of films, some have the appearance _or_ semblance to be aligned with one genre in content and another genre in form. The film theorist Robert Stam argues that subject return is the weakest criterion for generic grouping because it fails to take into account how the subject is treated (Stam 2000, 14). Outlining a fundamental problem ofgenre naming in congeneric to films, Andrew Tudor notes the empiricist plightTo take a genre such as the western, analyze it, and list its trail distinctions, is to beg the suspicion that we must(prenominal) first isolate the body of films which are westerns. But they drop only be isolated on the basis of the principal characteristics which can only be observed from the films themselves afterward they have been isolated. (Cited in Gledhill 1985, 59) It is rarely profound to find texts which are exceptions to any addicted definition of a contingent genre. There are no found rules of inclusion and exclusion (Gledhill 1985, 60).Genres are not discrete systems, consisting of a fixed number of listable items (ibid. , 64). It is unwieldy to make clear-cut distinctions surrounded by one genre and another genres overlap, and there are mixed genres (such as comedy-thrillers). 2 Specific genres flow to be balmy to substantiate intuitively but difficult (if not impossible) to define. Particular gives which are characteristic of a genre are not normally unique to it it is their relative prominence, combine and functions which are distinctive (Neale 1980, 22-3). It is easy to playact the disaccordences deep down a genre.Steve Neale declaresthat genres are instances of repetition and difference (Neale 1980, 48). He adds that difference is abruptly essential to the economy of genre (ibid. , 50) mere repetition would not attract an audience. Tzvetan Todorov argued that any instance of a genre will be necessarily diametric (cited in Gledhill 1985, 60). tooshie Hartley notes that the addendum of just one film to the Western genre diversenesss that genre as a wholly blush though the Western in unbelief may display few of the recognise conventions, styles or subject fields impostally associated with its genre (OSullivan et al. 1994).The know of difference alsohighlights the fact that some genres are looser more open-ended in their conventions or more pervious in their boundaries than others. Texts a lot exhibit the conventions of more than one genre. bath Hartley notes that the same text can belong to contrasting genres in different countries or times (OSullivan et al. 1994, 129). mark genres abound (at least outside theoretical formworks). Van Leeuwen suggests that the multiple purp oses of journalism ofttimes lead to generically heterogeneous texts (cited in Fairclough 1995, 88). Norman Fairclough suggests that mixed-genre texts are far from ludicrous in the can media (Fairclough 1995, 89).Some media may encourage more generic diversity Nicholas Abercrombie notes that since television comes at the audience as a flow of programmes, all with different generic conventions, heart and soul that it is more difficult to sustain the purity of the genre in the resumeing experience (Abercrombie 1996, 45 his accent mark). Furthermore, in any medium the generic classification of authorized texts may be indistinct or subject to dispute. Contemporary theorists tend to describe genres in damage of family similes among texts (a notion derived from the philosopher Wittgenstein) rather than definitionally (Swales 1990, 49).An item-by-item text inside a genre rarely if ever has all of the characteristic features of the genre (Fowler 1989, 215). The family resemblance ap proaches involves the theorist illustrating similarities between some of the texts within a genre. However, the family resemblance approach has been criticized on the basis that no choice of a text for illustrative purposes is innocent (David Lodge, cited in Swales 1990, 50), and that such theories can make any text seem to resemble any other one (Swales 1990, 51).In addition to the definitional and family resemblance approach, there isAn Introduction to Genre Theory another approach to describing genres which is based on the psycholinguistic concept of prototypicity. gibe to this approach, some texts would be widely regarded as beingnessness more representative members of a genre than others.According to this approach certain features would signalize the extent to which an exemplar is prototypical of a fact genre (Swales 1990, 52). Genres can therefore be seen as groggy categories which cannot be defined by necessary and sufficient conditions. How we define a genre depends on our purposesthe adequacy of our definition in terms of affectionate science at least must surely be related to the light that the exploration sheds on the phenomenon.For instance (and this is a key fill of mine), if we are studying the way in which genre frames the refs exposition of a text then we would do well to management on how referees identify genres rather than on theoretical distinctions.Defining genres may be problematic, but stock-still if theorists were to abandon the concept, in terrestrial breeding people would continue to categorise texts. jakes Swales does note that a discourse participations nomenclature for genres is animportant spring of insight (Swales 1990, 54), though similar many academic theorists he ulterior adds that such genre names typically affect further validation (ibid. , 58).Some genre names would be likely to be more widely- employ than others it would be interesting to check up on the areas of touristy consensus and dissensus i n relation to the everyday labeling of stack media genres. For Robert Hodge and Gunther Kress, genres only exist in so far as a amicable group declares and enforces the rules that constitute them (Hodge & Kress 1988, 7), though it is debatable towhat extent most of us would be able to formulate definite rules for the textual genres we use routinely much of our genre knowledge is likely to be tacit.In relation to film, Andrew Tudor argued that genre is what we collectively believe it to be (though this begs the question astir(predicate) who we are). Robert Allen comments wryly that Tudor even hints that in order to establish what audiences command a western to be like we might have to ask them (Allen 1989, 47). Swales also alludes to people having repertoires of genres (Swales 1990, 58), which I would argue would also be likely to repayinvestigation. However, as David Buckingham notes, there has hardly been any empirical research on the ways in which real audiences might underst and genre, or use this understanding in qualification comprehend of specific texts (Buckingham 1993, 137).Steve Neale stresses that genres are not systems they are processes of systematization (Neale 1980, 51 my idiom cf. Neale 1995, 463). Traditionally, genres (particularly literary genres) tended to be regarded 3 as fixed forms, but present-day(a) theory emphasizes that both their forms and functions are dynamic. David Buckingham argues that genre is notsimply given(p) by the culture rather, it is in a unbroken process of negotiation and change (Buckingham 1993, 137). Nicholas Abercrombie suggests that the boundaries between genres are shifting and becoming more permeable (Abercrombie 1996, 45) Abercrombie is implicated with young television, which he suggests seems to be engaged in a steady dismantling of genre (ibid. ) which can be attributed in part to frugal pressures to pursue refreshful audiences. One may acknowledge the dynamic fluidity of genres without positing the nett demise of genre as an constituteative framework.As the generic corpus interminably expands, genres (and the kinds between them) change over time the conventions of each genre shift, new genres and sub-genres bulge out and others are discontinued (though note that certain genres seem particularly long-lasting). Tzvetan Todorov argued that a new genre is always the transformation of one or several old genres (cited in Swales 1990, 36). Each new work within a genre has the potential to go changes within the genre or perhaps the emergence of new sub-genres (which may later blossom into fully-fledged genres).However, such a sentiment tends to highlight the role of authorial experimentation in changing genres and their conventions, whereas it is important to recognize not only the affectionate personality of text return but oddly the role of frugal and technological factors as well as changing audience preferences. The interaction between genres and media can be se en as one of the forces which contributes to changing genres. Some genres are more powerful than others they differ in the status which is attributed to them by those who produce texts within them and by their audiences. As Tony Thwaites et al.put it, in the interaction and conflicts among genres we can see the connections between textuality and power (Thwaites et al. 1994, 104). The key genres in institutions which are first definers (such as discussion reports in the mass media) divine service to establish the frameworks within which issues are defined. But genre hierarchies also shift over time, with respective(prenominal) genres constantly gaining and losing different groups of users and relative status. idealist theoretical approaches to genre which seek to categorize ideal types in terms of essential textual characteristics are ahistorical.As a result oftheir dynamic nature as processes, Neale argues that definitions of genre are always historically relative, and therefor e historically specific (Neale 1995, 464). Similarly, Boris Tomashevsky insists that no firm logical classification of genres is possible. Their de- An Introduction to Genre Theory marcation is always historical, that is to say, it is castigate only for a specific bit of history (cited in Bordwell 1989, 147). Some genres are defined only retrospectively, being unacknowledged as such by the original manufacturers and audiences. Genres need to be studied as historical phenomena a habitual reduce infilm studies, for instance, has been the evolution of conventions within a genre.Current genres go through phases or cycles of popularity (such as the cycle of accident films in the 1970s), sometimes becoming sleeping for a period rather than disappearing. On-going genres and their conventions themselves change over time. Reviewing evolutionary change in some popular film genres, Andrew Tudor concludes that it has three main characteristics First, in that innovations are added to an existent corpus rather than replace redundant elements, it is cumulative. Second, in thatthese innovations must be basically consistent with what is already present, it is blimpish.Third, in that these processes lead to the crystallization of specialist sub-genres, it involves differentiation. (Tudor 1974, 225-6) Tudor himself is cautious about adopting the biological analogy of evolution, with its implication that only those genres which are well-adapted to their functions survive. Christine Gledhill also notes the danger of essentialism in selecting unambiguous classic examples towards which earlier examples evolve and after which others decline (Gledhill 1985, 59).The cycles and transformations of genres can nevertheless be seen as a result to political, social and economic conditions. Referring to film, Andrew Tudor notes that a genre defines a clean and social world (Tudor 1974, 180). Indeed, a genre in any medium can be seen as embodying certain values and ideological assumptions. over again in the context of the cinema Susan Hayward argues that genre conventions change tally to the ideological modality of the time, contrasting John Wayne westerns with Clint Eastwood as the problematic hero or anti-hero (Hayward 1996, 50).king of beasts Baudry (cited in Hayward 1996, 162) sees film genres as a barometer of the social and cultural concerns of cinema audiences Robert Lichter et al. (1991) enlarge how televisual genres glint the values of the programme-makers. Some commentators see mass media genres from a particular era as reflecting values which were dominant at the time. Ira Konigsberg, for instance, suggests that texts within genres embody the moral values of a culture (Konigsberg 1987, 144-5). And John Fiske asserts that generic conventions embody the crucial ideological concerns of the time in which they are popular4 (Fiske 1987, 110). However, Steve Neale stresses that genres may also suffice to shape such values (Neale 1980, 16). Thwai tes et al. see the relationship as reciprocal a genre develops according to social conditions transformations in genre and texts can influence and fortify social conditions (Thwaites et al. 1994, 100). Some Marxist commentators see genre as an instrument of social check off which reproduces the dominant ideology. Within this perspective, the genre positions the audience in order to naturalise the ideologies which are embedded in the text (Feuer 1992, 145).Bernadette Casey comments that recently, structuralists and feminist theorists, among others, have focused on the way in which generically defined structures may operate to construct particular ideologies and values, and to encourage reassuring and conservative interpretations of a given text (Casey 193, 312). However, reader-oriented commentators have express that people are capable of tuition against the grain.Thomas and Vivian Sobchack note that in the past popular film-makers, intent on telling a story, were not always awa re of the covert mental and socialsubtext of their own films, but add that modern film-makers and their audiences are now more keenly aware of the myth- devising obtained by film genres (Sobchack & Sobchack 1980, 245).Genre can reflect a function which in relation to television Horace Newcombe and Paul Hirsch referred to as a cultural forum, in which exertion and audience negotiate shared beliefs and values, service of process to maintain the social order and assisting it in adapting to change (Feuer 1992, 145). Certainly, genres are far from being ideologically neutral.Sonia Livingstone argues, indeed, that different genres are concerned to establish different world views (Livingstone 1990, 155). tie in to the ideological dimension of genres is one modern redefinition in terms of purposes. In relation to writing, Carolyn Miller argues that a rhetorically punishing definition of genre must be centered not on the nub or form of discourse but on the action it is used to accompl ish (Carolyn Miller 1984, in Freedman & Medway 1994a, 24). following this lead, John Swales declares that the principal criterial feature that turns a collection of communicativeevents into a genre is some shared personate of communicative purposes (Swales 1990, 46).In relation to the mass media it can be reproductive to consider in relation to genre the purposes not only of the producers of texts but also of those who interpret them (which need not be fictitious always to match). A consensus about the primary purposes of some genres (such as news bulletins) and of their readers is in all probability easier to establish than in relation to others (such as westerns), where the very term purpose strongs too in- An Introduction to Genre Theory strumental.However, uses and gratifications researchers have already conducted investigations into the various functions that the mass media seem to serve for people, and ethnographic studies have offered fruitful insights into this dimens ion. Miller argues that both in writing and reading within genres we learn purposes suppress to the genre in relation to the mass media it could be argued that particular genres develop, frame and legitimize particular concerns, questions and pleasures.Related redefinitions of genre focus more broadly on the relationship between the makers and audiencesof texts (a rhetorical dimension). To varying extents, the ballock features of genres establish the relationship between producers and interpreters. Indeed, in relation to mass media texts Andrew Tolson redefines genre as a category which mediates between pains and audience (Tolson 1996, 92).Note that such approaches overthrow the definition of genres as purely textual types, which excludes any reference even to think audiences. A basic model railroad cardinal contemporary media theory is a angulate relationship between the text, its producers and its interpreters.From the perspective of many recent commentators, genres first and foremost yield frameworks within which texts are produced and interpreted. Semiotically, a genre can be seen as a shared code between the producers and interpreters of texts include within it. Alastair Fowler goes so far as to suggest that communication is impossible without the hold codes of genre (Fowler 1989, 216). Within genres, texts embody authorial attempts to position readers using particular modes of contend. Gunther Kress observes thatEvery genre positions those who participate ina text of that kind as interviewer or interviewee, as listener or storyteller, as a reader or a writer, as a person interested in political matters, as someone to be instructed or as someone who instructs each of these positionings implies different possibilities for response and for action. Each written text provides a reading position for readers, a position constructed by the writer for the ideal reader of the text. (Kress 1988, 107) Thus, embedded within texts are assumptions about the ideal reader, including their attitudes towards the subject matter and often their class, age, gender and ethnicity.Gunther Kress defines a genre as a kind of text that derives its form from the structure of a (frequently repeated) social occasion, with its characteristic participants and their purposes (Kress 1988, 183). An interpretative emphasis on genre as opposed 5 to individual texts can help to prompt us of the social nature of the production and interpretation of texts. In relation to film, many modern commentators refer to the commercial and industrial significance of genres.Denis McQuail argues that The genre may be considered as a practical pull for helping any mass medium to produce consistently and efficiently and to relate its production to the expectations of its customers. Since it is also a practical device for enabling individual media users to plan their choices, it can be considered as a mechanism for ordering the relations between the two main parties to mass communication. (McQuail 1987, 200)Steve Neale observes that genres exist within the context of a set of economic relations and practices, though he adds that genres are not the product of economic factors as such.The conditions provided by the capitalist economy account neither for the existence of the particular genres that have hitherto been produced, nor for the existence of the conventions that constitute them (Neale 1980, 51-2). Economic factors may account for the continuation of a profitable genre. Nicholas Abercrombie notes that television producers set out to exploit genre conventions It makes sound economic sense impression. Sets, properties and costumes can be used over and over again. Teams of stars, writers, directors and technicians can be built up, giving economies of scale (Abercrombie 1996, 43).He adds that genres permit the creation and maintenance of a loyal audience which becomes used to sightedness programmes within a genre (ibid. ). Genres can be seen as a w ay of life of controlling demand (Neale 1980, 55). The relative stableness of genres enables producers to predict audience expectations. Christine Gledhill notes that differences between genres meant different audiences could be identified and catered to This made it easier to standardize and stabilise production (Gledhill 1985, 58). In relation to the mass media, genre is part of the process of targeting different market sectors.Traditionally, literary and film critics in particular have regarded generic texts (by which they mean formulaic texts) as insufficient to those which they contend are produced outside a generic framework. Indeed, film theorists frequently refer to popular films as genre films in contrast to non-formula films. Elitist critics reject the generic fable of the mass media because they are commercial products of popular culture rather than high art. Many harbor the Romantic ideology of the primacy of authorial originality and vision, emphasizing individual styl eand artistic self-expression.In this tradition the An Introduction to Genre Theory artist (in any medium) is seen as breaking the range of convention. For the Italian aesthetician Benedetto Croce (1866-1952), an artistic work was always unique and there could be no artistic genres. More recently, some literary and film theorists have accorded more importance to genre, counteracting the ideology of authorial primacy (or auteurism, as it is known in relation to the emphasis on the director in film). Contemporary theorists tend to emphasize the importance of the semiotical notion of intertextualityof seeing individual texts in relation to others. Katie Wales notes that genre is an intertextual concept (Wales 1989, 259). John Hartley suggests that we need to understand genre as a property of the relations between texts (OSullivan et al. 1994, 128). And as Tony Thwaites et al. put it, each text is influenced by the generic rules in the way it is put together the generic rules are reinf orced by each text (Thwaites et al. 1994, 100).Roland Barthes (1975) argued that it is in relation to other texts within a genre rather than in relation to lived experience that we make sense of certainevents within a text. There are analogies here with schema theory in psychology, which proposes that we have mental scripts which help us to interpret 6 familiar events in everyday life. John Fiske offers this tangency exampleA representation of a car chase only makes sense in relation to all the others we have seen after all, we are unlikely to have experienced one in reality, and if we did, we would, according to this model, make sense of it by turning it into another text, which we would also understand intertextually, in terms of what we have seen so often on our screens.There is then a cultural knowledge of the concept car chase that any one text is a prospectus for, and that it used by the viewer to decode it, and by the producer to encode it. (Fiske 1987, 115) In contrast to those of a traditionalist literary bent who tend to present artistic texts as nongeneric, it could be argued that it is impossible to produce texts which bear no relationship whatsoever to established genres. Indeed, Jacques Derrida proposed that a text cannot belong to no genre, it cannot be without a genre.Every text participates in one or several genres, there is no genre-less text(Derrida 1981, 61). Note *In these notes, words such as text, reader and writer are sometimes used as general terms relating to texts (and so on) in whatever medium is being discussed no privileging of the written word (graphocentrism) is intended. Whilst it is hard to find an alternative for the word texts, terms such as makers and interpreters are sometimes used here as terms non-specific to particular media instead of the terms writers and readers.2. running(a) within genres John Hartley argues that genres are agents of ideological closure they limit the meaning-potentialof a given text (OSullivan et al. 1994, 128). Robert Hodge and Gunther Kress define genres as typical forms of texts which link kinds of producer, consumer, topic, medium, manner and occasion, adding that they control the behavior of producers of such texts, and the expectations of potential consumers (Hodge & Kress 1988, 7). Genres can be seen as constituting a kind of tacit contract between authors and readers. From the traditional Romantic perspective, genres are seen as confine and inhibiting authorial creativity.However, contemporary theorists, evenwithin literary studies, typically reject this view (e. g. Fowler 1982 31). Gledhill notes that one perspective on this issue is that some of those who write within a genre work in original tension with the conventions, attempting a personal metrics of them (Gledhill 1985 63). From the point of view of the producers of texts within a genre, an advantage of genres is that they can rely on readers already having knowledge and expectations about works within a genre.Fowler comments that the system of generic expectations amounts to a code, by the use of which(or by departure from which) composition becomes more efficient (Fowler 1989 215). Genres can thus be seen as a kind of shorthand helping to increase the efficiency of communication. They may even function as a means of preventing a text from dissolving into identity and incomprehensibility (Gledhill 1985 63). And whilst writing within a genre involves making use of certain given conventions, every work within a genre also involves the invention of some new elements.An Introduction to Genre Theory As for reading within genres, some argue that knowledge of genre conventions leads to inactiveconsumption of generic texts others argue that making sense of texts within genres is an active process of constructing meaning (Knight 1994). Genre provides an important frame of reference which helps readers to identify, select and interpret texts.Indeed, in relation to advertisements, Varda Langholz Leymore argues that the sense which viewers make of any single text depends on how it relates to the genre as a whole (Langholz Leymore 1975, ix). Key psychological functions of genre are likely to include those shared by categorization generally such as reducing complexity.