1

GENRE THEORY

Walking the Line

Understanding fluidity in classification

In his book, Inventing English: a Portable History of the Language, Seth Lerer examines
English from its antiquated beginnings to its modern, developing forms. In his discussion of
American English, he credits the literary great Frederick Douglass with realizing “that the
American language is not only made of sounds but of signs: that there is a look to the letter,
that words are not just the expression of ideas but objects in themselves” (Lerer 186).
Without explicitly saying so, both these authors hint at genre—that oversized glass ball we
gaze into for a glimmer of predictability in a constantly-evolving world. For many that is
what “genre” is, a tool we use to know what comes next. Sometimes we take the answers
for granted; preventing such a travesty is the purpose of genre study.

Impulse Meets Practicality

Humans have an innate impulse to classify everything into genres. This impulse is evident
in two factors: 1) the measures we take to divide nearly every facet of our lives and 2) the
reliance we have upon relations between works.

Answering the first factor, Amy Devitt points out the power of genres “to help or hurt human
interaction, to ease communication or to deceive, to enable someone to speak or to
discourage someone from saying something different” (Devitt 1). Genre use is pervasive in
our daily lives: I heard the best joke today. I have to give a lecture at nine-thirty. I’ve gotten
into mysteries. These are all examples presented by Devitt. If you understand the
designations made by “joke,” “lecture,” and “mysteries,” you succumb to the power of
genre and the expectations it sets for each of these three interactions. A statement as
ordinary as “I’ve got to run to class” is making use of genre because the speaker assumes
his listener understands that “class” includes at least one teacher, students, and a common
subject of study.

Answering the second factor, we rely on genre heavily as consumers. When someone
suggests a new artist or author we might be interested in, automatically we want to know
“Who are they like?” Two forces are at work here: the recommending person has made a
judgment of your tastes based on opinions you have previously conveyed and what he
knows to be similar to these. Secondly, you want to verify these connections with evidence,
a familiar reference that proves why you would like the suggestion. The same process
occurs when we walk into Barnes and Noble, browsing for a new book to read. We expect
guiding signs to tell us where to go to satisfy our interests.1 There are many reasons Barnes
and Noble uses genre to feed into our desire for classification, but the primary one is
lucrative. In a business context, genres are marketing tools that allow publishers to sell
books to stores, allow advertisers to target certain audiences, and allow stores to sell the
product. Genre is influenced by the industry at many different levels. The first is when an
editor or publisher labels an author’s work and the final occurs through the shelving choices
of store employees.

Back to the Future

Early theories of genre were particular, narrow and rigid. Mikhail Bakhtin spoke of “stable
genres” and “concrete utterances.” He saw genre as classified by three factors: stylistics,
grammar and lexicon, and stable generic forms (Bakhtin 86-89). Lloyd F. Bitzer set up a
domino effect necessary to produce a work. This effect was rooted in his idea of rhetorical
1
Barnes and Noble’s website lists twelve genres to peruse for authors: business, children’s, classic,
cooking & health, fiction & literature, general nonfiction, history, humor, mystery & thriller, romance,
science & mathematics, and science fiction & fantasy.

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situations—that the context a work is developed in heavily influences the finished product.
Three things were necessary to determine a situation: an exigence that defined a problem to
be solved by a text, an audience to be influenced by the text, and constraints that had the
“power to [control] decision and action needed to modify the exigence” (Bitzer 8).

Bitzer’s intentions were noble in taking his audience behind the scenes into the production
of a text but he was criticized by Richard Vatz and Scott Consigny for eliminating the
creative differences between producers—ahem, writers. Consigny recognizes that both
Bitzer and Vatz are extremists on either side of the creativity-formality debate: “for Bitzer
the situation controls the response of the rhetor; for Vatz the rhetor is free to create a
situation at will….I propose a mediating third factor, namely, rhetoric as an ‘art’” (Consigny
176). Consigny’s proposal is a welcome breath of fresh air in a field dominated by
calculating theorists and his ideas are developed even three decades later by Devitt who
recognizes the shifts towards more liberal uses of the term “genre.”

Throughout the extensive history of the study of genre, the ultimate questions have
remained things like: What can genre define?2 Is it fluid?3 How do we decide which factors
are pertinent to genre distinction and which can be labeled as “individual differences”?4
Inherent in all these is the dilemma of coming up with a practical system of classification
and division.

Context of Classification
To begin to understand why the desire to classify texts has continued for so many centuries,
I turn to Bitzer’s rhetorical situations. All discourse is a product of the “historic context” in
which it occurs (Bitzer 3). In turn, these discourses add to said environment and become
part of the set that influences posterity. Rhetoric in situations becomes “a mode of altering
reality, not by the direct application of energy to objects, but by the creation of discourse
which changes reality through the mediation of thought and action” (Bitzer 4). Bitzer
applies a strong definition to rhetoric claiming that it always serves a purpose in a particular
circumstance—a purpose largely inferred to be first, intellectual and at most, a call to action.

An example of a rhetor whose discourse is both intellectual and stimulating is Martin Luther
King, Jr. Writing and speaking within the Civil Rights Movement, King was known for his
ethos and Biblical allusions—these characterized his rhetoric and helped his influence reach
his audience. His style carried lightly his heavy message that fought for racial and social

2
This question arises when theories are so particular they exclude accepted genres. For example,
Devitt raises the idea of Genre as Response. Take the two fiction series Harry Potter and Lord of the
Rings: was Rowling’s series a direct response to Tolkein’s previous novels? No, but still both sets of
books fit into the fantasy genre. In this regard, these two authors would not belong to the same genre
but our better understanding leads us to a different conclusion. The same principle is evident also in
Bitzer’s demand for an audience in the existence of a rhetorical situation: “a rhetorical audience must
be distinguished from a body of mere hearers or readers: properly speaking, a rhetorical audience
consists only of those persons who are capable of being influenced by discourse and of being
mediators of change” (Bitzer 8). With this model how do we understand novels as a genre? Their
audience is likely what Bitzer calls “mere hearers or readers.”

3
In explaining that user-definition is the strongest tool yet in genre labels, Devitt claims that “Genre
has been redefined, then, from a classification created by critics to a classification that people make as
they use symbols to get along in the world” (Devitt 8), adding to the theoretical dialogue that genre
must be fluid if it can be redefined to better apply to those who make use of it.

4
Devitt examines multiple frames through which to examine genre: as classification, as form, as
response, as a system, etc. She acknowledges that “the problem with defining based on genus (kind)
is that what we will call a kind depends on ‘exactly what we think a genre is and hence what
characteristics we take into account when deciding whether to grant that label to a given literary
type’” (Devitt 7).

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equality. King delivered “I Have a Dream” at the March on Washington in 1963, demanding
that: “It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment” (Eidenmuller,
2008). The classification of King’s speech into Civil Rights rhetoric is a helpful tool because
it allows us to understand other texts that were working at the same time—what ideas they
contained, how they influenced an audience, and how King compared and contrasted these
tactics in his own speeches. Discourse in context also sets precedence for the definition of
genre as “user-defined” because the effects and meaning of such works are a product of the
time and people who receive them.

What I adjust from Bitzer is the idea that situations must exist for new works to evolve. My
two claims against this idea are that first, it is obvious to any citizen of the 21st century who
is exposed to the media that no matter the format, every new development does not stem
from a novel or noble exigence. Many music artists are just a product of the label’s greed,
politicians just an imitation of a successful leader, and novels just a wrung, dried, and ironed
version of a tired love story. Secondly, sometimes the situation is not fully identifiable
according to Bitzer’s three controls, especially at the time the work is being produced. It is
not as necessary to illuminate the situation until after the work is completed, fed out into the
world, and becomes an influential factor for the discourse environment. What I am arguing
for is the idea that situation and exigence are important in retrospect; they’re important for
future rhetors to understand so that emerging writers develop an idea of how their
environment can and will influence them. But Bitzer’s ideas should not be so difficult and
time-consuming to find that writers waste time identifying their purposes and never even
put pen to paper, or fingertips to keyboard.

The Great Divide

Much of genre theory, and the general understanding of the term, has focused on how to
separate individual pieces into large pools of commonality. This causes difficulty when we
run into pieces that could potentially overlap. Take for example the emerging genre of
Essays. The Essay is a genre of creative nonfiction—narratives written from the author’s
point of view. They typically have all the stylistic elements of fiction but use only true
stories. For Barnes and Noble’s purposes these are typically categorized into Memoir,
Travel, Humor, or plain Nonfiction. So where do they get shelved?

Turning over the sky-blue, cloud-scattered cover of Joan Didion’s Where I Was From, the
reader will find “Travel/Memoir” in the top right corner. Yes, the book’s narrative takes us
through the different places Didion has lived and visited in search of her heritage. Yes, it is
a personal tale that carries movement and plot to be classified as a memoir. Which
classification carries greater weight? Depending on the philosophy of the bookstore, Didion
may get shelved generically with Memoirs or specifically with Travel books, but in regards to
genre theory, I answer, “Neither.”

Dividing genres into hierarchical levels is a futile attempt because you will always end up
frustrated with the tiny differences you find between texts and lost as to how to classify
these. Do you ignore them as ‘trivial,’ create a new genre level to adopt them, or try to
blend them in with an existing distinction? I propose a model of systems of genre where
“genre” is a fluid term whose specificity is relevant to the scenario being discussed. For
example, a sub-genre of the Essay is the short essay, famous from the online journal
Brevity. These short works of creative nonfiction are less than 750 words a piece but
contain the same stylistic maneuvers and subject matter as their parent genre. If we view
the Essay as a system, Brevity essays are a genre. But if we begin with Brevity essays as
the system, abstract, literal and innovative pieces could be three genres. The level at which
these items are placed does not alter their importance; Brevity is not a weightier realm of
writing without the umbrella of the Essay hovering over it. Genres are sovereign entities;
some just happen to possess closer relationships than others.

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Always Applicable
Often our personal conceptions of genre come in the way of understanding complex
theories, so I suggest we examine a system we are used to putting such labels upon: music.
Take for example the song “Walk This Way,” a multi-genre collaboration between Hip-Hop
greats Run DMC and rock ‘n roll giants Aerosmith. In regards to accepted musical genres,
“Walk This Way” could be classified as Top 40, Hard Rock, and Rap. These distinctions are
controlled by the industry: created by the radio stations, production companies and record
labels that need to differentiate among them. Genres are also helpful to listeners in
knowing what to expect, as they express condensed information about region, style, and
tempo of the music within them. As efficient as they are, we should not be forced to settle
on an ultimate distinction for a song. Each genre classification serves a purpose, depending
on why and how we choose to examine a work.

Categorized by radio play, ”Walk This Way” would be in the Top 40 of 1986, the first rap
song to climb into the top five ranks of the Billboard Hot 100. Since it was a remake of
Aerosmith’s top 10 hit of 1975, it has strong roots in the band’s home-genre: Hard Rock.
But the defining feature of this version is the inclusion of one of hip-hop’s pioneer groups,
Run DMC. “Walk This Way” represents the fusion of rock and rap and is a celebrated
representation of rap’s breakthrough into mainstream music, as demonstrated by its Top 40
designation (“Walk This Way” 2008).

Unless we want to hyphenate all relevant titles for all songs, we can likely never streamline
the classification of this song into one genre. At any rate, that system would fail to be more
effective: as different as we humans are, we are all going to desire something different from
our system of classification. People want various salient features presented to them when
classifying things like music, thus both objective and subjective features of genre emerge.

Reconciling Opposite Forces

To devote ourselves to genre study is to understand that ultimately all texts participate in
more than one genre. Genres emerge as post-production labels that are used by an
industry’s marketing departments to sell a product. This is not to say that we as consumers
accept these conventions unwillingly; we appreciate the company that can give us what we
want—‘tailor’ themselves to our ‘needs.’ But that is not to say our desires are rigid and
cannot be appealed to in different manners; chances are if you liked Didion a lot, you’d buy
Where I Was From regardless of where it was shelved at your local bookstore. Meaning-
making can occur differently for every work. Even things as simple and familiar as song
lyrics have diverse classification possibilities; lyrics are widely accepted to mean “different
things to different people.” Is that not the first
excuse we jump to when a colleague discovers us
singing the wrong lyrics to a song?

Systems of genre allow us to reconcile the

opposing forces of objective and subjective. First
to understand how and what the theory classifies:
the broadest level of classification is the medium
we are examining, i.e. music. Music is our
system. More specific classification occurs
through genres. Each genre must have an explicit
way of defining what may fall into it and what may
not. For example, Top 40 indicates that during a
given period a song was ranked within this
bracket on the charts by Billboard Magazine (“Top
40” 2008). A song popular enough to only garner
a ranking of 58th would not be considered in this
genre. On the other hand, Top 40 is not the only

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way to describe a chart-topping song, as it only indicates popularity and not style. This
same song may also be classified as Hard Rock, a variation of Rock music with its roots in
garage and psychedelic rock, characterized by distorted electric guitars, bass guitars,
keyboards and drums (“Hard rock” 2008). Or it may be classified as Hip-Hop, a cultural
movement that includes elements of beat-boxing, hip hop fashion, and slang, with music
characterized by rapping (“Hip hop” 2008).

In the example of “Walk This Way,” the song was classified by all three genres. The fact
that the song exists in the realm of Hip-Hop does not change its involvement with Hard
Rock. Thus we can infer that the entry of a new genre into a system does not alter previous
genres but only allows for a more complex way in which to view previous works. With this
model we can address the dichotomy of subjectivity and objectivity. Genres are objective; a
song either meets one’s criteria or does not. But the user of the system has the choice as to
which genre he will focus on at any given moment. If interested in popularity, a listener will
classify “Walk This Way” as Top 40. If interested in the evolution of the Hip-Hop movement,
he will undoubtedly characterize this historic song as Hip-Hop. Here liesofthe
Figure 1—System flexibility of
Genres
genre. This figure demonstrates the system
Music and its genres, for example,
Genre: “User defined” Hip-Hop, Top 40, and Hard Rock.
On a computer screen the genre “user defined” is often an indication
Note: of laziness—either
More genres exist within this the
program does not want to decide the classification of system
a song, than
or youare listed. But for the
cannot.
purpose of genre theory, this label recognizes that whatever genres may already exist, their
meaning and application is up to the user. Genre is and should be most often defined by the
people who use it most frequently. User-definition is the most functional way to define
genre because it employs the fundamental reason we classify things: in order to make them
easier to understand for ourselves. This method of defining genres is also appropriate for
the systems theory I adopt. As supported by Devitt, “Groupings of complex items like texts
are more like metaphors than equations: how texts are grouped depends on which features
the classifier has selected to observe” (Devitt 7).

Genre definitions change when majority perceptions and functions change; a metaphor
ceases to make sense when the relations used to make it no longer exist. The same
principle applies to political jokes or sketch comedies—often these are only amusing in the
time period they are pertinent; out of context they seem anachronistic. Political documents
also undergo scrutiny for chronological accuracy. The Constitution itself is the subject of
ongoing debate as to how to interpret its meaning. We can either understand it in context
of our current beliefs or we can view its words as composed during a certain time period. As
a living, breathing document, the Constitution’s statutes adapt along with its changing
constituents. As a product of the time it was written, judges will go so far as to reference
dictionaries of the same year to determine the intended meaning of a word in a law or an
act.

The debate relies on the decision of whether it is more important to understand a law in its
original context or its current context. These same debates can be applied to other famous
works like the Bible—some followers interpret the text literally while others understand
many of the stories as allegories. Obviously each view could pose problems for the modern
reader. The literal reading is most problematic to reconcile with contemporary ideas as it
posits many visuals that seem impractical or even impossible.5 How we choose to
understand these texts simultaneously answers the question of how we would classify them:
Is the Constitution an antiquated document or one that changes with its people? Is the Bible
man-made fiction or the word of God?

5
It can be (rightfully) argued that this is the fundamental purpose of faith—allowing us to understand
and accept that which does not make sense.

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Genres can be defined using different methods. One of the easiest and most evident is to
categorize them by inclusion and exclusion. Some genres are defined by what they include:
Rap is characterized by the spoken word, thumping beats, and rhythmic and rhyming
language (“Hip hop” 2008). Others are defined by what they exclude—Adult Rock is
characteristically not rap and not hard rock (“Adult album alternative” 2008). In seeking out
genre definitions, the Internet, especially Wikipedia, can be a useful tool. Wikipedia, an
online “encyclopedia,” is written by Internet users. It is not typically viewed as a reliable
entity and is regarded as an inadequate source, but for our purposes it is appropriate. Since
it is written by users, can be updated by virtually anyone, and is not particularly written to
industry standard, Wikipedia offers the most accepted and efficient definitions.6

The importance of genre definition to a writer lies in an understanding that his work does not
sit silently under the label he gives it or expects it to have. Even the editors and publishers
who put the first official stamp of genre upon a book do not control how readers interpret it.
As mentioned before, making meaning of a work is left up to those who use the work. The
ability of genres to be reconceptualized also adds to the subjectivity of systems of genre:
users have the ability to use certain genres for certain purposes, and under powerful
circumstances, they also have the power to change what a genre means altogether.

Origin of Genres
Discussion of the definition of genres begs the question of where genres arose in the first
place. We can attempt to tackle this difficult question through the idea of exigence. As
defined by Bitzer, exigence is “a defect, an obstacle, something waiting to be done, a thing
which is other than it should be” (Bitzer 6). Essentially, genres evolve out of problems that
need to be solved. Continuing with an example of music, the Top 40 genre emerged during
the mid-1950s because of the high frequency at which new music was being produced.
When the genre first emerged the songs had nothing in common except that they were
newly-released (“Top 40” 2008). The genre developed out of the exigence of needing a way
to organize the high volume of records coming into radio stations.

Devitt’s understanding of genre as a response to a recurring situation helps us understand

why genres live on: “Part of what all readers and writers recognize when they recognize
genres are the roles they are to play, the roles being played by other people, what they can
gain from the discourse, and what the discourses are about” (Devitt 12). As much as we are
taught what a devil assumptions can be, genre encourages them: we assume what kind of
song we are going to hear dependent upon its genre; we assume what sort of ideas a
politician will have dependent upon his party; we assume what a drink at Starbucks will
taste like (or not) dependent upon its base. And if we like what is there—correctly assumed
or not—we make more, thus the recurring situation ensues. Music executives keep artists
on a label if they sell well, trying their best to generate lightly tweaked copies. Political
parties are kept popular by the votes of their constituents and expand by developing the
characteristics that distinguish them from their opposition. Research and development
teams come out with new drinks based on the most-purchased of existing coffee categories.
In all these examples, genres exist for the sake of themselves; the only exigence present is
the desire to immortalize.

In dealing with genres that evolve out of others, like Jamieson’s antecedent genres, we can
further understand exigence at work. When George Washington was set to give his first
presidential address, the only precedent to follow was that of a monarchy. Washington
delivered a written address to Congress and they replied in writing, too. The first oral state
of the union address since Adams was delivered in 1913 by Woodrow Wilson. He told
Congress he expected no formal reply except the enactment of his proposed legislation
(Jamieson 411-414). It took 123 years for the genre of presidential rhetoric to evolve out of
6
Users beware: Wikipedia will always be phenomenal only in its use as a starting point for further
research.

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England’s precedent and the power behind the change was Wilson’s discovery that the
exigence of operations modeled after the monarchy were not appropriate for the new
republic.

A Product of the Generation

From Jamieson’s study of State of the Union Addresses, we can garner the influence of social
change on the rhetorical environment, linking back to our initial discussion of discourse in
context. Wilson was influenced by changing social factors characterized by the political
developments of the Revolutionary War. When new genres emerge, they are a product of
their time, independent of whether their goal is to stop the production of a recurring genre
or to revolutionize an existing one.

The previously mentioned genre of the Essay has undergone recent developments with the
revolutionary goal in mind. As discussed with the example of shelving, memoirs, travel
writing, and collections of short stories are specific types of essays. Almost a decade ago, a
sub-genre emerged in the form of an online journal Brevity. As explained, the journal
publishes seasonally and includes essays that are 750-words or less. Its website describes
appropriate entries as “clear, concise, vivid prose.” It goes on to say that “Memoir and
narrative are best told with scenes and detail, not explanation, and even the personal essay
form benefits from image and sensory language” (“Brevity Submissions,” 2008). Brevity’s
development is best understood as a product of technology and serves to redirect and
enhance the aims of its parent genre.

Our access to each other is becoming more efficient every day—first we carried a phone out
of the house, then our computers became portable and now anyone can hold both in one
hand with the invention of the Blackberry. These conveniences have transcended to other
things as well; we want to shorten everything and receive information in faster, more up-to-
date mediums. Not only does it take time to write a book, have it edited, send it for
publication and get it into stores, but a memoir takes life. By breaking down moments of a
memoir into tiny nuggets of information, however grand or small the author chooses,
Brevity has developed a niche for both writers and readers that allows them instant
gratification.

Such short works take a short time to produce and even less to read. Publication for the
journal involves at most 1) sorting through entries, 2) selecting on average twelve essays an
issue, and 3) copying and pasting text into an HTML format. Yes, I’ve severely simplified the
process editor Dinty W. Moore and his fellow Brevity peers endure, but still it is easy to
understand how this form of information transit is more convenient than paper publication.
Brevity is certainly influenced by the developing world of discourse through technological
medium.7 Genres like email, text messaging and instant messaging have taken a hit, too,
being forced to fit to the medium in which they work. Only so many characters fit on a cell
phone screen and readers on a computer only want to scroll down so far.

Disembedded Genre Theory

Norman Fairclough discusses types of genre in order to aid those studying specific ones.
Adapting the motives of his divisions, I adopt his idea of disembedded genres and apply it to
theory.8 It is often helpful to understand a particular theory by disembedding it from its
usual understanding (i.e. texts). For our final examination of systems of genre theory, I want
to introduce another frame: family.

7
This ‘world’ includes such others as online newspapers, blogs, MySpace, Facebook, Wikipedia,
YouTube, etc.
8
Fairclough describes these as “lifted out of… particular networks of social practices where they
initially developed, and becoming available as a sort of ‘social technology’ which transcends both
differences between networks of practices and differences of scale” (Fairclough 68-69).

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When a child is born, her first role is to be the daughter of two parents—making a woman a
mother and a man a father. The entry of this one tiny infant upsets the previous identities
of all parties involved. Sisters and brothers become aunts and uncles; mothers and fathers
become grandparents. Following this child throughout her life, when her brother is born she
is no longer just a daughter but she is also a sister. When she gets married, she becomes a
daughter-in-law and when she has her own children, the cycle begins again and she
becomes a mother.

Additional genres offer new ways to classify members of the family, but do not cause them
to lose former distinctions. The woman always remains a daughter and a sister and a
mother, no matter her other associations. Knowing that a person’s classifications are always
present helps us understand the interaction of genres: the ability to classify a text in two
genres does not change its dealings with either. This example traces back to the metaphor
analogy: relationships changed as new members of the family entered the picture and when
relationships are redefined so must the metaphor, i.e. the genre.

Walk Away with This

Ultimately, an understanding of genre requires an understanding of relationships. Writers
must know that they work in a particular environment that influences them whether they
want it to or not. The environment must willingly accept changes upon it and adapt to new
works placed in the ecosystem of discourse. Readers must be aware of how authors,
editors, and advertisers are morphing their perceptions with carnival mirrors of
advertisements. The audience must also appropriately use the assumptions and predictions
made possible by genres. But these are not the only two groups who will ever have
delightful encounters with genre. Even if you claim to neither read nor write, some day
genre will invade your life as you speed down the hall, turning back to your friend, saying, “I
gotta go! I’m running late for class.”

Works Cited

"Adult album alternative." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 12 Oct. 2008. 13 Oct. 2008

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/adult_rock>.

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Bakhtin, Mikhail. “The Problem of Speech Genres.” 1953. Modern Genre Theory. Ed. David

Duff. Harlow,

England: Longman, 2000. 82‐97.

Bitzer, Lloyd F. "The Rhetorical Situation." Philosophy and Rhetoric 1 (1968): 1-14.

"Brevity Submissions." Brevity: A Journal of Concise Literary Nonfiction. 2008. Creative

Nonfiction Foundation. 11 Dec. 2008

<http://creativenonfiction.org/brevity/submissions.htm>.

Consigny, Scott. “Rhetoric and Its Situations.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 7:3 (1974): 175‐186.

Devitt, Amy J. "A Theory of Genre." Writing Genres. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University

Press, 2004. 1-32.

Eidenmuller, Michael E. "Martin Luther King, Jr.—"I Have a Dream"" American Rhetoric: Top

100 Speeches. 2008. 11 Dec. 2008

<http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm>.

"Hard rock." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 11 Oct. 2008. 13 Oct. 2008

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/hard_rock>.

"Hip hop." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 12 Oct. 2008. 13 Oct. 2008

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/hip_hop>.

Jamieson, Kathleen M. "Antecedent Genre as Rhetorical Constraint." The Quarterly Journal of

Speech 61 (1975): 406-15.

Lerer, Seth. Inventing English : A Portable History of the Language. New York: Columbia UP,

2007.

"Top 40." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 4 Oct. 2008. 13 Oct. 2008

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/top_40>.

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"Walk This Way." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 11 Oct. 2008. 13 Oct. 2008

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/walk_this_way>.

© Anahita Kalianivala