Two Problems With The Second Justification For A Genre Stratum

Martin (1992: 506):

(ii) Setting up genre as a pattern of register patterns makes it possible to account for the fact that in a given culture, not all combinations of field, mode and tenor variables occur.  This is perhaps easiest to study from a cross-cultural perspective, noting the effect of western science and technology (new fields) or of media (new modes) for example on "developing" nations as social processes change dramatically in the face of imported medicine, industry, literacy, radio, television etc.  But all thriving cultures are continually elaborating their meaning potential by combining old variables in new ways and by making new distinctions to combine.  A distinct level of genre makes it possible to monitor this dialectic of constraints and possibilities.

Blogger Comments:

[1] No explanation is given as to how "genre as a pattern of register patterns" makes it possible to account for contextual configurations that do not occur in a culture; it is simply asserted without supporting evidence.

Moreover, this does not require "genre as a pattern of register patterns", since constraints — at any level — are theoretically modelled by the wiring of systems; in this case: by the wiring of field, tenor and mode systems at the level of context.  

[2] No explanation is given as to how "a distinct level of genre" makes it possible to "monitor this dialectic of constraints and possibilities"; it is simply asserted without supporting evidence.

Moreover, this does not require "a distinct level of genre", since the evolution of systems — at any level — is modelled in terms of phylogenesis; in this case: as the evolutionary change of field, tenor and mode systems at the level of context.