Summary Devitt, Amy J., Anis Bawarshi, and Mary Jo Reiff.

"Materiality and Genre in the Study of Discourse Communities." College English 65.5 (2003): 541-558. Web. 14 Feb. 2012. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/3594252>. In this particular passage the writers compile multiple examples of what genre in terms of a discourse community are. They pose that genre analysis is an important tool in understanding the way societies work and they humans interact. They do this by suggesting that it is done through text-dependent subject matters (452). In the first example written by Amy Devitt the textual instructions used by jurors is analyzed. Devitt argues that sometimes text is written within one community (that formally understands what has been written) and is given to another community that is not formally trained to understand what has been written. This is the case with Jury instructions. Complex language that may be interpreted one way by the jurors is meant to be used another way in the language of lawyers. For example, the world might. She goes on to say that these genres depend on human interaction and acceptance. Without another community accepting these terms there would be no reason to have this genre. Anis Bawarshi continues by supplying an example based upon medical forms. She argues that communities can tell what to expect from the other community from filling out the form. You already know what to expect from your doctor and once you fill out the form your doctor knows about you. There is no personal interaction. She explains that the environment they are in for example can influence genres, when you go to the doctor you expect a certain degree of formality. This comes in the shape of the

Analysis 1/31/13

These authors all state that genres make a community. From what I understood genres can help define a community. For example, the medical forms we got in class. The bunch my group received was from a more eastern style way of medicine. The doctor helped the outsider understand what her community (practice) was about (valued). Sometimes those outside a community may not always understand the terms described in a particular genre. Some terms within the medical forms my group and I needed to search. It is up to us to apply our basic knowledge in order to form some basic understanding of what this knew community is about. From what I can tell genres will only work if the person trying to learn from it is willing to accept it and begin to understand it.

form that the doctor may have you fill out. Mary Jo Reiff describes what ethnographies are. She discusses how genres help the people who are trying to understand these communities analyze them and communicate with other communities. She says that from a genre you can figure out a community ideology, personality, culture, and language. Reiff says that genre analysis and ethnography as a genre are one in the same. When a student gains a genre they gain a ethnography.