Ashley's E-portfolio

Journal 2: Genre and Audience

 

        Genre and audience are two important pieces of composing and without one another it is hard to communicate expression and thoughts. Genres provide the audience with a sense of what they will be seeing, that is how the audience determines if he or she is interested in such subject. In the reading written by Dirk, genres are typically repeated. They are so familiar due to the fact that our “knowledge of genres is limited,” to the previous material we have seen. Dirk demonstrates that in reality there are many definitions of genre and it all depends on which form one chooses to take on when writing. Dirk then explains that the genre being written in not yet established, Dirk does this by telling the audience of what might have been the expectations of this paper at first but no longer are and that the audience should prepare themselves because it is a form “resulting in the creation of a new genre.”

        Anzaldua stand on genre has to do more or so with where on comes from, genre in this writing has to do with how American society is not open nor accepting of her culture and how that impacts Anzaldua on a personal note; “If you want to be American, speak ‘American’.” Which means genre in this case is about emotion and expression that comes from the resentment of being forced to conform. Whereas, audience is the set of people who encouraged this behavior by standing aside and allowing Anzaldua’s culture to be affected. Genre and audience seem to be two important elements for Anzaldua, throughout the writing the genre is clear and set with examples and explanations of a topic that is repeated to the audience again and again in the writing, emphasizing the main point. Both of these text have greatly confused my understanding of genre and audience because in Anzaldua’s writing there is a piece with a specific genre and audience that it aims towards, yet in Dirks piece it is clearly stated that there is no set genre in the written piece that it will develop with the writing. And audience is anyone that the writing is being presented to. I personally use to see genre as a category that has to do with one’s style and interest, and usually there are a set amount of genres to choose from, they all come from anything I have ever seen or heard. Now genre is a developing piece with many types of styles and themes that come from anything that I am attempting to explain and sort out. While the audience is those who I am trying to prove my point or moral to, also those that I may feel have had to do with the cause or effect of the genre in the writing.

        Genre and audience are related in the sense that without no genre there is no audience because the audience would not be aware of what the written piece is about. These two elements are essential to one another due to the amount of interest the audience has for a genre. The significant relationship between genre and audience for composing is that when something is being written there is a range of what style will be used and when one chooses the style (genre) an audience is chosen as well. Therefore, one leads to the other it is inevitable.