Web Textuality: Migration of Forms and Processes of

Hyper-gen(e)ration

The Dissolution of Boundaries

Trying to give a definition of Web genre, or "cybergenre", seems to

be to "grasp the ungraspable" (Santini et al., 2010: 6) or to "hit a

moving target" (Shepherd and Watters, 2004).

Indeed, some of the reasons that are at the basis of these

assumptions also involve traditional genres and these reasons can be

encapsulated in one concept: the dissolution of boundaries.

To begin to illustrate this process, it is necessary to pinpoint the

most important traits of Genre Theory that are the prompts for this

investigation. The first are from Swales’ definition:

A genre comprises a class of communicative events, the members of

which share some set of communicative purposes. These purposes are

recognized by the expert members of the parent discourse community, and

thereby constitute the rationale for the genre. This rationale shapes the

schematic structure of the discourse and influences and constrains choice

of content and style. Communicative purpose is both a privileged criterion

and one that operates to keep the scope of a genre as here conceived

narrowly focused on comparable rhetorical action. (1990: 58. My italics)

The basic traits are then: communicative purpose, discourse

community, schematic structure (or move structure), and

rhetorical action.

In 1999, Bhatia coins the term "genre colony" to identify those

genres which, despite their apparent diversities, possess those traits

that describe the same social practice (e.g. promotional genres).

>>>>>another trait: dynamism

Genre Colony (Bhatia, 2004)

Descriptive Promotional genres Evaluative

Purpose Purpose

Book Blurbs Advertisements Job Applications

TV Ads Print Ads Radio Ads

Car Ads Airline Ads Cosmetic Ads

for holiday travellers for business travellers

Web Genres: New Genres or Hybrid Forms?

Then users begin to use new technologies, on the one hand they are

influenced by their knowledge of genres and the expectations

created; on the other, they have to interpret and use the technical

functionality of digital texts consistently.

The common concepts, such as communicative purpose, pattern

structure, rhetorical strategies, dynamism and genre colony, applied

to traditional genres, need to be re-thought in the Web domain in the

light of the constitutive elements of digital communication, such as

hypertextuality, hypermediality and hypermodality (hypersemio-

ticity), interactivity, and hyperlinking processes.

Cybergenres

Extant Novel

Replicated Variant Emergent Spontaneous

Early hypertext hypermedia home page

electronic newspaper newspaper blogs

newspaper FAQs

The Evolution of Cybergenres (Shepherd & Watters, 1998. My adaptation)

The front page of the print version of The New York Times

The homepage of the digital version of The New York Times

Parameters of Web Genres

CONVENTIONAL GENRES VS WEB GENRES Communicative Purpose and Rhetorical

Strategies

Functionality:

- Purpose

- Rhetoric

- Interactivity

Pattern Structure Prototypical and Hyperlinked Structure

Dynamism Endless Evolution and

Transformation

Hybridisation:

- Interdiscursivity

- Genre Colony

Hypersemioticity:

- Hypermodality

- Hypergen(e)ricity

- Transgen(e)ricity

Discourse Community and

Disciplinary Domains of Practice

Blurring of Boundaries

(at different scales)

Functionality (Shepherd & Watters, 1999) which refers to

capabilities afforded by the new medium and involves both the

purpose the author has in mind and, above all, the interaction

s/he has with the genre and his/her expectations from it.

Hyperlinking processes permit users to read digital texts in order

to do things, thus establishing a close relationship between text

and action.

Prototypical and hyperlinked structure since digital genres can

be considered as prototypes rather than clear-cut semiotic

patterns (Paltridge, 1997), a tool that enables researchers to

describe digital texts rather than to classify them into categories.

Endless evolution and transformation instead of dynamism.

Indeed, evolution is an inherent part of dynamism of

conventional genres.

But interactive digital documents may have another kind of

dynamism which pertains to the technical sphere of

programming language. This is defined as transformation

(Breure, 2001), i.e. the capability of changing their appearance

by simply re-using the same information components, which are

indeed genre-free, in order to produce (or re-produce) different

output documents thanks to the presence of patterns/templates

(cf. opacity and transparency).

Hypersemioticity instead of hybridisation. In conventional

genres interdiscursivity leads to hybrid forms and the same

occurs in digital settings, mainly when digital affordances are

not totally exploited as in many genres that are the virtual

representation of their print counterpart.

Furthermore, as a consequence of this complex process, there are

two sub-parameters that are hypergen(e)ricity and

transgen(e)ricity.

The former can be represented by the co-existence of different

genres on a single Web document (e.g. a portal or a wikipage).

The latter is an affordance of the hypertextual structure. In

hypertextual writing, transgen(e)ricity entails the possibility of

activating a link in a genre which leads to a different genre.

Blurring of boundaries at different scales becomes a norm in

digital settings and needs to be taken into consideration when

analysing genre as such, Web discourse communities, and

disciplinary domains of practice.