Unit 2

Texts are concrete forms of communication/the material form of discourse(values and beliefs). As an objectified unit of discourse, texts can be lifted from its originating context (decontextualization) and inserted into a new setting (recontextualization). Interactants can tell that something is a text because you can find unity and coherence. REMEMBER: texts can be written, oral, multimodal, oral non-interactional (lecture), interactional, etc.

Texts are doubly constrained by discourses (arising from social institutions), which influences WHAT is to be said, and by genres (arising from social occasions), which influences HOW it will be said in a contextually determined form. Texts are constrained by discourses and genres to a certain extent because text producers are SOCIAL AGENTS who can exercise AGENCY, and if these text producers find themselves in a position of power within their insitutions, they have more opportunities to innovate/deviate from the conventions and produce marginal texts.

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Texts can be PROTOTYPICAL: if the conventions of the genre are followed (Like Bush´s political speech, more specifically, the inaugural address)
Texts can be MARGINAL: if the text producer deviates from the conventions of the genre. There is an intertextual gap. Example: Cortazar´s novel Rayuela is marginal because it does not followed the conventional order of a novel.

text producers are social agents who can make decisions (agency) about the productions of their texts. The institutions constrain on what they can say, and the genres constrain on how they can say it. As they are social agents, they can choose on what to follow or not to follow.

Discourse (unc) is language use as a social practice
Discourses (count) is the set of values, beliefs, ideologies, worldviews, ways of thinking of an institution: the Catholic discourse, the sexist discourse, the body positivity discourse, the discourse of feminism, etc. There is a dialectical relationship (two-way) between discourse and discourses since the language we speak reflects and reinforces worldviews

-El género actúa como dispositivo para controlar la interacción a través del tiempo, el género nos permite rastrear las continuidades y las relaciones intertextuales en la historia.
-El género actúa como dispositivo de ordenamiento para articular discursos de modos particulares, el género regula la heterogeneidad y la interdiscursividad.
-El género actúa como dispositivo para constituir grados particulares de aislamiento entre sujetos, el género distingue los grupos que poseen competencia en cierto género de los grupos que no la poseen.

Social institutions influence what gets to be said in a text. COMPLETE

we can identify the boundaries of texts

Text types are fixed schemas in which certain linguistic features determine which text type is (expositive, argumentative), and it does not considers agency. Genres are culture bound, arise from social occasions, considers agency

You can identify the text type but not the genre by analyzing linguistic features because genres are culture bound; any given text may belong to one genre for one person or to another genre for another person: "para mi tu clase no es clase, es sermón"

Genres are relative stable configurations of format, style, and content. Genres are guiding frameworks and not inherent to text. Text producers use these guiding frameworks to produce their texts, and text receivers also use these guiding frameworks (expectations) of a given genre to interpret them. Genres exhibit flexibility because they are NOT rigid schemas. The genres that are not flexible becaue there is no room for interpretation (unequivocal interpretation) are said to exhibit MAXIMUN CLOSURE, such as divorce sentence, lease contracts. But most genres exhibit COMBINATORY POSSIBILITIES. Genres emerge when the conditions are given, for example, the genre divorce sentence emerged when the law of divorce was passed in Argentina. Genres are culture-bound since they are associated with a communicative situation: the genre on-line lesson emerged during Covid-19 pandemics. Genred are influenced by the social occassions they occur in.

Genres generate EXPECTATIONS. Text receivers have expectations of a given genre which help them to interpet a text as belonging to one genre or another genre.

A genre makes available inherent subject positions, which is the role established for the text producer and the text receiver by the text producer. The genre college-level textbook makes available the subject positions "expert" (text producer) and "college students" (text receiver)

The recurrence/repetition may bring about a hybrid genre like docudrama, infomercial, etc

Hybridity is a characteristic of genres, and Texts can be heterogeneos(=different voices, discourses)

There are genres that are associated to certain social groups, for example, there are genres associated with judges: only judges can give a veredict, a sentence. This is why we choose one genre or another. GENRES REGULATE WHICH SOCIAL GROUPS HAVE COMPETENCE ON A CERTAIN GENRE.

Institutions impose ideological and behavioral restrictions on the subjects and social groups who act on them through GENRES because in genres subjects occupy subject positions that eventually become naturalized. A genre can evidentiate social stratification and, at the same time, make it last. Genres can have the effect of naturalizing the cultural reality they represent.

When a text producer deviates from the conventions of a genre, then it is in opposition to the established expectations for that genre, and if they turn into recurrent practices shared by many subjects, the expectations for the future realizations of that genre will change