2.1.2.- CONTRATO DE PRESTACIÓN DE SERVICIOS PROFESIONALES

The term ‘genre’ is generally used to mean ‘a type of text’. Texts become ‘typical’ when they have characteristics that can also be recognized in other, similar texts. The reason for this is that the people who produce the texts follow certain ‘rules’ –

prescriptions, traditions, ingrained habits, role models, etc. (see chapter 3). Three kinds of ‘typical characteristics’ characterize genres, characteristics of content, form and function. Genres such as the Western and the fairytale are usually characterized on the basis of their content. Westerns are typically set in a particular time and place and will use certain stock characters and typical plots. Fairytales, likewise, are set ‘a long time ago, in a faraway country’ and typically include at least some magical char- acters – sorcerers, witches, etc. – and events. As can be seen from the examples, the content-oriented approach to characterizing genres is common in literature and film studies. But it should not remain restricted to these text types. Content, the ‘what’ of the text, is clearly important in any kind of text. In social semiotics, however, content is studied under the heading of ‘discourse’, rather than under the heading of ‘genre’.

Texts can also be characterized on the basis of the means of expression or media they use. The string quartet could be an example of this form-oriented approach to ‘genre’: a string quartet is a string quartet because it comprises four string instru- ments, regardless of what they play. This form-oriented approach is common in rela- tion to forms of expression in which representation is not foregrounded or considered important – for example, music.

Finally, texts may be typical in terms of what they do. The genre of advertisement is defined by its function of selling products or services – and, today, increasingly, ideas. The genre of news is defined by its function of providing information about recent events of public interest. Combinations are possible too. The genre of magazine advertisement, for instance, is defined on the basis of its function – advertising – as well as its medium – the magazine. The social semiotic approach to genre has focused on the function of texts in social interactions, on what people do to or for or with each other by means of texts. As such doings unfold sequentially, this approach to genre has concentrated on the way in which different kinds of ‘beginning–middle–end’ struc- tures help to enact communicative practices. But the social semiotic approach has also stressed that studying the text alone is not enough. The sequences of communica- tive actions that make up genres are embedded in social practices which contain other elements as well – actors, times, places, and so on (see chapter 5). Social semiotics should look, not just at the actions, at ‘What is done here with words (or pictures, or music)?’ but also at ‘Who does it?’, ‘For whom?’, ‘Where?’, ‘When’?, etc. And if this aspect remains in the background in this particular chapter, it is only because I cannot speak of everything at once, not because it is less important.

Genre as defined in this way is, of course, only one of the three key textual resources I will discuss in this part of the book. Texts also represent. They are also about things, and they should therefore be studied not only from the point of view of genre but also from the point of view of discourse. Finally, as will be discussed in chapter 7, they also have stylistic characteristics, an aspect which, in the age of the ‘lifestyle’, is becoming increasingly important. The difference between discourse and genre can be illustrated with respect to stories. A well-known discourse-oriented approach to analysing the beginning–middle–end structure of stories was that of Vladimir Propp (1968), originally published in 1927. Propp noted that Russian

folktales, despite their surface differences, contain typical events in typical sequences. Consider the following examples:

Folktale 1 A tsar gives an eagle to a hero. The eagle carries the hero away to another kingdom

Folktale 2 An old man gives Sucenko a horse. The horse carries the hero away another kingdom

Folktale 3 A sorcerer gives Ivan a boat. The boat takes Ivan to another kingdom Folktale 4 A princess gives Ivan a ring. Young men appear from out of the ring and carry Ivan away to another kingdom

Clearly the characters differ in each story, but there is always a hero (Sucenko, Ivan, etc.), a helper (a tsar, an old man, a sorcerer, a princess) and a magical agent (an eagle, a horse, a boat, young men), and the hero is always given some means of transport and then transported to another kingdom. These are the recurring charac- teristics that allow us to recognize these stories as typical of their kind, and they are of course similar to the ‘statements’ (Foucault’s term) and ‘scenarios’ I discussed in the previous chapter. Propp called these statements, these typical story events, ‘func- tions’ and gave them labels like ‘Provision of a magical agent’, ‘Transference to another kingdom’, and so on. He showed that there were, in all, 31 of these functions, and that although not every one of them occurs in every story they always have to occur in a fixed order.

Wright (1975: 143) applied this idea to the Western. ‘Classical’ Westerns, common from the 1930s to the 1950s, typically begin with a hero riding into a farming community – or some other community – which is threatened by unscrupulous villains – for example, ranchers. The hero initially keeps a low profile, but soon the community discovers that he has exceptional skills – that he is an ace gunfighter. They accept him, but also mistrust him a little, as he resembles the enemy in some ways – or even has links with the enemy. As the conflict between the community and the villains reaches a crisis, the hero intervenes and defeats the villains. Although the community now fully accepts him, he leaves and rides into the mountains.

Such typical plots may be fictional, but they nevertheless represent what goes on in the real world. Their ‘mythical’ nature, their remove from contemporary realism, allows them to represent key themes relevant to a wide range of contemporary social practices. In classical Westerns, for instance, the farmers represent progress and communal values in opposition to the ranchers’ greed and selfishness, while the hero has characteristics of both: he is on the one hand an individualist, fiercely independent, and a gunfighter, but on the other hand he also respects and protects the community, rather than exploiting or destroying it. The story therefore ‘argues’ that (American) society does need communal values, but that communities are also weak and vulnerable. Society therefore needs men who possess individuality, independence and enterprise, but who also respect community values. This ‘argument’ clearly has affinities with that of the ‘special operations’ discourse discussed in the previous chapter. The fact that that

discourse was brought into the domain of global politics by Ronald Reagan – who, as an actor, had starred in many Westerns – gives pause for thought.

There is another way of looking at stories, an approach which stresses the begin- ning–middle–end structure, not of the represented events, but of the events that constitute the telling of the story. Such an account of storytelling has been given by the sociolinguist William Labov (1972b). Note that each of the events is defined in terms of its communicative function, as something the storyteller does for the listener (or reader, or viewer). The story I use to illustrate Labov’s analysis is from Julia Vosnesenskaja’s Women’s Decameron (1987):

1 Abstract

The storyteller begins with a brief summary or indication of the topic of the story, to attract the listener’s attention and interest:

I fell in love for the first and last time when I was only five … Don’t laugh, first hear what sort of love it was. Perhaps you won’t feel like laughing when you have heard the whole story …

2 Orientation

The storyteller introduces the setting – who is involved, when, where – and the event that kicks off the story, thus providing orientation for the listener. Elements of orientation may also occur later in the story, when new people, places and things are introduced.

It was during the war. My father was in charge of a military aerodrome and my mother was a medical officer. They were both serving in the same unit and were so afraid of losing me in the general chaos of war that they dragged me around with them rather than entrust me to relatives or children’s homes … One day, a new pilot came to us straight from flying school, He was the youngest, only eigh- teen, but of course he seemed grown up to me, even quite old.

3 Complication

The story moves into the events that make up the core of the story. In the case of my example, Volodka, the pilot, spends much time with Larissa, the storyteller, but then falls in love with a telegraphist, which makes Larissa jealous. Volodka does not return from a mission, then returns months later, badly burnt after a plane crash. When he leaves he promises Larissa he will marry her when she is grown up – she is the only one who does not mind his scars.

4 Evaluation

Throughout the development of the story there may be moments of evaluation, moments when the storyteller answers the unspoken (or spoken) question ‘So what?’, ‘Why should we find this interesting?’ Here she anticipates and counters such a sceptical reaction: ‘Don’t laugh, it’s true’.

They all had their eye on Volodka, and this Rayechka girl even had some success. But I got Volodka away from her. Don’t laugh, it’s true …

5 Resolution

The final event, the outcome of the story, provides the listener with meaning. Stories are told to convey ideas about life, in this case the idea is that in real life there are no happy endings: Volodka, after having first been decorated as a Hero of the Soviet Union is revealed to be a traitor and a spy and perishes in the camps. The marriage with Larissa never happens.

6 Coda

This stage – which does not always occur – has the storyteller signing off and making a bridge from the resolution to the ‘here and now’ of the telling of the story – it is told in a maternity ward, to other new mothers – and to the relevance of the story for the storyteller and/or the listeners.

But I never did find a man like him. I received my doctorate and decided it was time to have a family by myself, without a husband. I’ve now borne my son, Volodka, and I’m going to bring him up by myself.

All stories can be described in terms of these two structures: the structure of the story told and the structure of the telling of the story. The same applies to non- narrative genres. They too, rely on three kinds of semiotic resources – ‘discourse’, a resource for structuring content, ‘genre’, a resource for structuring the interaction through which that content is communicated, and ‘style’, the resource I will deal with in the next chapter.

Labov’s schema includes only the actions of the social practice of storytelling. It was based on boasting stories told by Harlem teenagers. These stories would typically be told to other teenagers in the school playground, but here they were told to researchers, and what these researchers recorded did therefore not include the ‘origi- nal’ who, when, where, etc. If the story had been recorded as it was told in the play- ground, there would, for instance, have been many interruptions. Listeners would have participated actively. Researchers recording authentic stories, on the other hand, are less likely to participate actively in the telling of the story. It is clearly important to study what kinds of stories are, in our society, told to whom, when, where, how, etc. Yet, abstract as it is – or maybe because it is relatively abstract – Labov’s schema has been useful for studying many different types of story, as is demonstrated by the fact that I could easily apply it to a story which differs in many respects from those studied by Labov. Clearly, Labov was describing a semiotic resource, not a particular kind of text. Discourses and genres are best seen, not as types of text, but as semiotic resources that can be used in many different contexts – where their use may then be subject to context-specific rules (see chapter 3).