Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Ken Penner" <pennerkm AT mcmaster.ca>]

I'm dredging up an old message from the archives, wondering if there is a
published source for some of the ideas Bryan outlined below about
differentiating genres based on the parameters of consecutivity, projection,
and agent orientation (or any other formal system for differentiating
genres).

I am wondering what the genre with the features -C -P +AO would look like?
Psalms, perhaps? 1QHa?
What about +C +P -AO? Casuistry? (a combination of instructional and
procedural discourse)? 11QT?

Ken Penner, Ph.D. cand., McMaster University
pennerkm AT mcmaster.ca
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> [mailto:b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of B. M. Rocine
> Sent: February 6, 2003 5:19 PM

...

> Genres, in this view, are unlike the genres posited by the 
> literary critic
> or poet.  In the model I use, genres perform a simple, universal
> communication task, as follows:
> 
> Historical Narrative tells a story set in the past.
> Predictive Narrative predicts a story.
> Hortatory Discourse directly attempts to modify behavior.
> Instructional Discourse tells how to do something.
> Procedural Discourse tells how something was done (repeatedly).
> Expository Discourse reveals truth of any other sort.
> 
> Three parameters inherent to the communication tasks also define the
> discourse genres by their presence or absence; they are: 
> consecutivity (C),
> projection (P), and agent orientation (AO),.
> 
> Consecutivity is present when the text displays a line of temporal
> contingencies.  Linkage is mostly temporal rather than logical.
> 
> Projection is present when the text looks forward as 
> prediction or wish.
> 
> Agent orientation is present when the text focuses on 
> participants (rather
> than abstractions or goals).
> 
> The genres fall out like this (+ means the feature is 
> present, and - means
> it is absent):
> 
>                parameters:       C  P  AO
> genres:
> Historical Narrative          +   -   +
> Predictive Narrative         +   +   +
> Hortatory Discourse         -   +   +
> Instructional Discourse      -   +   -
> Procedural Discourse       +   -   -
> Expository Discourse        -   -   -
> 
> As one might imagine from the above descriptions, the two 
> narrative genres
> will be dominated by forms that move story time forward.  In contrast,
> Hortatory and Instructional discourses will be dominated by 
> modal forms.
> The first five genres will use a series of mostly action 
> verbs to form the
> text.