Genre

Genre theory is a paradigmatic case of theoretical problems arising from problems of language. Therefore, I first distinguish between different levels of abstraction designated by standardized predicators. From this starting point, a constructivist conception of ‘genre’ is outlined which understands genres not as institutions, but rather as conventions in the sense of David Lewis. This raises the problem of how these conventions can be investigated. Accordingly, various models for a heuristics of genericity are discussed, and the fundamental constructivist conception of genre is developed into a model of generic layers based on the levels of abstraction established in the first step of my argument. In particular, transhistorical modes of communication are differentiated from historical genres, and pragmatic modes (the narrative, the dramatic, the lyrical, etc.) from semantic ones (the satiric, the comic, etc.), with both being defined as transhistorical, but not as unhistorical or universal. It is further argued that ‘modes’ are best conceptualized as prototypes, whereas the identity of historical genres is constituted in the form of ‘rhizomatic’ networks.