Carolyn R. Miller

Carolyn Miller’s 1984 essay Genre as Social Action reframed genre away from textual classification toward typified rhetorical responses to recurrent situations. The piece is foundational for rhetorical genre studies.

¶Core ideas

• Genre as social action: genres are typified responses to recurrent social situations, not text-shaped boxes
• Recurrent situations: situations are themselves socially constructed, and genres reproduce them
• Communities of practice and genre uptake: genres circulate and change inside communities that recognize and use them

¶Key works

• Genre as Social Action (1984)
• Emerging Genres in New Media Environments (co-edited, 2017)