Damnation of Demidenko--interview or inquisition? : towards a pragmatic interpretation of genre

Genre is often conceptualised as a product or text. Such a view, however, seems to downplay the dynamism of textual production encouraging a hermeneutics with rigid, formulaic tendencies. This is clearly evident in the contribution of many structural linguists such as Martin and Hasan to the study of genre. While semioticians, notably Kress, Threadgold and Freadman, have critiqued this position there is still considerable work to be undertaken in reconceptualising notions of genre to give emphasis to the pragmatic play of language use. This paper uses a TV current affairs interview of the controversial author Helen Demidenko-Darville as the basis for examining approaches to the study of genre. The analysis is framed by Deleuze and Guattari's metaphor of 'the map' which it is argued captures the fluidity and generative nature of the interpretation of genre espoused in this article. It is presented as an alternative to metaphors such as 'the frame', 'the recipe', 'the game', and 'the template' which form the basis of theorisations of genre that tend to focus on the stability of form and, as such, have difficulty in accounting for the rupturing of boundaries which is evident in the Demidenko interview