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Author(s):
Jody L. Jahn
Year Published:

Cataloging Information

Topic(s):
Human Dimensions of Fire Management

NRFSN number: 19935
Record updated:

This study proposes an explanation for textual performance grounded in communicative relationality. Specifically, genre is theorized as a form of textual agency whereby generic texts and organizational actors form agential-performative relationships that script action and shape professional epistemologies. The case examines how agential-performative relationships between wildland firefighters and safety rules changed when a new US Forest Service policy, Doctrine, altered safety rule practice. Findings from 12 years of Doctrine documents and firefighting accounts from 37 firefighters revealed that pre-Doctrine commissive relationships with safety rules compelled members to follow them, enabling dissent and passive learning about hazards. Post-Doctrine, directive relationships enabled flexible decisions, but expanded the job’s scope and constrained dissent. Theoretical contributions to textual agency and genre studies are discussed.

Citation

Jahn JLS. 2018. Genre as textual agency: Using communicative relationality to theorize the agential-performative relationship between human and generic text. Communication Monographs: 25p.