As genre theorists we examine "typified rhetorical actions" in order to understand why some producers of text more effectively perform genre expectations, and in our answers we often emphasize the concept of recurrence (Berkenkotter and Huckin, Devitt ("Generalizing"), Miller, Swales). This explanation links genre theory to gender theorists who examine "stylized repetition[s] of acts" to determine how, in a given setting or situation, bodies gendered, classed, raced as Other may communicate in ways not valued within an academic setting, a political arena, a business situation (see, for example, Butler, de Lauretis, Sedgwick, Fuss). Both genre theory and gender studies examine how the constructed means of production takes on the appearance of a natural means of production. For example, genre theorists argue that in home cultures where assertions dominate conversations, assertion-based rhetoric may seem as natural as breathing. People who have acquired the discourse conventions while learning to speak at home, attending school, worshiping, playing sports etc., may have difficulty imagining that anyone would find assertion-based rhetoric foreign or unnatural. 

To some extent, genre theorists would argue that genre knowledge develops with increased repetitions. In order to demonstrate the force of repetitions, genre theorists often focus on a neophyte's ability to learn existing genres (Shryer; Swales; Berkenkotter, Huckin, and Ackerman; Adam and Freedman). However, understanding repetitions requires examination of the familiar by somehow making it strange, an extraordinary challenge because, as Margaret Marshall and Loren Barritt argue, a group's truths remain steadfast through pre-established "form" expectations. While Marshall and Barritt aim "to investigate the natural attitude of researchers and to scrutinize the culturally constructed values and behaviors that have remained hidden precisely because they are ordinary" (590), their task, similar to Catherine Schryer's of discovering "who has access to a certain genre and who does not" (Schryer 213), is difficult because many of the genre codes are erased (silent) or refracted and therefore act as screens maintaining the stability of the genre, limiting the power of an investigation. 

Often the repetition of genre acts has such an extensive tradition that one has difficulty uncovering the "ordinary" information necessary for gaining access to the community. While one may want to understand, for instance, why Nate gains access (in Berkenkotter's, Huckin's and Ackerman's oft cited case study), and while the study of Nate may reveal much about enculturation, the writing Nate attempts is already stabilized--ordinary--making questions of access more complicated. 

Judith Butler, in her text Bodies that Matter, explores the degree to which "the very terms of symbolic legitimacy and intelligibility" can be "rearticulated" (Bodies 3). How can one understand the means by which "symbolic legitimacy" occur so that one can reimagine or "rearticulate symbolic legitimacy"? The answer, from a genre perspective, lies in the investigation of the constraints produced by expectations. Intelligibility is somehow connected to the degree to which one can meet expectations.   For example, Carolyn Miller initially defines genres as "typified rhetorical actions based in recurring situations" (159) and then gives the following addendum: "Genre refers to a conventional category of discourse based in large-scale typification of rhetorical action; as action, it acquires meaning from situation and from the social context in which that situation arose; . . . A genre is a rhetorical means for mediating private intentions and social exigence; it motivates by connecting the private with the public, the singular with the recurrent" (163).   But If the actions enable the individual to "mediate private intentions and social exigence," why do some writers have more difficulty figuring out the appropriate action? What happens if the mediation between the private and the social cannot occur? How does one, in Butler's words, gain "symbolic legitimacy and intelligibility" (Bodies 3)? While the "private" may be connected "with the public," what happens when the "singular" fails to join with the "recurrent?"   What should a student in a personal narrative class do when his text is met with silence?  Karl's response--that his text is just like any other in the class--falls on deaf ears if the relation cannot occur, if the text suggests a relation that the participants refuse. 

RECIPROCITY, PERFORMANCES, NEGOTIATIONS
  

While the marking of territory has much to do with the identity of the participants, Karl's text, the silence around it, can be investigated in terms of reciprocity amongst individuals, an explanation which does not detract from but adds to an understanding of the ways in which systemic epistemologies vie for primacy. Martin Nystrand and Jeffrey Wiemelt argue that "text meaning is always a negotiated, shared construct" (33) and address the relationship between text and context, for they claim that "a text is explicit precisely when it is attuned to and functions adequately in terms of its context of use vis-a-vis readers' respective purposes, situations, and culture" (31). Nystrand and Wiemelt concentrate on the exchange and emphasize the notion of reciprocity. Their focus allows for a review of the role participants play in creating meaning. One of the components in a document's success is the relationship between author and audience and the potential for reciprocity to be achieved there, which seems to be dependent on the willingness of each participant to perceive the text as fitting with expectations of textual patterns and relationships.  Success, understanding how to participate in the actions of a community, is somehow inherently connected to performance, and one might assume that Karl, was a successful, intelligent participant.  He is, in Tom Fox's words, a student who have been able to meet "standards" (41). Given Karl's abilities to enter and participate in graduate school, we might assume that he is able to complete this writing event without difficulty. The fact remains, however, that he felt slammed at the level of queer.  Why?  Tom Fox suggests the following: 

if we tell ourselves and our students that they will achieve access if they master writing standards, we are obscuring and underestimating the powerful forces of racism, sexism, elitism, heterosexism that continue to operate despite the students' mastery of standards. We are denying the terror that comes from economic insecurity; we are obscuring the effect that brutal physical violence has on women students; we are minimizing the debilitating effects of racial violence (p. 43). 

Utterances are not indifferent to one another, and are not self-sufficient; they are aware of and mutually reflect one another. These mutual reflections determine their character. Each utterance is filled with echoes and reverberations of other utterances to which it is related by the communality of the sphere of speech communication. Every utterance must be regarded primarily as a response to preceding utterances of the given sphere . . .Each utterance refutes, affirms, supplements, and relies on the others, presupposes them to be known, and somehow takes them into account. 91

Ann Freadman's discussion of ceremony gives a helpful image of the interrelations of utterances. She argues that utterances which are either simple or complex can be seen in terms of ceremonies which then enable the focal genre to exist, enable the participants to have a smart dialogue. In her article "Anyone for Tennis?", Freadman explores the way in which texts, like shots in a tennis match, are exchanged. In her analogy of the tennis game, "each shot" "produces value in two ways: in what it enables, or prevents; and to either player. Each shot is formally determined by the rules of the game, and materially determined by the skill of the players, and each return shot is determined by the shot to which it is a response" (92). Two components play key roles in the exchange of meaning. First, Freadman emphasizes this notion of game whereby the formalistic components (the boundaries, the net, the etiquette of the match) comprise ceremonies that then allow for games to be held, for shots to be exchanged. The second component includes a sense of participants as playing a game where each must be adequately skilled in order for the match to be interesting to watch.

In terms of genre construction, a focus on gender, on "sexuate beings" (Cornell's term), demonstrates the necessity of paying attention to location, to participants who may not have the power to speak.  Sometimes the "location" will be internal with participants creating credibility because of their abilities to see themselves as viable participants. Sometimes the "location" will be established because of the relations amongst participants. 

Virginia Woolf argues that we within the institution of education "cannot throw away [our] education" because "eleven years [or more] at school and college have been stamped upon [us] indelibly" ("Leaning" 141). An attentiveness to the community of writers seems a requirement, in order to understand the continuing forces of racism, elitism, sexism, ageism, homophobia, etc., so that the systemic status quo can be altered. Any attempt to improve the experiences of writers must be well considered. Easy "fixes" do not abound when attempting to "rearticulate" "the very terms of symbolic legitimacy and intelligibility." Action is not necessarily easily accessible unless we understand how people form the relationships necessary to create texts valued by each. Reciprocity happens in the relations people form.