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128 Susanne Günthner

In the following, I will show that two important factors in the interactive
construction of cultural differences are culture specific knowledge and the use
of ‘communicative genres’ (e.g. gossip, complaints, lamentos, business negoti-
ations, lectures, narratives, prayers, letters of recommendation, academic articles,
personal ads, etc.). On the basis of a review of the research on communicative
genres, the present article aims to outline the main issues of genre analysis and
point out some of the relevant analytical categories which allow for a description
of communicative genres, and thereby demonstrate the significance of this re-
search for the analysis of communicative contexts and cultural speaking practices.
I shall argue that the analysis of communicative genres is not only relevant for
the description and explanation of communicative practice in detail, but also by
establishing an essential analytic link between communicative activities in the on-
going interaction on the one hand, and the sociocultural context, communicative
expectations and ideologies of cultural groups on the other hand, the concept of
communicative genre mediates between situatively produced communicative
practices and larger sociocultural contexts, as well as between sedimented cultural
knowledge and the emergence of (new) practices in the ongoing interaction. 2

2. The concept of ‘communicative genres’

In communicative situations, meaning is negotiated on the basis of the com-
municative intentions, inferences and sociocultural knowledge of the partici-
pants. A relevant part of this knowledge is knowledge about the use of ‘com-
municative genres’.
The concept of ‘communicative genres’ as developed within Sociology of
Knowledge and Anthropological Linguistics ties back to the work of Bakhtin
(1979/1986) and Voloshinov (1929/1986). In accordance with Bakhtin, speak-
ing occurs in speech genres which guide the interaction and which are deter-
mined by social structures:

Speech genres organize our speech in almost the same way as grammatical (syntac-
tical) forms do. We learn to cast our speech in generic forms and, when hearing
others’ speech, we guess its genres from the very first words; we predict a certain
length (…) and a certain compositional structure; we foresee the end; that is, from
the very beginning we have a sense of the speech whole, which is only later differ-
entiated during the speech process.
Bakhtin 1979/1986: 78–79

Genres, however, do not appear as complex language structures devoid of the
dynamics of interaction but rather as interactive patterns of speech. They not
only guide the activities in verbal interaction but are also part of the ideologies
of social groups (Bakhtin 1979/1986).