Forgotten Genres: The Editorial Apparatus of American Anthologies and Composition Textbooks.

Abstract

Though university English textbooks are widely circulated and heavily critiqued (e.g., as didactic and hegemonic), we have little understanding of how and why they function the way they do. This dissertation takes up that inquiry via a genre analysis of the material that distinguishes textbooks: their apparatus genres, or prefaces and introductions. Though under-studied, these genres offer a meta-narrative of their fields and pedagogical relationships, and examining them illuminates how textbooks re/enact particular institutional paradigms and positions. The study combines quantitative and qualitative analysis and is cross-disciplinary in scope: it offers an integrated corpus linguistic (computer-aided) and rhetorical analysis of apparatus texts from both American literature and college composition over time. The discourse patterns therein are considered in light of rhetorical genre theory alongside concepts from social psychology positioning theory. The American literature corpus includes all prefaces and period introductions of all editions of the Norton and Heath anthologies of American literature, while the composition corpus includes instructor prefaces and student introductions to 25 textbooks, 13 from the early-20th century and 12 from the early-21st century. Analysis of these apparatus genres reveals that despite curricular and pedagogical scrutiny in these fields, even recent textbooks support traditional educational power structures (omniscient expert/passive novice dichotomy) and traditional content (reductive disciplinary narratives and tokenizing of underrepresented groups). The study thus enhances rhetorical genre studies as well as prior textbook studies by (1) illuminating disciplinary and cultural values as they are enacted in recurring discourse-level patterns; and (2) recasting textbook materials as offering opportunities for advancing genre and disciplinary awareness. This approach repositions new instructors and students as experienced and insightful readers who can participate actively in investigating the occluded, institutionalized practices inscribed in the apparatus genres of textbooks.