Primary genre
Bakhtin distinguishes between primary and secondary speech genre
s. Primary genres are simple genres that take form in “unmediated speech communion” (Bakhtin, 1986, p. 62).
Bakhtin, M. M. (1986). The problem of speech genres (V. W. McGee, Trans.). In C. Emerson & M. Holquist (Eds.), Speech genres and other late essays. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. 60-102.
Primary genres, for Bakhtin (1986), are those of everyday conversation, from the "single-word rejoinder" (p. 81) to "greetings, farewells, congratulations" (p. 79) and "genres of salon conversations" to "genres of table conversation, intimate conversations among friends, . . . within the family, and so on" (p. 80). He also notes that "no list of oral speech genres yet exists, or even a principle on which such a list might be based" (p. 80).
Nick Temple, Carolyn Miller
