語藝文類(Rhetorical genre),Miller (1984: 159) identified genres “as typified rhetorical actions based in recurrent situations.”
修改 Bitzer 的語藝情境,擴張目的的定義,認為不是主觀(subjective)的也不是客觀(objective),而是一種社會知識:一種物體、事件、偏好、與目的的共同建構;不只是將它們連結在一起,也創造了他們:一種具體化的社會需求。為了回應這種具體化的社會需求,人們訂定各種類型的修辭文類活動。
but rather “a form of social knowledge – a mutual construing of objects, events, interests, and purposes that not only links them but also makes them what they are: an objectified social need.” In response to this objectified social need, humans enact typical rhetorical practices or genres characterized by patterns of form and substance.