About “genres of speech and language of speech” again: what has linguistics given to genre studies?

This is the second article in a cycle on the connection between genre studies and linguistics. The previous article discussed the question “What have genre studies given to linguistics?” This article focuses on linguistic methods used in speech genres theory: more traditional for linguistics, starting with the descriptive method and its later varieties – structural – and less traditional (component analysis, the method of immediate constituents, the generative method, the method of describing external and deep content structures, the method of semantic fields). Speech genres theory is studied in relation to linguistic paradigms. The most significant for speech genres theory is the turn in linguistics from the study of the language only to the study of speech (discourse), and thus – the recognition of the presence of a specific systematic nature of speech. Besides, speech genres theory is analyzed in connection with traditional linguistic directions: syntactic theory and methodology are used in the study of the composition of speech genres, lexicology and semantics – in the study of the names of speech genres. The major focus is on the modern period when new areas of linguistics and speech genres theory emerge simultaneously (Internet linguistics and Internet genre studies). The article also discusses division of linguistic disciplines in connection both with the speech genre division of language (structural, diachronic, functional) and with the division of genre studies (structure of the speech genres, classification of speech genres, sociology of speech genres, psychology of speech genres and genre thinking, cognitive and culturological aspects of speech genres). The role of speech genres theory in the division of linguistic disciplines into deductive and inductive is also discussed. The article appreciates the role of several outstanding linguists in the development of speech genres theory. In addition, the author briefly touches upon the connection between genre studies and literary studies: in the study of literary texts and genres they converge.