Non-fictional Prose and Society: Towards a Social Theory of Non-Fictional Prose

Abstract

This article offers a social theory of subject-oriented prose. In doing that, it draws upon and further develops ideas articulated in Swedish and Norwegian research on the matter. The assumption in a social theory of subject-oriented prose is that to understand it, we must understand social structures and the agency of people as it is mediated and constituted by subject-oriented prose. Understanding the latter is understanding its function in society’s activity spheres and understanding activity spheres requires understanding the role of subject-oriented prose. This further implies that the notion of ‘subject-oriented prose’ enacted in the article is concerned with the texts people are producing and reading as part of their doings in the activity spheres they participate in and hence is not limited to the ‘mycket lästa’ (the much read) by the public. The article’s theoretical point of departure is rhetorical genre theory where emphasis is on the action genre accomplishes and on the ‘de facto’ genres people are engaged with in everyday life and have names for, and hence not genres as defined normatively by scholars.