ABSTRACT
Approaching the topic of routinization from genre studies and ‘cultural linguistics,’ this chapter first elaborates on the relationship between professional text-production routines and processes of routinization, analyzing journalistic genres as culturally significant semiotic formations that are related to values and norms of journalistic cultures (Section 28.2). It then turns to genre studies and different forms of genre change as crucial to a meaningful perspective on routinization (28.3). The following section discusses methodological issues and illustrates with an example of how the relationship between professional routines and key dimensions of journalistic culture can be approached by a diachronic comparative methodology, analyzing genre change and genre emergence in the case of TV news (28.4). In the next section (28.5) critical issues are discussed, addressing the relationship between changing text-production routines and influencing context factors as well as the reference of culture. A discussion of future directions (28.6) and a conclusion (28.7) finish the chapter.
