Introduction

Genres are of crucial importance in our everyday lives. Surprisingly from the perspective of its omnipresence and societal importance, the scientific understanding of genre is still limited. Our overall aim in this book is to contribute to a more sophisticated understanding by taking a broader cross-disciplinary perspective on genres involving discourse that nevertheless remains sufficiently focused to provide specific recommendations and results. In this introductory chapter, we set out a brief overview of the current state of affairs in genre research and how the various contributions in the book extend this.