Before I begin I would like to draw your attention to something that a philosopher friend of mine at the University of Trondheim pointed out as an obvious anomaly in my title when I first showed her a draft version of this paper, namely, the word `diachronicity'. Let me assure you the reader, then, that my choice (and I believe, invention) of this particular word is completely intentional in this particular case. So what is my purpose in introducing and using an anomalous term like `diachronicity'? Why not simply discuss the diachrony of textual norms? Why bother with diachronicity? What do I mean coining an idiosyncratic term like that? Isn't inventing a new word on the spur of the moment to suit my own purposes just a cheap form of dilettantism? What kind of Wittgenstinian language game am I playing here?
Well, as regards the issue of invention of new words, this is something that reflects an intense pleasure in playing with language that I have had ever since I was a child, and which I will not bore you with details of here and now. But as George Lakoff has pointed out, new metaphors often seem to come into being at times of transition between old and new ways of framing scientific investigation (Lakoff & Johnson 1980). What I shall attempt to do with this paper is to qualify my choice of terminology with reference to a wider discussion of some problems connected with investigations of processes of evolution and change in relation to dynamic open systems like cultures, communities, languages and their associated text-norm systems.
Some time ago another colleague of mine, Kjell Lars Berge, showed me a paper he had written for presentation at a text workshop held at Gunther Kress's institute at the University of London. The title of the paper was: `The diachrony of textual norms; or, why do genres change?' (Berge 1993). In this paper Kjell Lars argues for the need of a theory that can adequately explain how textual norms change, emphasising at the same time that: `...the concept of "norm" does not refer first and foremost to the traditional regulatory, prescriptive norms or "should-norms" as they are sometimes called, but to the deeper and more fundamental "constitutive" norms or "is-norms"; norms which constitute a certain object or phenomena as a "text"; establishing the border between what is considered "normal" behaviour in a culture and what is not'. As author and constructor of a text-norm theory of this kind, Kjell Lars aims to develop a theory that is viable if one wishes to describe and explain empirically how text genres relate to the contexts in which they are constituted, and how and why these genres constitute autonomous norm systems that develop and change over time, while influencing and changing the very contexts they are creating.
Norms are then, within this particular theoretical framework: `tools adequately adapted to the communicative functions the communicators have to sue (sic, for `use') in order to be able to reach the goals culturally competent behaviour is directed towards'. The object of study; i.e. the text norm system to which this particular theory is presently being applied and developed in relation to, is the system of text norms constituted by the community of examiners who mark examination texts of students studying Norwegian at secondary school level in Norway.
Now obviously, any theory that pretends to say something about how and why textual norms change must begin with some kind of definition of what textual norms are. That means for that for one thing, the theory must begin with a notion of context or culture. It must be a dynamic theory of culture, not a purely cognitive theory, since social processes are not reducible to psychological phenomena alone, even though they may evoke them. The general notion of culture is referred to using Pierre Bourdieu's concept of social field. Social fields are, within this particular epistemological framework, considered `wholes' constituted by the goals that communicators in those fields strive towards. Norm systems are instruments (or sets of tools) used by goal-directed participants to develop relevant, goal-seeking communication. This communication is characterised by internal, non-contingent causal relationships between the communicative goals, the types of communicative functions required to reach these goals and the textual norm systems, which typically are the means mediated by the functions in order to reach the goals. The assumed causal relationship, then, is expressed in terms of the communicative goals of participants in the field; the communicative functions necessary to reach these goals; and the constituted norm system of the social field.
So, according to this theory, what basically happens in such a system is that participants develop and use various sets of communicative functions to reach their communicative goals, and in doing so, constitute a dynamically changing social field. At the same time, they are actively qualifying themselves in various ways, through different qualifying practices, as competent participants. Further on in his article Kjell Lars goes on to discuss how norm systems can change. Now, I do not have time here to go into his discussion of this in any great detail, so I just want to mention briefly three types of normative change which occur: a) those implemented by explicit normative prescription, as in the case of the introduction by school authorities of a new school grammar or text model into the classrooms of the public school system in Norway. The second kind is b) socialisation to existing norms; participants develop their own temporary versions of the predominant norm system and try these out in practice, receiving feedback from qualified members of the social field that over time socialise the new participants into the normatively defined text norm system and the associated community of authors. The third kind is c) norm constitution; the introduction of completely new sets of parameters that transcend and change dramatically, existing norm systems. Changes of this kind are often normative at a paradigmatic level, such as when a new school of art, music or theatre suddenly emerges, becoming in the process a new `ism'.
The above theoretical model has some problems, however. One of these is that of course in real life, goals, like text-norm systems, are not always immediately explicit or conscious, and sets of non-linear links may develop between specific goals and the tools or strategies used to reach them. Also, goals may be unclear, and only emerge over time through some kind of socioculturally mediated, heuristic process of trial and error. In this paper I shall try and develop a metaperspective on the above model of text norm change, reflecting on, and expanding, some lively discussions Kjell Lars and I have had about some particularly thorny problems that always seem to materialise when we wish to study sociocultural realities as the highly dynamic phenomena they are, `in flux'.
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