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Amish newsletters in The Budget: A genre study of written communication

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2009

René Galindo
René Galindo
Affiliation:
School of Education, University of Colorado at DenverDenver, CO 80217-3364
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Abstract

The Budget is a newspaper which has served Amish communities for over a hundred years by disseminating community news to Amish settlements across North America. The main feature of this newspaper are newsletters written by volunteers from local Amish settlements, called “scribes,” who report news and happenings from their church districts. In this study the generic characteristics of the newsletters are identified, as is their role in the reproduction of Amish cultural values. The newsletters display generic consistency demonstrated in the predictable location, form, and content of the components of the newsletter. Scribes' reports of community news report events which are central to maintaining the importance of the interpersonal basis of Amish community life, and serve to maintain those items as reportable and noteworthy topics in the Amish communicative economy. (Amish, genre, written communication)

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , March 1994 , pp. 77 - 105
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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