The Modes of Discourse

Alexander Bain is known for creating the modes of discourse.

Not too long ago and probably in existence today, the modes of discourse were taught in the following manner and was an integral part of the current-traditional way of teaching composition. For one assignment, a professor may have asked students to walk outside and look at a tree and describe the tree. This mode of writing or essay was a descriptive essay.

In another assignment, one might have been asked to write an essay about something that occurred in the summer, a narration of an event. This essay was a narration mode.   Thus, the modes became a wonderful way of assigning different types of essays.

Criticism of the Modes

There are other types or modes of essays that professors ask for (compare and contrast, process, classification); however, such modes are too artificial and actually not good practice because real samples of published discourse are never solely written in one mode. Instead, an essay is composed of many modes.

Within one essay, a writer will switch in and out of modes for effect. An essay about the summer might include a description then narration and then some compare and contrast and many other modes.

Only a few years ago, English handbooks taught the modes as separate writing exercises;  however, now that has changed. Overall, Bain was not looked at favorably because of his use of modes; however, Andrea A. Lunsford ("Alexander Bain's Contributions to Discourse Theory," College English, 1982) contends that it was his followers and not Bain who are to blame.
 
 

Last Updated: 08/28/01 , History of Rhetoric II, University of Central Oklahoma. Wayne Stein wstein@ucok.edu.