The topic of "text genres" seems exhausted due to the amount of researches and articles about it. However, a seldom noticed aspect about genres is the adoption of one of the theoretical approaches about this topic as a methodology in Portuguese Language classes, in Brazil. The "text genres" topic became commonplace after being elected by the National Curriculum Parameters. These have elected one of the approach proposals on the topic, the one from the Research Group from Genève. Other proposals do exist, though, and in this article we intend to present a short history on theories of text genres, until we reach the conceptions from the Genève group, then we move on to the socio-rhetorical group and, in the end, we compare these two theoretical approaches. We do not intend to qualify or dis-qualify a theory but rather to understand critically the eligibility of one of them by an official resolution and as guideline to teaching praxis.
Text genres; National Curriculum Parameters; Portuguese Language Classes
