Genres on the move: Currency and erosion of the genre moves construct

•I reflect on the fadeout of the moves genre construct.•I examine two cases of moves dilution in abridged abstracts.•Moves dilution may contribute to weaken or strengthen communal boundaries.•Looser genre notions, graphicacy and stricter gate-keeping would reduce ambiguity.

This article provides a reflection on the impact of the formal dilution of the moves construct, which in certain settings may question genre integrity and status and affect the cohesion of disciplinary communities. It reviews the factors of generification, commodification, technology and globalization that nowadays rule the communication of science and discusses two instances of moves erosion in engineering contexts, namely the features and effects of the teaser-abstracts published by a trans-national engineering association and the repercussions of graphical abstracts within a small multidisciplinary community of engineering teachers. With this purpose, corpus analysis and interviews have been conducted to determine moves trends and informants' reactions. Findings suggest that the moves fuzziness caused by abstract abridgement and the graphic rendering of abstract concepts may strengthen or weaken communal boundaries and pose difficult challenges to both insiders and outsiders. To solve them, the case is finally made for a (re-)education of students, academics and professionals by means of a blended framework that instills a looser conception of genre and community, together with a visual literacy or graphicacy that facilitates interpretation, and for a more pedagogical and firmer gate-keeping concerning graphical abstracts.