The Domain of Composition

The Disappearance of Business Communication From Professional Communication Programs in English Departments

“…To make our historical argument, we rely on three articles during the formative period of 1986-2010 as the current conception of PC within English departments took hold: (a) Sullivan and Porter's (1993) "Remapping Curricular Geography," which helped to shape the current curricular maps of English departments; (b) Phelps and Ackerman's (2010a) "Making the Case for Disciplinarity in Rhetoric, Composition, and Writing Studies," which locked in BComm's subordination at the highest domain levels: the university and the federal government; and (c) Phelps's (1986) "The Domain of Composition," which provided foundational work for the first two articles. We also draw upon an article by Porter and Sullivan (2007)-"Remapping Curricular Geography: A Retrospection"-to highlight how their thinking about the issues they raised in 1993 evolved during the period leading up to Phelps and Ackerman's article.…”

“…At this point, the argument could have gone one of two ways: It could have folded into a self-reflexive mode with research that focused almost exclusively on the classroom and freshman writing, or it could have shifted outward to investigate what the teaching act would enable students to do once they left both the classroom and the university. Phelps (1986) chose the latter; for her, the domain of inquiry "expanded as researchers followed out the ramifications of those problems [the task of teaching writing to college students] and … took on responsibility for a greater and greater range of phenomena" (p. 188). That expansion extended to a point at which "its contents" became "indeterminate" (p. 191).…”

“…Although we do not know why (or even if) Phelps and her team did not attempt to merge or link to these already established CIP codes, they accomplished something that Rentz (2001), another leader in the field of BComm located within English, worried about happening during the period of growth (1993)(1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007). She noticed that "the books depicting English studies that have come out over the past fifteen years [1986][1987][1988][1989][1990][1991][1992][1993][1994][1995][1996][1997][1998][1999][2000][2001], the period since Phelps's (1986) article on the domain of composition]… ignore the presence of professional writing in English departments" even though professional writing was "the largest growth area in English studies" (p. 186). She mused that the neglect or lack of visibility of professional writing in the literature might "imply that professional writing can simply be folded into composition studies" (p. 186), which is indeed what the Visibility Project team caused to occur.…”

“…As we think about those questions, we want to emphasize space, an essential frame for Sullivan and Porter's (1993) discussion of the domain. Relying on both Phelps's (1986) focus on domain and Foucault's (1984) emphasis on power linked to space, Sullivan and Porter imagined space as "physical, geographical space, not just intellectual positioning" and "an essential feature of communal identity." Equally important for them was that "articulating a space [was] always an act of hubris and an act of power" (pp.…”

“…As a result, their historical focus was essential as they had to both document the long historical connection of professional writing to these fields within English studies and find ways to highlight what they called a "source of authority"-rhetoric (p. 408). Rhetoric preexisted English studies; it was the source of power for renewing the field of composition within English, what Phelps (1986) described as "the organizing principle of classical education" (p. 187). In so doing, they drew on Phelps's (1988) view of "a field as having open borders, as dynamic" (p. 409), and thereby linking "reflection-in-action," Schön's dynamic concept, which denies the theorypractice binary (qtd.…”