The Technical Communicator as Author

Abstract

The authors explore the parallels to be found by comparing descriptions of the technical communicator with differing views of the communication process—the transmission, translation, and articulation views of communication. In each of these views, the place of the technical communicator and of technical discourse shifts with respect to the production of meaning and relations of power. The authors argue from the standpoint of the articulation view for a new conception of the technical communicator as author and of technical communication as a discourse that produces an author.

Aesop’s Trumpeter, Aristotle’s Orator, and the Technical Communicator

“…Likewise, Moran and Tebeaux (2012) report that "Business Communication: Present, Past, and Future" by N. Lamar Reinsch (1996) traces how classical rhetoric has developed into contemporary communication. Several other scholars also discuss how classical rhetoric and technical communication intersect (Dubinsky 2004;Hughes 2002;Johnson 2004;Kallendorf and Kallendorf 2004;Katz 2004;Miller, 1989Miller, , 2004.…”

“…Even though he considers rhetoric an amoral tool, Aristotle prescribes some ethical principles for orators (Duska 2014;Johnstone 1980;Kallendorf and Kallendorf 1989;Katz 1999;Sullivan 2004). According to Aristotle, orators should use rhetoric to present both sides of an argument since rhetoric leads to social action (Garver 1985;Johnstone 1980;McKeon 1947;Miller 2004). Since orators may employ rhetoric to discuss any subject, they must judge how to accommodate their audiences (Johnstone 1980).…”

“…In light of such definitions, many scholars assert that technical communicators transfer or translate knowledge (Hughes 2002;Johnson-Eilola 1996;Katz 2004;Rutter 2004;Slack, Miller, and Doak 2004). Slack, Miller, and Doak (2004) note that if communicators transmit knowledge, then they purvey meaning as neutral parts of larger power systems.…”

Contemporary Research Methodologies in Technical Communication

“…Such theories do not necessarily deny individual agency or cognition, but they deemphasize the roles of individual human beings to avoid overdetermining human agency and underdetermining roles played by other parts of the system under consideration. By the 1990s, technical communication scholars had begun drawing in earnest from associative approaches such as articulation theory (Johnson-Eilola, 1997;Slack, Miller, & Doak, 1993), rhizomatics (Selfe & Selfe, 1994), distributed cognition (Freedman & Smart, 1997;Winsor, 2001), and actor-network theory (Winsor, 1994). Of these, actor-network theory (ANT) has had perhaps the most uptake in technical communication and rhetoric, being used in a range of studies with various methodological commitments (Fleckenstein, Spinuzzi, Rickly, & Clarke Papper, 2008;Fraiberg, 2013;McNely, 2009;Potts, 2009;Jeff Rice, 2009Spinuzzi, 2005Spinuzzi, , 2008Swarts, 2009Swarts, , 2011.…”

Educating Technical Communication Teachers: The Origins, Development, and Present Status of the Course, “Teaching Technical Writing” at Illinois State University

“…Social justice perspectives were already emerging in the work of a number of other scholars in the field in the 1990s and I introduced my pedagogy students to that work as well as my own each time I taught the course. Examples of such work include (Katz, 1992), (Sullivan, 1990), (Savage, 1996), (Slack, Miller, & Doak, 1993), (Savage, 2004), (Brasseur, 1993), (Porter, 1993), (Munshi & McKie, 2001), (Hunsinger, 2006), (Irani, Vertesi, Dourish, Philip, & Grinter, 2010), (Palmeri, 2006), (Sun, 2006), (Watson, Yirrkala, & Chambers, 1989, 2008, (Johnson, Pimentel, & Pimentel, 2008).…”