TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION GLOSSARY OF TERMS
Active rhetorical agentsare those who shape the fields in which they study or work rather than simply commenting upon its methods.
Activity networkdescribes a process in which people use a tool or tools to achieve an objective that results in an outcome. Activity networks shape the writing genres that they produce. This concept has relevance in the teaching of technical writing because students will ultimately be asked to adapt to activity networks in the workplace that are very different from those of the classroom.
Articulationis means of describing the slippery, culturally negotiated and constantly changing relationships that occur among the author, reader and mode of transmission in any type of communication. Articulation stands in contrast to transmission, in which communication is seen as the act of transmitting a message from sender to receiver through a “clear channel” of language, and translation, in which communication is seen as a message encoded by the sender and decoded by the receiver.
Authenticityrefers to students’ perception of how similar the activities are to actual workplace projects. The emphasis is on perception, which is motivation enough. Authenticity is a judgment, a perception, rather than a characteristic in itself. Projects perceived to have a concrete audience and client investment tend to instill more motivation.
Attenuated authentic participationis the type of learning that takes place in the workplace where the goal of writing is to meet some need of the organization and the quality is determined by how successful it is in achieving the desired result. Writing in the workplace environment often involves collaboration, which takes place throughout the writing and revision process.
Client-based writingis text designed to meet the needs of, or resolve issues for, a third-party. The client is not the author, and is not necessarily the primary audience of the text.
Communication / Articulation view:In the articulation view of communication, language is a struggle to articulate and rearticulate meaning. It opens the discussion to authorial language and a context of multiple channels of transmission. Meaning is going through an ongoing process of rearticulation, in which all entities and media contribute to rearticulation. Power only organizes or works to fix the process. In this view, technical communicators are authors in that they contribute to meaning, which is not truly transparent.
Communication / Translation view: In the translation view of communication, meaning is in the interpretation and reinterpretation of messages. It is a negotiated power. Sender and receiver have equally important roles in communication. Encoding and decoding are active, multi-layered processes that build the meaning. In this view, technical communicators have the difficult task of being senders/communicators that must negotiate power with the receiver and struggle with unfixed meanings.
Communication / Transmission View: In the transmission view of communication, a message travels from one point to the next through a channel, transport of message that is encoded by sender and decoded by receiver. The sender has power over the receiver to elicit a desired effect. Because meaning is fixed, the writer is a “transparent surrogate” for the engineer, who is seen as the actual sender of encoded messages.
Communities of practiceare self-constituted groups of people who share a common enthusiasm for what they do and work together to improve their practice by swapping stories about the practice and contributing to the communal knowledge of the group.
Critical listeninginvolves more than hearing what is said, it also includes being able to think critically about what is being said and the implications of the message. It is a necessary skill for effective collaboration, and along with speaking skills, a critical capability for technical communicators.
Cross-boundary communicationoccurs in the workplace when individuals communicate with others outside of their organization or group. In order for cross-boundary collaborations to be successful, the two groups must share some similarities in philosophy, goals and function but at the same time must be different enough that they can help each other through their collaboration.
Deliverableis a term often preferred to product in the context of technical writing. Product has a sense of finality to it, while deliverable allows for no sense of finalization. So a document can be altered as needed to meet the evolving needs of its audience.
Designcovers more than just the final layout/presentation of a text. It includes the process of considering audience, environment in which the text will be received, and future needs.
Design approaches/processesare generally associated with fields in which individuals create something, such as engineering or architecture; however, they may be applied in technical communication as well. As with other modern approaches to technical communication, they involve a rhetorical perspective, taking into account the audience, purpose and context of the message to be delivered, but they also involve thinking critically about the materials of communication and the cultural underpinnings of those materials.
Ethical dimension of technology: The ethical dimension of technology is the space around technology in which developers, communicators, and users negotiate responsibility for issues like safety, privacy, accuracy, etc. It is a space that can be neglected if one views technology as simply an artifact and technical communication as the description of that artifact.
Facilitated performanceis a type learning that takes place in universities in which the student’s learning is the goal of assignments, the quality of which is determined by a grade. Facilitated performance is individualistic by nature and most of the instruction the student received occurs before writing.
Fair Useis a principle that seeks to balance the needs of copyright holders with those of educators by allowing for the use of copyright materials for some instructional purposes. Factors that must be considered for Fair Use, according to Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, are: 1.) the purpose of the material’s use, including whether it is for commercial use; 2.) the nature of the work; 3.) the amount of material used in relation to the copyright work as a whole; and 4.) the potential effect on market value of the work.
Genreis the set of rhetorical actions that recur in similar situations to negotiate within a social, cultural, ideological, and political context.
Guided participationis a learning process similar in which the student observes an expert and is given an opportunity to perform increasingly challenging tasks alongside that person until the student is eventually able to perform the task alone. The goal of the activity is the student’s learning.
Immersion/Exposure: Immersion is the learning activity by which individuals must be immersed in a community, interact with members and artifacts of a community, participate in and adapt to the social actions of the community, and appropriate the regular tools-in-use of the community.
Idealogic pedagogyis an approach to teaching technical communication that raises questions about the political implications of community norms and authority structures. Its aim is to resistance rather than acculturation, which it achieves through social interaction and problematizing discourse, which is to say, analyzing the power structures and claims to authority that underlies all forms of communication.
Information designis not only the presentation of information, but also the full process of planning, selecting, designing, drafting, testing, and revising documents.
Instrumental discourseis a view of technology and writing as a tool or instrument to achieve a given end. In this view of communication, the writer is seen as a transmitter of objective knowledge that exists removed from the realm of human interpretation and interaction.
Intercultural communication competencydescribes the ability to effectively communicate across cultures. As outlined by Linda Beamer, acquiring this ability involves the following steps: 1.) acknowledging diversity; 2.) organizing information according to stereotypes; 3.) posing questions to challenge those stereotypes; 4.) analyzing communication episodes; and 5.) generating other-culture messages.
Interdisciplinary research is the study of multiple disciplines for the purpose of better understanding one’s own discipline and possibly enlarging the scope of other fields.
Legitimate peripheral participationis a learning process similar to apprenticeship in which the student is engaged along with the expert in accomplishing a given task. The goal of the activity is something other than the student’s learning, which is nonetheless accomplished through his or her participation.
Literacy of agencyis the understanding of how technological change affects cultural change.
Object-oriented programmingis the design and building of technology with the focus on the producing the end product, rather than on servicing the end user.
Paralogic hermeneutic pedagogyis an approach to teaching technical communication that views communication as uncodifiable and unsystematic. As a result, its aim is to help students understand the slippery, socially negotiated nature of communication and to approach writing as an “open-ended dialogue,” by exposing them to the kinds of conversations that occur in their fields and modeling the dialogue that goes on in the workplace through student/teacher interaction.
Petits rectisare the “small stories” of individual workers that shed light on the larger social and economic conditions of the workplace. By gathering and examining these stories, workers are empowered to critique and even rewrite that larger story.
Phronesis, literally “wisdom in determining ends and the means of attaining them,” in the context of service learning, this term refers to the ability to make ethical decisions, taking into consideration the needs of one’s audience and the good of the community at large. Phronesis is often contrasted with praxis, or practice, which refers to the technical work of producing a document for a community.
Positivismis a pipe dream of the sciences in which data can be empirically observed, and then transmitted through a clear lens of objective language that is free of rhetorical implications.
Positivist / Instrumental model: Called the “windowpane theory of language,” the positivist/instrumental model promotes language as a transmission of reality. Meaning, made of self-evident facts, can be empirically verified. This results in skills-based and utilitarian technical communication. Teachers are like vocational trainers.
Postmodern expertis more like a “partner” or “consultant” than an expert in the traditional sense since postmodernism rejects modernist ideas about authority and knowledge. The postmodern expert’s role is to first understand the culture of the community within which he or she is working and then to suggest solutions from within the context of that community.
Postpositivist / Rhetorical model: Emphasizes enculturation over fact. Technical communication is a community participatory activity that requires self-aware discussion of contextual rationality, community values and traditions, social implications, ethics, responsibilities, etc.
Praxisdescribes writing as practice or social action. Writing as praxis involves getting inside a specific community and writing for the goals of that community as opposed to writing as techne, which merely involves producing a clear document. Writing as praxis may be achieved through various types of workplace-classroom collaboration including service-learning projects.
Psuedotransactionalityrefers to writing designed to meet the needs of the teacher or class and not designed to help students engage in a transfer of information or demonstrate mastery of the material. It replicates “transactional writing” (the authentic writing that has a purpose for communication between real people) but it is just that, a replication in which the actual purpose is for the classroom.
Service learningis a process through which students learn by doing, specifically by participating in a structured, academically rigorous project that meets a community need and then reflecting critically on the process. Its aims are both to foster active learning and a sense of civic responsibility.
Situated learningis the recognition that knowledge and learning are social activities. That is to say that knowledge is not transferred as a package from one mind to another but rather that we work together to reach a “shared understanding.”
Social cognitive pedagogyis an approach to teaching technical communication that holds that communities help their members shape knowledge and that the conventions of these communities are internalized by members as “strategic knowledge.”3 Its goal is to help students better understand the demands of their writing tasks and the rhetorical options available to them. This is achieved by reflecting on the writing process and modeling the practices of more experienced writers.
Social constructionist pedagogyis an approach to teaching technical communication in which communities are seen to shape and determine the discourse of their members through communal norms. Its objective is to acculturate students to the professional communities they wish to enter through collaboration and mirroring those communities.
Subjective work identityis the way in which workers see themselves and their place or role within an organization, taking into account both similarities with other workers and ways in which they are distinct. For example, in Jim Henry’s research, many writers identified themselves as having “second class” status within the organization in terms of both organizational structure and lack of representation in decision-making.
Technical writing
1. Technical writing (Behaviorist definition): A behaviorist definition of technical writing is an assumption that technical writing can be distinguished from other types of writing based on the experiential knowledge of a technical communicator to “know” that the text will be useful and accommodating to the user. The assumed (not yet demonstrated) behavior of the user qualifies the existence of the technical writing.
2. Technical writing (Content-Driven definition): A content-driven definition of technical writing is an assumption that technical writing can be distinguished from other types of writing based on the subject matter. The limitation lies in the problem with answering the question, “what is technology?”
3. Technical writing (Style-Dependent definition): A style-dependent definition of technical writing is an assumption that technical writing can be distinguished from other types of writing based on style (clarity, accuracy, conciseness, and objectivity) and purpose (to inform or to persuade). One limitation lies in the evidence of many texts that duplicate these characteristics, but exist for purposes outside of technology communication. A second limitation is that this view assumes technology is static and objective, and ignores the rhetorical invention and creativity.
Technoculturedescribes the amalgamation of technology and culture and the ways in which technology has become woven into the fabric of culture so that it both shapes and is shaped by culture.
Technological activismis the concept that technical communicators have an ability and, in fact, obligation to shape and improve technology rather than simply accepting it as an inevitable force in their work environment.
Technological literacy, in the context of technical communications, means not the ability to use a specific technology, but the ability to understand technology as a tool of communication and to “think critically about technology.”
Usability, put simply, is the ease with which people are able to use a document or technology. However, there is some debate within academic circles about exactly what the goals of usability should be. Barbara Mirel argues for a definition that focuses on “ease of use, ease of learning, pleasantness and usefulness.” At the same time, Bradley Dilger argues against an approach he terms extreme usability that overemphasizes ease of use to the point that technology becomes autonomous. For technical communicators, perhaps the best approach to usability is to consider the goals of the document and develop tests to address whether those goals are being met.
Visual literacyis the ability to interpret the meaning of visual representations of data such as graphics, choose graphics appropriate to their subject matter and create those graphics. As Karla Saari Kitalong notes, “information graphics are to be understood not as neutral and efficient ways to present information but as bearers of narratives.” Visual literacy involves being able to understand and create those narratives without distortion.
White space is the “negative” content of a document that stylistically balances the textual content and invites or inhibits reading. White space is used in margins, justification, and indentation.
References
Beamer, Linda. “Learning Intercultural Communication Competence.” Teaching Technical Communication: Critical Issues for the Classroom. Ed. James M. Dubinsky. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2004. 399-413.
Blakeslee, Ann M. “Bridging the Workplace and the Academy: Teaching Professional Genres through Classroom-Workplace Collaboration. Teaching Technical Communication: Critical Issues for the Classroom. Ed. James M. Dubinsky. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2004. 348-71.
Bridgeford, Tracy. “Communities of Practice: The Shop Floor of Human Capital.” Resources in Technical Communication: Outcomes and Approaches. Ed., Cynthia L. Selfe. New York: Baywood Publishing Co. Inc., 2007. 161-78.
Breuch, Lee-Ann Kastman. “Thinking Critically about Technological Literacy: Developing a Framework to Guide Computer Pedagogy in Technical Communication.” Teaching Technical Communication: Critical Issues for the Classroom. Ed. James M. Dubinsky. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2004. 481-99.
“Copyright Law of the United States of America and Related Laws Contained in Title 17 of the United States Code.” Chapter 1, Sec. 107. The United States Copyright Office. 28 Mar. 2008. <
Dilger, Bradley. “Extreme Usability and Technical Communication.” Critical Power Tools. Eds. J. Blake Scott, Bernadette Longo and Katherine V. Wills. New York: SUNY Press, 2006. 47-69.
Ericsson, Patricia Freitag. “Listen Up! Oral Presentations in the Technical Communication Classroom.” Critical Power Tools. Eds. J. Blake Scott, Bernadette Longo and Katherine V. Wills. New York: SUNY Press, 2006. 265-79.
Freedman, Aviva and Christine Adam. “Learning to Write Professionally: “Situated Learning” and the Transition from University to Professional Discourse.” Teaching Technical Communication: Critical Issues for the Classroom. Ed. James M. Dubinsky. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2004. 310-36.
Henry, Jim. “Writing Workplace Cultures – Technically Speaking.” Critical Power Tools. Eds. J. Blake Scott, Bernadette Longo and Katherine V. Wills. New York: SUNY Press, 2006. 199-218.
Kitalong, Karl Saari. “Select, Interpret, Produce: A Three-Part Model for Teaching Information Graphics.” Resources in Technical Communication: Outcomes and Approaches. Ed., Cynthia L. Selfe. New York: Baywood Publishing Co. Inc., 2007. 241-63.