This article proposes a postmodern reconceptualization of technical communication pedagogy to make student and professional agency a major concern, especially because technical communicators must compete in a global economy that rewards flexibility and penalizes inflexibility. Postmodern mapping metaphors and Robert Reich's methodology for training “symbolic-analytic” workers are used to suggest ways in which a postmodern approach to technical communication could be taught.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Anderson, Paul V., Carolyn R. Miller, and R. John Brockmann, eds. New Essays in Technical and Scientific Communication: Research, Theory, and Practice. Farmingdale, NY: Baywood, 1983.
2.
Bauman, Zygmunt. Intimations of Postmodernity. London: Routledge, 1992.
3.
Bauman, Zygmunt. Life in Fragments: Essays in Postmodern Morality. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1995.
Bernhardt, Steve. “What We Do Well.”Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication. Oxford, OH. 26 Sep. 1996. Audio file downloaded from http://www.hu.mtu.edu/cptsc/conferences/96/radio.html. 16 July 1997.
6.
Blicq, R. S.Technically—Write! Communication for the Technical Man. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1972.
7.
Brusaw, Charles T., Gerald J. Alred, and Walter E. Oliu. Handbook of Technical Writing. New York: St. Martin's, 1993.
Connors, Robert J.“The Rise of Technical Writing Instruction in America.”Journal of Technical Writing and Communication12 (1982): 329-352.
10.
Cooper, Marilyn M.“The Postmodern Space of Operator's Manuals.”Technical Communication Quarterly5 (1996): 385-410.
11.
Couture, Barbara. Functional Approaches to Writing: Research Perspectives. Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1986.
12.
Covino, William A.“Magic, Literacy, and the National Enquirer.” Contenting with Words: Composition and Rhetoric in a Postmodern Age. Ed. Patricia Harkin and John Schilb. New York: Modern Languages Association, 1991.
13.
Crowley, Sharon. The Methodical Memory: Invention in Current-Traditional Rhetoric. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1990.
14.
Doheny-Farina, Stephen. “Writing in an Emerging Organization: An Ethnographic Study.”Written Communication3 (1986): 158-185.
15.
Dombrowski, Paul M.“Post-Modernism as the Resurgence of Humanism in Technical Communication Studies.”Technical Communication Quarterly4 (1995): 165-185.
16.
Faigley, Lester, and Thomas Miller. “What We Learn from Writing on the Job.”College English44 (1982): 557-569.
17.
Gilligan, Carol. In a Different Voice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982.
18.
Haraway, Donna J.Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium.FemaleMan(c)_Meets_OncoMouseTM: Feminism and Technoscience. New York: Routledge, 1997.
19.
Harkin, Patricia, and John Schilb. Contenting with Words: Composition and Rhetoric in a Postmodern Age. New York: MLA, 1991.
20.
Harvey, David. The Condition of Postmodernity. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1990.
21.
Herndl, Carl G.“Tactics and the Quotidian: Resistance and Professional Discourse.”Journal of Advanced Composition16 (1996): 455-470.
22.
Horton, William. “Let's Do Away with Manuals... Before They Do Away with Us.”Technical Communication40 (1993): 26-34.
23.
Jameson, Frederic. The Geopolitical Aesthetic: Cinema and Space in the World System. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992.
24.
Jameson, Frederic. Postmodernism: Or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991.
25.
Johnson-Eilola, Johndan. “Relocating the Value of Work: Technical Communication in a Post-Industrial Age”Technical Communication Quarterly5 (1996): 245-270.
26.
Jameson, Frederic. “Stories and Maps: Postmodernism and Professional Communication.”http://tempest.english.purdue.edu/stories/stories_and_maps_029.html. 31 July 2000.
27.
Jameson, Frederic. “Technical Communication as Symbolic Analytic Work: Possible Futures in Technical Communication.”Proceedings, CPTSC 22nd Annual Meeting, 1995. Houghton, MI: CPTSC, 1996. 58-59.
28.
Killingsworth, M. Jimmie. Information in Action: A Guide to Technical Communication. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1996.
29.
Kynell, Teresa Carol. “Bridging Technology and Humanism: The Evolution of Technical Writing as a Discipline in America, 1850-1950.”Diss. Michigan Technological University, 1994.
30.
Lyotard, Jean-François. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993.
31.
Meyer, Mary A., and Ray C. Paton. “Interpreting, Representing and Integrating Scientific Knowledge from Interdisciplinary Projects.”Los Alamos National Laboratory report LA-UR-00-1448. Thoeria et Historia Scientiarum. Torun, Pol.: Nicholas Copernicus University Press. Forthcoming.
32.
Miller, Carolyn. “What's Practical about Technical Writing?” Technical Writing: Theory and Practice. Ed. Bertie E. Fearing and W. Keats Sparrow. New York: Modern Languages Association, 1989. 14-24.
33.
Mollison, Bill. Introduction to Permaculture. Tyalgum, New South Wales, Austral.: Tagari, 1991.
34.
Odell, Lee, and Dixie Goswami. Writing in Nonacademic Settings. New York: Guilford, 1985.
35.
Ramage, John D., and John C. Bean. Writing Arguments: A Rhetoric with Readings. 4th ed.Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1998.
36.
Reich, Robert. The Work of Nations: Preparing Ourselves for 21st-Century Capitalism. New York: Random House, 1992.
37.
Renfro, Elizabeth. “Cognitive Site Mapping: Placing Yourself in (Con)Text.”1997 Convention on College Composition and Communication. Phoenix, AZ. 12-15 Mar. 1997.
38.
Schutte, William M., and Erwin Steinberg. Communication in Business and Industry. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1983.
39.
Soja, Edward W.Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory. London: Verso, 1989.
40.
Thralls, Charlotte, and Nancy Roundy Blyler. “The Social Perspective and Pedagogy in Technical Communication.”Technical Communication Quarterly2 (1993): 249-270.