Competence and Critique in Technical Communication

Abstract

This study uses qualitative content analysis to discuss current perspectives in technical communication pedagogy. It examines the 1990-94 issues of five major scholarly journals—a collection of 563 articles—to identify 98 articles mentioning teaching in undergraduate technical communication courses. Influenced by differing theoretical and practical approaches, the 98 articles were classified according to four pedagogical perspectives: (1) the functional perspective, based on empirical research and workplace experience; (2) the rhetorical perspective, based on scholarship in the humanities and influenced by rhetorical theory; (3) the ideological perspective, also based on scholarship in the humanities but influenced by critical theory; and (4) the intercultural and feminist perspective, a bridging perspective based on both empirical research and critical theory. This article discusses the four perspectives in terms of the educational goals of communicative competence (the ability to use language to succeed in the workplace) and social critique (the ability to question existing social structures and to envision cultural change).