ENGL 810: Debate Paper #4: How can pedagogical approaches in technical communication raise the perceived value of the field?

Johnson-Eilola, Johndan. "Relocating the Value of Work: Technical Communication in a Post-Industrial Age." Technical Communication Quarterly 5.3 (1996): 245. Education Research Complete. Web. 1 Oct. 2012.

Sullivan, Dale L. “Political-Ethical Implications of Defining Technical Communication as a Practice.” Central Works in Technical Communication. Eds. Johndan Johnson-Eilola and Stuart A. Selber. NewYork: Oxford University Press, 2004. 211-219. Print.

            Both Johndan Johnson-Eilola and Dale Sullivan agree that there seems to be something degrading about technical communication. They also agree that the classroom is the best site for reforming technical communication’s image; however, they disagree in the pedagogical approaches that might bring about this reform. For Johnson-Eilola, professors should capitalize on cultural interest in information technology; for Sullivan, professors should integrate political discourse through an apprenticeship model.

             Because of its awkward position, bridging English studies with other disciplines, the field has struggled with identity issues. According to Johnson-Eilola, as a trade, “current models of technical communication embrace an outdated, self-deprecating … approach to subordinating information to concrete technological products,” and overall, it “has traditionally occupied a support position in both academic and corporate spheres” (Johnson-Eilola 245-246). According to Sullivan, not only did it grow out of what has historically been viewed as the least favorable aspect of English studies (rhetoric and composition); it is also employed as a mere service to others. Sullivan argues that “we indoctrinate our students in the forms appropriate to their employers,” a narrow scope that misses some of the farther reaching aspects of humanities scholarship (213). Thus, technical communication is the site of “a continuing battle over the issue of humanism versus vocationalism” (Sullivan 213). In short, both authors lament the subordinate position of the field as a study and a trade.

Johnson-Eilola argues that scholars in technical communication have an opportunity to rebrand their image as symbolic-analytic work in an information-technology driven market. Symbolic-analytic work “involves working within and across information spaces” (Johnson-Eilola 253). Job titles often classified as symbolic-analytic are “investment banker, research scientist, lawyer, … and architect,” and Johnson-Eilola is making a case that technical writers operate on the same highly skilled level (255). He argues that this rebranding is made easier by trends toward information technology, “where information is fast becoming the most valuable product” (Johnson-Eilola 245). If academic instructors make five adjustments, this new image may be possible: “(1) connect education to work, (2) question educational goals, (3) question education processes and infrastructure, (4) build metaknowledge, network knowledge, and self-reflective practices, and (5) rethink interdisciplinarity”  (Johnson-Eilola 263).

Sullivan sees a different answer to the same problems. He argues instead for an apprenticeship model of learning: “if we are introducing [students] to the discourse community of industry and the larger discourse community of public citizenship, then the model offered by apprenticeship is more appropriate than the model offered by the market” (Sullivan 217). He also urges technical communication programs to embrace political discourse as a key part of the study, pushing for Ph.D. programs to “begin [incorporating] classes devoted to policy and to the philosophy of technology. He closes with an example of his own course design, with a focus on advocacy and arbitration (Sullivan 218).

Both scholars agree on the fact that technical communication does not hold a powerful position in the field or in the academy; however, pedagogical approaches, particularly in Ph.D. programs, can help reposition the field. Further discussion may illuminate how that would best be achieved.

ENGL 810: Debate Paper #3: Should we examine ethics in technical communication according to expediency or exigence?

Megan McKittrick

Katz, Stephen B. “The Ethic of Expediency: Classical Rhetoric, Technology, and the Holocaust.” Central Works in Technical Communication. Eds. Johndan Johnson-Eilola and Stuart A. Selber. NewYork: Oxford University Press, 2004. 195-210. Print.

Ward, Mark. “The Ethic of Exigence: Information Design, Postmodern Ethics, and the Holocaust.” Journal of Business and Technical Communication 24.1 (2010): 60-90. Sage Journals. Web. 29 Sept. 2012.

            Ethical considerations in technical communication are often overlooked in major publications. Textbooks typically relegate ethics to remote corners of the book, and “much of the literature on technical communication ethics focuses on single moments of decision – such as ‘the’ decision to launch the Challenger space shuttle or ‘the’ decision to knowingly publish a misleading user manual” (Ward 79). Stephen Katz and Mark Ward use a research method known as extreme-case sampling, examining Nazi technical memos and propaganda posters to explore the ethical challenges underlying common technical documents; however, Ward argues that Katz’s ethic of expediency falls short, ignoring the socio-cultural pressures that govern decisions made in technical communication.

            Katz centers his discussion on a chilling memorandum. Before gas chambers were adopted as the “Final Solution,” Nazi soldiers used vans used to terminate the Jews (Katz 197). This memo was used to request technical improvements to these vans and it “is an almost perfect document” according to the rules of argumentation, word choice, and design in technical communication (Katz 197). The problem, of course, is that the memo is “too technical, too logical. The writer shows no concern that the purpose of his memo” is to kill people more effectively (Katz 197). Instead, victims and bodies are referred to as a “pieces” of a “load” and the time spent gassing them as “operating time” (Katz 198).

He argues that technical communication is largely deliberative rhetoric, “defined by Aristotle as that genre of rhetoric concerned with deliberating future courses of action,” and the focus of this rhetoric is on expediency (Katz 200). The writer of this memo uses the ethic of expediency to serve the holocaust, demonstrating how they can be more efficient in achieving their ends. He also adopts the ethos of his government, shirking personal responsibility in the process. Katz argues that this ethic of expediency is a component of all technical communication, which was pervasive in the science- and technology-centered Nazi-German culture, and he draws connections to the science- and technology-centered cultures in Western civilization today. Ultimately, he concludes that “the ethic of expediency that provides the moral base of deliberative discourse used to make decisions, weigh consequences, and argue results in every department of society, also resulted in the holocaust – a result that raises serious and fundamental questions for rhetoric” (Katz 207).

Ward argues that Katz doesn’t go far enough in his analysis: “we must avoid the easy temptation to conclude … that the SS writers’ ethical blindness was simply a result of ‘hyperpragmatism’ run amok and thereby search no further for answers” (64). Ward examines a propaganda poster that visually represents the Nuremburg Laws, and he sees “an ‘ethic of exigence,’ in which exigence is understood to be, as Miller has described ‘social knowledge – a mutual construing of objects, events, interests, and purposes’” (66). For Ward, the ethic underlying these communications is largely the result of community influences rather than technical and scientific, taking aim at Katz’s article directly. Rather than “characterize Nazi bureaucrats as ‘single-minded’ practitioners of a ‘runaway technocracy,’” Ward argues that they both shaped and adopted a rhetoric that developed in the community, where designers and viewers co-create these meanings (66).

While Katz and Ward disagree on the causes of these extreme cases, neither excuse the creators involved, and both point to larger questions about ethics in technical communication. Katz concludes that the absence of ethical discussions in the field is dangerous, and Ward draws on Foucault to outline ethical questions both scholars and practitioners can apply to any situation: questions of ethical substance, mode of subjection, ethical work, and ethical goal. 

ENGL 810: Debate Paper #2: Should contexting remain a key communication theory in international business and technical communication?

Cardon, Peter. “A Critique of Hall’s Contexting Model: A Meta-analysis of Literature on Intercultural Business and Technical Communication.” Journal of Business and Technical Communication 22.4 (2008): 399-428. Sage Journals. Web. 29 Sept. 2012.

Hall, Edward T. "The Silent Language In Overseas Business." Harvard Business Review 38.3 (1960): 87-96. Business Source Complete. Web. 29 Sept. 2012.

            International business and technical communication (IBTC) is an area of professional and technical communication that is gaining momentum in an increasingly globalized market. It seeks to prepare business men and women for the kinds of challenges that occur when communicating across cultures; however, contexting, one of its main tenets, may be little more than stereotype.

Edward Hall is one of the major figures in IBTC, cited in the field “over 3,300 times for his three major works” (Cardon 400). His publications have come to be an “integral [part] of international communication textbooks and courses,” and “Hall’s contexting model has been identified as the most commonly used cultural model in international communication courses” (Cardon 400). This contexting model labels various cultures according to either high- or low-context communication. High-context (HC) communication is more implicit, utilizing silent cues that are intuitively understood, while low-context (LC) communication is “vested in the explicit code,” and is, therefore, more direct (Cardon 401). Accordingly, Hall generated the following list, from very LC to very HC: “Swiss-Germans,  Germans, Scandinavians, North Americans, French, English, Italians, Latin Americans, Arabs, Chinese, and Japanese” (Cardon 401). His major works illuminate the various communication patterns that characterize these cultures.

            In “The Silent Language in Overseas Business,” Hall describes five communication patterns that vary across cultures, labeled the five silent languages: time, space, material possessions, friendship, and agreement. For example, in the United States, if one is kept waiting prior to a business meeting, it represents a lack of interest, laziness, or rudeness on the part of the tardy individual; however, in certain cultures, particularly in Latin America, it’s a common occurrence with no offense intended (Hall 89). Hall makes generalizations of this sort across the article, providing little to no supporting evidence to qualify his statements. His conclusions appear to come from personal observation and interview, but it isn’t made clear.

            Cardon brings Hall’s methods to task: “Hall provided numerous anecdotes of various cultures, but… never mentioned his method for developing his model,… he did not describe how he conceptualized or measured [his] rankings,” and “he did not mention using methods for qualitative data collection that would be considered rigorous by today’s standards” (Cardon 402). To assess the theory’s validity, Cardon performs a meta-analysis of other studies that have attempted to test Hall’s contexting model.

            Cardon finds that, while contexting may be one of the key theories in IBTC studies, “no known research involving any instrument or measure of contexting validates it” (423). He notes, however, that those attempts at validating it were inadequate, so the theory isn’t necessarily a failure (Cardon 423). Instead, the failure is in the field’s persistent use of the theory without any discussion of its limitations, leading to “generalizations in the IBTC literature that are perhaps unwarranted” (Cardon 423). Cardon closes with recommendations for future scholars and researchers: develop better methods for testing the validity of contexting, add more nations to the study, and broaden the scope of the study to include more uses of HC and LC communication patterns (Cardon 423-424). Ultimately, “this meta-analysis reveals that the contexting model is based on little or no empirical validation,” and we should, therefore, treat it with more caution in future discussions (Cardon 424).

            Cardon’s study raises important questions about the kind of stereotypes and generalizations that underlie a common theoretical model in IBTC studies. Further research may help either validate or overturn this widely held approach.