Signs, Genres, and Communities in Technical Communication

This important new text invites readers to step back from their busy professional lives and look at technical communication philosophically, to ask fundamental questions such as what does it mean to communicate? and how do language and graphics - the ""signs"" or ""tools"" of the technical communicator - relate to action in a technological world? Through this excursion in the theory of technical discourse, you will discover a fresh approach to reports, manuals, and proposals produced and consumed daily in business, government, and research organizations around the world. The authors examine familiar genres in two relatively new ways.

M. Jimmie Killingsworth, Michael Gilbertson

Foreword Joe Chew Acknowledgments List of Tables and Figures Introduction: A Three-Part Theory of Technical Communication PART I. SIGNS A General Theory of Signs Representation in Document Design PART II. GENRES Genres of Technical Communication Generic Audiences in Technical Communication Generic Authors in Technical Communication PART III. COMMUNITIES Style and Human Action in Technical Writing Communities of Discourse Management and the Writing Process The Range of Instrumental Discourse Bibliography Index