Tactics of Discourse: A Classification for Student Writers

Richard H. Haswell

doi:10.2307/376754

College English Feb 1981

Tactics of Discourse: A Classification for Student Writers

Richard H. Haswell

Abstract

PROFESSOR ARNETT IS ADDRESSING taxonomists in entomology, no doubt a rather peripheral body of specialists, at least in the vision of most English teachers. But his point holds for any profession that makes and perpetuates formal classifications. What specialists forget is that classifications, built by specialists, should serve nonspecialists. Yet in all disciplines the formal classification often does little more than befuddle. Since my aim here is precisely to suggest a classification fit for the novice writer, I think it is essential first to ask what has gone wrong when this particular mode of knowledge-a more central one can hardly be conceived-proves difficult for laymen to assimilate. Such a preliminary inquiry, although perforce brief, at least will show faults I have tried to avoid in building a classification of discourse that beginning writers can both understand readily and use easily. It may help to remain for a moment with the biological taxonomy. Three centuries have so refined this classificatory procedure that the problem of which Professor Arnett speaks, this failure of communication between builder and user, stands out clearly. Consider those taxonomic keys that biologists construct for identification of specimens, for instance those in Julian A. Steyermark's Flora of Missouri or Melville Hatch's Beetles of the Pacific Northwest. Professor Arnett's point is that amateurs (and not a few professional biologists) find these keys impossible to use. The chief obstacle is not hard to find. Traditionally, these keys are constructed to follow evolutionary, genetic relationships as closely as possible. The result is an analytical description of a whole field, very much like a genealogical tree. The farmer, however, who rashly comes to these keys with specimen in hand, cares little

Journal: College English
Published: 1981-02-01
DOI: 10.2307/376754
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Open Access: Closed
Topics: modern rhetorical theory discourse analysis
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Tactics of Discourse: A Classification for Student Writers

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