Abstract

Taking a social constructionist point of view and drawing on the work in cognitive psychology on situated cognition and expert performances, this study reports on a segment of an ethnography of writing in a workplace setting that reveals the interconnections of discourse community goals, writers' roles, and the socialization process for writers new to a given discourse community. Specifically, the data reveal 15 different writing roles assumed by members of the discourse community that depict a continuum from novice to expert writing behaviors. Writing roles were defined in relation to both the importance to community goals of the text to be written and to the amount of context-specific writing knowledge required to accomplish the task. The study applies the notion of legitimate peripheral participation in a discourse community and creates a framework for conceptualizing a social apprenticeship in writing either in school or nonschool settings.

Journal
Written Communication
Published
2000-04-01
DOI
10.1177/0741088300017002002
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Citation Context

Cited by in this index (13)

  1. Written Communication
  2. College English
  3. College English
  4. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  5. Written Communication
Show all 13 →
  1. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  2. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  3. Written Communication
  4. Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  5. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication
  6. Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  7. Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  8. Written Communication

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