Written Communication Oct 1994

Response, Revision, Disciplinarity

PAUL PRIOR

Abstract

Current social perspectives on writing and disciplinary enculturation are generally grounded in theories of discourse communities. Although assumptions underlying these theories have been seriously questioned, few studies of situated writing have applied alternate theories. In this article, I explore a sociohistoric notion of disciplinarity in a case study of how a sociology student's dissertation prospectus is negotiated in a graduate seminar. A microhistorical narrative of a response episode in the seminar and subsequent textual revision is contextualized in histories of local activity. Analysis of the seminar response foregrounds emergent, nonlinear, discursively heterogeneous practices of disciplinary sense-making. Analysis of the text foregrounds practices whereby situated histories of textual production and reception are transformed into purified representations of the discipline and the author. Finally, the analysis details how the disciplinary work of revision in this setting was socially distributed and interactively achieved.

Journal
Written Communication
Published
1994-10-01
DOI
10.1177/0741088394011004003
Open Access
Closed
Topics
graduate education qualitative research revision

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (13)

  1. Ware et al. (2024)
    Tracing Discursive Turbulence as Intra-active Pedagogical Change and Becoming
    Written Communication
  2. Zhang et al. (2022)
    Responding to Supervisory Feedback: Mediated Positioning in Thesis Writing
    Written Communication
  3. Ware (2022)
    “God’s Absence During Trauma Took Its Toll”: Dialogic Tracing of Literate Activ…
    Written Communication
  4. Wilder (2021)
    Another Voice in the Room: Negotiating Authority in Multidisciplinary Writing Groups
    Written Communication
  5. Durst (2019)
    Disciplinarity and Literate Activity in Civil and Environmental Engineering: A …
    Written Communication
Show all 13 →
  1. Olsen et al. (2018)
    Examining Intertextual Connections in Written Arguments: A Study of Student Wri…
    Written Communication
  2. Strain et al. (2012)
    The Twain Shall Meet
    Pedagogy
  3. Carter et al. (2007)
    Writing to Learn by Learning to Write in the Disciplines
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  4. Dysthe (2002)
    Professors as Mediators of Academic Text Cultures
    Written Communication
  5. BEAUFORT (2000)
    Learning the Trade
    Written Communication
  6. EUBANKS (1999)
    Conceptual Metaphor as Rhetorical Response
    Written Communication
  7. WINSOR (1999)
    Genre and Activity Systems
    Written Communication
  8. SULLIVAN (1996)
    Displaying Disciplinarity
    Written Communication

Cites in this index (6)

  1. BERKENKOTTER et al. (1993)
    Rethinking Genre from a Sociocognitive Perspective
    Written Communication
  2. BRANDT (1992)
    The Cognitive as the Social
    Written Communication
  3. PRIOR (1991)
    Contextualizing Writing and Response in a Graduate Seminar
    Written Communication
  4. CLARK et al. (1990)
    Public Discourse and Personal Expression
    Written Communication
  5. McGINLEY et al. (1989)
    Traversing the Topical Landscape
    Written Communication
Show all 6 →
  1. BRODKEY (1987)
    Writing Ethnographic Narratives
    Written Communication
Also cites 16 works outside this index ↓
  1. 10.1086/227835
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  2. 10.1037/0021-843X.85.2.186
     ↗
  3. 10.2307/356600
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  4. 10.2307/357381
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  5. Garfinkel, H.
    Studies in ethnomethodology
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  6. Giddens, A.
    Central problems in social theory: Action, structure, and contradiction in social analysis
     ↗
  7. 10.2307/358177
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  8. 10.1017/S0047404500009039
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  9. 10.1016/0898-5898(92)90008-K
     ↗
  10. 10.1080/01638538709544681
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  11. Nystrand, M.
    What writers know: The language, process, and structure of written discourse
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  13. 10.1080/01638539209544801
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  14. 10.1016/S0140-1971(87)80086-6
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  15. Tannen, D.
    Talking voices: Repetition, dialogue, and imagery in conversational discourse
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  16. Vygotsky, L.
    Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes
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CrossRef global citation count: 40 View in citation network →

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