Abstract

Technical books for women of the English Renaissance provide a microcosm for studying connections among the emergence of technical writing as a genre, the rise of literacy, expansion of knowledge and technology, and replacement of orality by textuality as a result of increasing knowledge. These books on Renaissance technologies such as cooking, carving, household “physick,” home management, silkworm production, farming and estate management, midwifery, medical self-diagnosis, and gardening exhibit some differences from technical books written for men. Books for women are shorter and less detailed, but their style is similar to that of books for men. The style does not suggest writers believed that their women readers possessed an inferior reading comprehension level. Content differences seem to suggest that women's work was different from men's with many skills taught by oral transmission. The increasing complexity of the styles of technical books for women during the 16th and early 17th centuries suggests that women's reading skills increased as knowledge increased. Thus the oral style of the early 16th-century technical books disappeared with the need for an analytical style that would better convey growth of knowledge in the English Renaissance.

Journal
Written Communication
Published
1993-04-01
DOI
10.1177/0741088393010002002
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Citation Context

Cited by in this index (9)

  1. Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  2. Technical Communication Quarterly
  3. Technical Communication Quarterly
  4. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  5. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication
Show all 9 →
  1. Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  2. Technical Communication Quarterly
  3. Technical Communication Quarterly
  4. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication

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