Orality and Literacy in the Workplace: Process- and Text-Based Strategies for Multiple-Audience Adaptation

Journal of Business and Technical Communication Jan 1990

Orality and Literacy in the Workplace: Process- and Text-Based Strategies for Multiple-Audience Adaptation

Rachel Spilka University of Maine

Abstract

What is the role of interaction, or, more generally, orality, in multiple-audience analysis and adaptation? How does orality relate to literacy in the evolution of corporate documents? A qualitative study of how seven engineers in two divi sions of a large corporation wrote for multiple audiences revealed that, in the more rhetorically successful cases observed, interaction was the central means of analyzing and adapting discourse to multiple audiences, fulfilling rhetorical and social goals, and building and sustaining a corporate culture; and orality was more potent than literacy in the engineers'composing behavior and the au diences' acceptance of the engineers' ideas and documents.

Journal: Journal of Business and Technical Communication
Published: 1990-01-01
DOI: 10.1177/105065199000400103
Open Access: Closed
Topics: qualitative research

Citation Context

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Cites in this index (2)

DOHENY-FARINA (1986)

Writing in an Emerging Organization

Written Communication
Odell et al. (1982)

Writing in a Non- Academic Setting

Research in the Teaching of English

Also cites 1 work outside this index ↓

10.2307/357405

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CrossRef global citation count: 19 View in citation network →