The authors examine language from the perspective of models of empirical sciences, which discipline studies the relationship between reality, models, and formalisms. Such a perspective allows one to notice that linguistics approached within the classical framework share a number of problems with other experimental sciences studied initially exclusively within that framework because of making the same sort of assumptions. By examining solutions to some of these problems found in contemporary science, the authors point out alternative approaches, which could be relevant for linguistics research, and some of which have already been tested in language studies. In particular, Corpus Linguistics is presented as an especially promising approach, positioned to avoid many of the pitfalls of the classical framework. Consequently, it seems that the future of linguistics, from theoretical to applied, such as Technical Writing, must be embraced by Corpus Linguistics research.

Communication practice can be aided significantly by good communication models. In this article, the author positions models of communication in natural language within a broader perspective sketched by the role of models used in empirical sciences in order to outline the foundational limitations for constructing linguistic/communication models.

The article outlines the technical writing tutorial (TWT) that preceded an advanced ESL writing course for students of English Philology at the Jagiellonian University. Having assessed the English skills of those students at the end of the semester, we found a statistically significant increase in the performance of the students who had taken the TWT in comparison to the control group who spent the time of TWT doing more traditional exercises. This result indicates that technical writing books and journals should be considered as an important source of information for teachers of writing to ESL students.

Formalization of cognitive grammar depends in an important way on modeling the process of assessing similarity. This article points out that such formalization is difficult to achieve within the present formulation [1] of the grammar and introduces a modification that will allow modeling the process of similarity. Next, it is suggested that the mechanism of assessing similarity in the modified analogical-operatorial version of cognitive grammar be that of analogical modeling presented in Skousen [2]. Finally, it indicates some consequences of the proposition for the practice of communication. The modification, the analogical-operatorial mode of language use, allows linguistic units, in addition to their function of representing the semantic meaning of these units, to serve as operators differentiating among semantic or other conceptual structures. This introduces inhomogeneity to the content purported with linguistic units and leads to preserving linguistic compositionality understood in a new sense. It also allows one to treat the pragmatic meaning in the same way as the semantic one, and accounts for a compact use of linguistic units. Using linguistic units to differentiate allows one to convey information not contained in the encoded meaning of these structures. This can be utilized to communicate more efficiently but also poses the danger of purporting unwanted meaning.

Recently, a new operatorial perspective on language has emerged [1]. As a result, a specific, analogical solution within such an approach is being developed [2]. This article describes that position briefly and sketches how such a perspective can lead to a theoretical justification of selected elements of established technical writing practice.