14.1587, Books: Discourse Analysis: Lassen

Wed Jun 4 16:43:20 UTC 2003

LINGUIST List:  Vol-14-1587. Wed Jun 4 2003. ISSN: 1068-4875.

Subject: 14.1587, Books: Discourse Analysis: Lassen

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1)
Date:  Wed, 04 Jun 2003 11:29:31 +0000
From:  paul at benjamins.com
Subject:  Accessibility and Acceptability in Technical Manuals

-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------

Date:  Wed, 04 Jun 2003 11:29:31 +0000
From:  paul at benjamins.com
Subject:  Accessibility and Acceptability in Technical Manuals

Title: Accessibility and Acceptability in Technical Manuals
Subtitle: A survey of style and grammatical metaphor
Series Title: Document Design Companion Series 4

Publication Year: 2003
Publisher: John Benjamins
           http://www.benjamins.com/, http://www.benjamins.nl		

Book URL: http://www.benjamins.nl/cgi-bin/t_bookview.cgi?bookid=DDCS_4

Author: Inger  Lassen, Aalborg University

Hardback: ISBN: 1588113620, Pages: xviii, 183 pp., Price: USD 77.00
Hardback: ISBN: 9027232040, Pages: xviii, 183 pp., Price: EUR 77.00

Abstract:

Accessibility and Acceptability in Technical Manuals is written for an
audience with a general interest in readability studies, linguistics
and technical writing. With the main emphasis on technical manuals the
book is primarily targeted at those who have a special interest in the
design and use of utility texts and how these texts are received and
understood by a multifaceted audience. Accessibility is not a new
research area and many explanations have been offered over the past
years as to why non-experts often have difficulties in comprehending
texts written by technological experts. This book offers a new
approach to accessibility studies by exploring not only style, but
also attitudes to style, by asking text consumers which style they
prefer for different parts of the manual. A key role is played by the
Systemic Functional Linguistics' notion of grammatical metaphor, a
stylistic choice that is commonly used in technical
literature. Grammatical metaphor - although apparently obstructing the
comprehension process of some readers - is a common element in the
preferred style that separates the 'insiders' from the 'outsiders'.
An explanation of this rather surprising result is offered by
resorting to Critical Discourse Analysis.

Table of contents

Preface  xi
Introduction  xiii
1. Research disciplines and methods  1-5
2. Field, tenor and mode dimensions  7-16
3. Register analysis  17-63
4. Categorizing text through genre analysis  65-78
5. Research methods and survey  79-126
6. Information structure  127-143
7. The technical manual as social semiotic  145-160
8. Discussion and conclusions  161-167
References  169-174
Appendix: Survey of writing style in technical manuals  175-177
Name index  179-180
Subject index  181-183

Lingfield(s):   Discourse Analysis

Written In:  English (Language Code: ENG)

     See this book announcement on our website:
     http://linguistlist.org/get-book.html?BookID=6330.

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