Written Communication Apr 1999

Genre and Activity Systems: The Role of Documentation in Maintaining and Changing Engineering Activity Systems

DOROTHY A. WINSOR

Abstract

Rhetoric continues to struggle to theorize the simultaneous existence of pattern and contingency. Responses to this issue have been couched in elaborations of genre theory and, more recently, of Vygotskian activity theory. Activity theory offers two advantages in theorizing how change and continuity can coexist: It expands our ability to see how text and context influence one another and it encourages us to see that lack of unity is normal in any activity system. This study exemplifies these advantages by looking at four entry-level engineers who produced a genre they called documentation in their first 4 years at work. They defined documentation as writing that describes events to establish a common understanding of completed or promised actions. Documentation was one of the tools the participants used to create and maintain the activity system of their workplace and to reshape it as well.

Journal
Written Communication
Published
1999-04-01
DOI
10.1177/0741088399016002003
CompPile
Open Access
Closed
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Citation context

Cited by in this index (36)

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  5. Read (2016)
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  6. Wickman (2015)
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  9. Dannels (2009)
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  10. Pickering (2009)
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  17. Winsor (2006)
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  19. Ford et al. (2006)
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  29. Yli-Jokipii (2001)
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CrossRef global citation count: 68 View in citation network → Build reading path →

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