Accessibility and Acceptability in Technical Manuals A Survey of Style and Grammatical Metaphor |
|
| Author:
| Lassen, Inger |
| Series title: | Document Design Companion Ser. |
| ISBN: | 978-1-58811-362-7 |
| Publication Date: | May 2003 |
| Publisher: | John Benjamins Publishing Company
|
| Book Format: | Hardback |
| List Price: | USD $143.00 |
Book Description:
|
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...
More Description 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.