
Accessibility and Acceptability in Technical Manuals : A survey of style and grammatical metaphor.
Title:
Accessibility and Acceptability in Technical Manuals : A survey of style and grammatical metaphor.
Author:
Lassen, Inger.
ISBN:
9789027296825
Personal Author:
Physical Description:
1 online resource (201 pages)
Contents:
Accessibility and Acceptability in Technical Manuals -- Editorial page -- Title page -- LCC page -- Table of contents -- Symbols -- Preface -- Introduction -- Chapter 1. Research disciplines and methods -- Chapter 2. Field, Tenor and Mode dimensions -- Chapter 3. Register analysis -- Chapter 4. Categorizing text through genre analysis -- Chapter 5. Research methods and survey -- Chapter 6. Information structure -- Chapter 7. The technical manual as social semiotic -- Chapter 8. Discussion and conclusions -- References -- Appendix: Survey of writing style in technical manuals -- Name index -- Subject index.
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.
Local Note:
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2017. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.
Genre:
Electronic Access:
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