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Written Communication
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Ordering Work

Blue-Collar Literacy and the Political Nature of Genre

DOROTHY A. WINSOR

Iowa State University

Within complex organizations, people are members of various and sometimes conflicting subgroupings. Texts function between and across these various subgroupings to simultaneously bridge the gap between them (and thus allow joint work to be done) and yet maintain existing structures of power and territory. This study reports observations of blue-collar laboratory technicians using work orders written by engineers. It identifies work orders as a genre that both triggered and concealed the work of the technicians, allowing it to disappear into the work of the engineers. This study has implications for our understanding of the role texts play in coordinating joint work and for our understanding of what it means for texts to be perceived as generic. In particular, it emphasizes the political aspects of genre as form of social action, an aspect previous research and theory have tended to neglect.

Written Communication, Vol. 17, No. 2, 155-184 (2000)
DOI: 10.1177/0741088300017002001
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