Burnham starts with Berlin, which fits nicely into the topography I’m creating. Berlin claims that all pedagogy is ideological, using his rhetorical “triangle” to illustrate his four elements of the rhetorical act: writer, audience, message, and language. According to Berlin, placing one of the four items in the middle of the triangle illustrates it’s prominence to and mediation by the remaining three elements.
Expressivism and the pedagogies based on it place the writer in the middle of Berlin’s triangle – the writer and her ideology assume the greatest value in the rhetorical act. “Expressivist pedagogy encourages, even insists upon, a send of writer presence even in research-based writing. This presence – voice or ethos – whether explicit, implicit, or absent, functions as a key evaluation criterion when expressivists examine writing” (19). And it’s here that I immediately recognized a conflict for Tech Comm pedagogies shaped by other social constructionist theories; Tech Comm (I believe) almost always places the “writing” rather than the “writer” at the center of the triangle. Because of this placement, I see expressivism falling somewhere between subjective and transactional rhetorics, as per Berlin’s framework, moving away from current-traditionalism. “[Expressivism] originated in the 1960s and 1970s as a set of values and practices opposing current-traditional rhetoric” (21).
Only after considering Burnham’s description of the theoretical background of expressivism could I begin to see some fit – some application – the Tech Comm classroom. Burnham points to Britton’s expressive function of language and Kinneavy’s expressive discourse as the major theories that shape expressive pedagogies. Upon breaking down Britton’s description of expressivist theory, I identified a clear association to Tech Comm activities inside and, more importantly, outside the classroom.
“In the participant role, writers produce transactional writing, in which language is used to accomplish the business of the world. Transactional writing is divided further into informative [exposition], regulative and conative writing persuasion]… Informative writing makes information available, regulative writing impels or commands action, and conative writing moves readers from inaction or ambivalence to specific action” (26).
The application to Tech Comm pedagogy and practice are obvious here. I also see Britton’s influence on process-based pedagogies – again due to the clear association of these rhetorical and pedagogical strategies to the activities of the profession technical communicator.
My mapping continues, but I’m again left questioning my own affinity (or afflication?) to current-traditionalist approaches to teching Tech Comm. Perhaps it’s more or a starting point – a position from which to move toward more transactional pedagogies, such as those based on theories of expressivism.
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