Accessibility and acceptability in technical manuals : a survey of style and grammatical metaphor /
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Author / Creator: | Lassen, Inger, 1951- |
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Imprint: | Amsterdam ; Philadelphia, PA : J. Benjamins Pub. Co., ©2003. |
Description: | 1 online resource (xvii, 183 pages) : illustrations |
Language: | English |
Series: | Document design companion series, 1568-1963 ; v. 4 Document design companion series ; v. 4. |
Subject: | |
Format: | E-Resource Book |
URL for this record: | http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/11142145 |
Summary: | 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. |
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Physical Description: | 1 online resource (xvii, 183 pages) : illustrations |
Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 169-174) and index. |
ISBN: | 1423761375 9781423761372 9027296820 9789027296825 1588113620 |
ISSN: | 1568-1963 ; |