Charles Kostelnick

Linguistic Politeness in Professional Prose A Discourse Analysis of Auditors' Suggestion Letters, with Implications for Business Communication Pedagogy

Consonant with a trend toward investigating professional writing in naturalistic settings, this discourse-analytical study of a corpus of “suggestion letters” written in a Big Eight accounting firm demonstrates how auditors use negative politeness strategies to meet the complex demands of potentially threatening interactional situations. The study substantiates Brown and Levinsons claim that politeness is a linguistic universal by showing that the same politeness strategies found in speech also occur in written communication. Analysis of negative message strategies in ten leading textbooks shows that business communication pedagogy needs to modify strictures on the use of passives, nominalizations, expletive constructions, and hedging particles in light of research on the exigencies of real-world linguistic interaction.

Cultural adaptation and information design: two contrasting views

Approaches to using visual language in a cultural context can be placed on a continuum, with global (universal) on one end and culture-focused on the other. Each approach reveals contrasting assumptions about three central design issues: perception, aesthetics and pragmatics. The global approach is characterized by attempts to invent an objective, universal visual language or to define such a language through perceptual principles and empirical research. The culture-focused perspective is founded on the principle that visual communication is intimately bound to experience and hence can function only within a given cultural context, to which designers must be sensitive. While the modernist, universal approach has been losing ground to the postmodern, culture-focused approach, the two complement each other in a variety of ways and, depending on the rhetorical situation, offer pragmatic benefits and drawbacks.

From Pen to Print:: The New Visual Landscape of Professional Communication

Visual design has played an important role in the historical development of professional communication. The technology of laser printing has reestablished the importance of visual language in functional communication, transforming contemporary document design and redefining its relation to the traditions of handwritten, typewritten, and printed text. During this period of transition, three factors will shape the new visual language: (a) the development of a visual rhetoric that represents design as an integral part of the message rather than merely as external “dress,” (b) the rediscovery of aesthetics as a legitimate factor in text design, and (c) the use of empirical research—particularly context-specific research—to guide the document design process.

The Visual Rhetoric of Data Displays: The Conundrum of Clarity

The visual rhetoric of data displays (e.g., charts, graphs, maps) has changed profoundly over the past 50 years as a result of research in display techniques, the application of traditional and emerging rhetorical approaches, and the democratizing effects of data design technology. Perhaps in no other visual realm than data design is the notion of clarity more critical or more contested. Indeed the ascendancy of rhetorical approaches was initiated by the perceptual/cognitive science of data design, which in seeking to identify optimal display techniques, fostered a concern for ethics and evoked the universality and minimalism of modernist aesthetics. The rhetoric of adaptation, which emphasizes the variability of audiences, purposes, and situational contexts, rendered clarity contingent and mutable-a moving target that requires constant attention. Social rhetoric considered data design as a collective construct, tethering clarity to visual discourse communities, convention-building, cultural values, and power. The concept of clarity has been further reoriented by the rhetoric of participation, which is fostered by interactive digital design that enables users to adapt displays according to their needs and interests.

Typographical Design, Modernist Aesthetics, and Professional Communication.

The technology of in-house publishing is radically shifting the responsibility for document design from the graphic specialist to the individual writer. To apply the new technology, professional communicators need to understand the principles underpinning typographical design and their origin in the functionalist aesthetics of modernism, particularly as articulated by the Bauhaus. While some of the key concepts of modernism—strict economy, uni versal objectivity, intuitive perception, and the unity ofform and purpose—are well-suited to business and technical documents, these concepts are bound to an historical and intellectual milieu. By understanding the influence ofmod ernism on typographical design, professional communicators equipped with the new technology can adapt design principles to the rhetorical context ofspe cific documents.

The Rhetorical Minefield of Risk Communication

During my 3 years as editor, numerous pieces of exc appeared in JBTC, some of which won National Cou English (NCTE) awards and any of which could have been commentary. In the end, I chose “Risk Communication, Me and Rhetorical Stases in the Aspen–EPA Superfund Controv Stratman, Carolyn Boykin, Marti C. Holmes, M. Jane L Breen (1995, see http://jbt.sagepub.com/supplemental/), to re 20th anniversary issue because, more than a decade later, it s article explores several issues that are still extraordinarily im fession and that are likely to remain important for some tim First and most significant, Stratman et al.’s article expl minefield of risk communication, in which the stakes ar pants in the communication process and in which someth can go wrong. Risk communication—whether in the form symbols, or a complex series of interactions, as in the Mountain case that this article examines—can jeopardi and whole communities. Of all the tasks that profession undertake, none is more far reaching and profoundly cons communication. Perhaps more than any other genre, risk communication of complex ethical issues. Anticipating a flood of rhetori ethics, this article raises issues about access to information, interpretation, community and property rights, and the une sion, as Stratman et al. pointed out in their discussion. The Mountain case forces us to think deeply and critically abou that professional communicators encounter, especially i involve risk. This article is also forward-looking in that it narrate evolving communication process in a social context, a re ogy that has become increasingly central to rhetoric and munication scholarship. The kairos and drama of Stratma

A Research Consortium That's All Over the Map - That's Our Strength, if We Use Trans lation to Teach Each Other: A Response to Janis Forman's ABC Outstanding Researcher Lecture

Janis Formans ABC Outstanding Researcher Lecture prompts us to consider several issues: whether pure research in business communication is possible, why we translate ideas and methods from other disciplines, and our responsibil ities as translators - to the disciplines we import from and to each other. Because business communication spans a vast territory and because our teach ing situates us in a variety of disciplines across the academy, each with its own research standards, research in our field has become a far-flung enterprise. The breadth of our research consortium, however, should not be seen as a liability, because the peer review process ensures the integrity of our imports, and as a discipline we benefit from the constant influx of fresh ideas. Although importing from other disciplines challenges us to translate for each other, we are uniquely qualified to solve this rhetorical problem because of the intrinsically pedagogi cal nature of business communication.

Introduction to Special Issue on Data Visualization

We live in an exciting new era of data design, spurred by new technology and digital innovation, which rivals the profusion of graphical forms that appeared in the second half of the 19th century. This new burst of graphical innovation has been accompanied by a growing scholarly interest in the history, theory, practice, and pedagogy of data design. Articles in this issue extend scholarly inquiry in all of these areas, offering new insights and guiding future directions for studying, teaching, and practicing data visualization. History has increasingly become the focus of scholarly activity that uses contemporary methods to reinterpret the evolution of data design. In her article on the history of visualizing disease, Candice Welhausen explores the role of data maps as analytical tools in assessing health risks. She examines how those maps achieved their authority and ethos by deploying conventional codes, which were shaped by the prevailing ideology of medical science, and she shows how those conventions continue to influence visualizations. Data design theory has been driven by two paradigms, namely, a universal, one-size-fits-all approach based primarily on perceptual principles and a rhetorical, context-specific approach that emphasizes audience and situation. In his article, John Jones proposes a method for reconciling perception