Communication on and Via Technology PDF
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Communication on and via Technology Text, Translation, Computational Processing Edited by Annely Rothkegel and John Laffling Volume 10 Communication on and via Technology Edited by Annely Rothkegel and Sonja Ruda DE GRUYTER MOUTON ISBN978-3-11-026025-0 e-ISBN978-3-11-026027-4 ISSN1861-4272 LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData ACIPcatalogrecordforthisbookhasbeenappliedforattheLibraryofCongress BibliographicinformationpublishedbytheDeutscheNationalbibliothek TheDeutscheNationalbibliothekliststhispublicationintheDeutscheNationalbibliografie; detailedbibliographicdataareavailableintheInternetathttp://dnb.dnb.de ©2012WalterdeGruyterGmbH&Co.KG,Berlin/Boston Typesetting:MetaSystemsGmbH,Wustermark Printing:Hubert&Co.GmbH&Co.KG,Göttingen ♾Printedonacid-freepaper PrintedinGermany www.degruyter.com Contents Introduction VII I. Technological knowledge in communication Annely Rothkegel Communication on technology: Meeting point of theory and practice 3 Franck Ganier Cognitive models of processing procedural instructions 39 Sonja Ruda How can the user be provided with the “right” questions and answers? 65 Karl-Heinz Pogner A social perspective on writing in the workplace: Communities of Discourse (CD) and Communities of Practice (CoP) 83 II. Information transfer through language(s) and pictures Klaus Schubert Technical communication and translation 111 Colette Cortès The class building potential of adjectives as used in German technical and advertising texts in a mail order catalogue 129 Clemens Schwender Instructional illustrations: Waypoints in the historical development 147 III. Relationships between technology, communication and culture Vasco Alexander Schmidt Software documentation: The role of computers as a means, tool and medium 177 VI Contents Marc Hermeking Cultural aspects of technology and documentation: Contributions from the field of intercultural communication 203 Gerhard Banse and Andreas Metzner-Szigeth Cultural diversity and new media – their interaction as an element of European integration: Elaborating a European research network 217 Biographical notes 259 Index 263 Annely Rothkegel and Sonja Ruda Introduction Technology andcommunication areclosely relatedto eachother. Thisanthol- ogy focuses on the role of communication. Without it, in the exchange of knowledge, there would be no technical innovations. The use of technology, supported by documentation, would not be successful without communica- tion. Similarly technology supports communication, which – independent of time and space – develops into new forms. The globalized trade brings about questionsthatstressthecharacteristicsoflanguagesandculturesattheinter- section of technology and communication. Technical artifacts play an impor- tant,oftencentralroleinalmostallareasoflife.Inbotheverydaylifeandthe professions we live in contact with technology in form of its products. They determine the course of our actions, and not seldom even our objectives. Simultaneously communication communities establish which, in turn, gener- ate communicative products and use or work with them. The scientific study of the phenomena resulting in this tension opens up horizons that cut across conventional disciplines and combine them. Thedealingwithtechnologicalknowledgeindocumentedcommunication canbetracedbacktothedistantpast.Thuspresenttechnicaldocumentations combine traditions of descriptions with legal and normative requirements on theonehandandwithstandardizationtendenciesbasedonthesoftwaretools employedforthedocumentationworkontheotherhand.Theprofessionaliza- tion of the documentation work has produced two threads of interest. These are the practice (in and for companies) as well as research in the disciplines which are thematically involved. Further included are Linguistics, Translation Science, Media Science, Intercultural Communication, Cognitive Psychology, Sociology,ComputerScience,Mathematics,TechnologicalPhilosophy.Thedif- ferent perspectives on the reference range “industrialized real world” bring into bear characteristics of communication that are indispensable for dealing withtechnicalartifacts.Theyareclusteredinthreelines:thetransferoftechni- cal knowledge through communication (Chapter 1), the role of sign systems likelanguageandvisualimagesforthetransferofinformation(Chapter2)and finally the relations between technology, culture and computerized communi- cation (Chapter 3). Chapter 1 addresses communication problems related to the transfer of knowledge.ThearticlebyAnnelyRothkegelexaminesthetensionofcommu- nication on technology between theory and practice. A variety of meeting points are discussed from a text-linguistic perspective: knowledge in the mix VIII Introduction of expert and common knowledge, acting with and through technology, texts as communicative means of transferring knowledge as well as the cultural character of using and documenting technology. In a cognitive-psychological approach, Frank Ganier first outlines differ- entmodelsfortheprocessingofproceduralinstructionswhichareunderstood as a component of a user document equipment interaction. His own research yields the interactive model which – unlike the linear concepts of reading, understanding and the subsequent performing of action steps – consists of a complexmentalmodelofpreviousknowledge,actionplanandthemonitoring of error corrections. Apart from theory development the model also aims at improving training for the practice of writing and reading technical docu- ments. The question of what kind of knowledge is regarded as necessary and preferable in instruction texts or the way of determining this knowledge is explored by Sonja Ruda from a linguistic-cognitive perspective. She outlines amethodforascertainingknowledgeandproblemswhichcanbeemployedto systematicallycarryoutexpertanduserinterviewsandintegratetheminterms oftheascertaineddata.Theresultingtranscriptionsanddocumentationscon- stituteareliablebasisfortherightquestionsandanswerswhich,inturn,form the foundation for creating user-oriented instruction documentations. Knowledge production, closely related to text production, is the topic of thesociolinguisticapproachofKarl-HeinzPogner.Heappliesthecomparison oftheconceptsofdiscourseandpracticecommunitiestothreecasestudiesin thecontextofDanishenterprisesandauniversityinstitute.Thisresultsinthe realization that, depending on their type, communities function differently as contexts for the text and knowledge production. Consequences arising for the practiceattheworkplaceontheonehandandforresearchontheotherhand are taken into consideration. Chapter2includesfourarticlesfocusingontheconditionsofthelinguistic or visual construction of meaning for the presentation of knowledge and the transfer ofinformation. The firsttwo studiesdeal with themonolingualism or multilingualismofdocumentsandtheircreation.Fromalinguisticandtransla- tion-theoretical point of view, Klaus Schubert discusses the close relations betweentechnicalwritingandtechnicaltranslationelaboratingtheircommon characteristics and employing the term “technical communication” as a joint umbrella term. This view, already established in practice, is conceptually and theoretically further differentiated here. Based on the drafted model with the four key points “technical content”, “linguistic form”, “technical media” and “working processes” and their interdependencies, both fields are systemati- callybroughttogether.Thisisverifiedbythedetailedanalysisofselectedprob- Introduction IX lem areas such as wording, software localization, subtitling or the reusability of linguistic units. ThemicroleveloflanguageusageisemphasizedinColetteCortès’article. She examines the conditions under which adjectives unfold their class-build- ingpotentialthusshowingtheordersoftheworldknowledgepresentedinthe text. The research corpus relates to a variety of articles out of a catalog for everydayproductswhichalsoincludetechnicalproducts.Theanalyses,carried out using classical linguistic methods, illustrate that – similar to instruction manuals – object types rather than single objects are described. On the other handadjectivesarealsousedforevaluating-advertisingfunctionswhichrelate to specific speech situations. This results in a mix of technical and everyday language typical for the expert – nonexpert communication. ClemensSchwenderaddressesthecharacteristicsofvisualimagesassign systems by tracing the illustration techniques of visual instructions in their historicaldevelopment.Accordingly,allpresentlyusedprinciplesoftextvisu- alization were introduced as early as in the time of Leonardo da Vinci and Georgius Agricola. This includes reference systems in the image, axonometric projections or techniques for the depiction of time, movement, direction or intensity.Theincreasinglyusedpictograms,prototypesforthevisualdepiction of actions, are likewise regarded as “old” inventions. “New” elements, on the other hand, can be found in the field of visualization technologies and termi- nology. In Chapter 3, technology is related to communication and culture(s). Thereby the hitherto prevailing view on technology as an autonomous field unravels. This becomes evident with a view to the communication technology andthecomputeraswellasthecorrespondingsoftwareastechnologyinvolved in all areas of life which, in turn, is imparted communicatively, e.g. through software documentation. Influenced by a mathematical background, Vasco AlexanderSchmidtarguesthecasefortheclassificationofdealingwithcom- puters as the fourth basic culture technique apart from reading, writing and calculating. Thereby it needs to be considered that software as a technical product requires medial communication itself in order to become visible and thus manageable. This allows the connection of a specific domain (computer/ software) with another specific domain (e.g. administration, scientific disci- plines, communication etc.) in the first place. The task to mediate the thus resulting complexity of the software application on the basis of concurrent functions of the computer as a tool and medium and, moreover, as an instru- ment of gaining knowledge poses special requirements on the communicative competence.This,inturn,islikewisedemandedwhenitcomestotheconfigu- ration of user interfaces for the human-computer interaction or the reception of information imparted by them.
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