ERIC Number: ED345264
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 1992-Mar
Pages: 16
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
A Cooperative Rhetoric for Professional Communication.
Jacobi, Martin J.
Professional communication as commonly taught and practiced encourages the avoidance of ethical concerns and responsibilities. Communicators are asked to accept the assumption that they are engaged in the value-free transmission of objective truth. Teachers should go beyond instruction in communication techniques to engage students more deeply in the nature and function of effective professional communication. Such a reconceptualization rests in part on the assumption that language use constructs people's versions of reality and so is inherently ideological. A corollary recognizes that it is not possible to communicate objectively about external realities. The feminist perspective has identified ways in which collaborative thinking and writing can be used more productively educationally and professionally. Strategies include sensitivity to others' emotions and nonverbal cues, acknowledgement of previous speakers, and willingness to include self-disclosure. The teaching of professional communication should emphasize collaborative dialectic and ask students to make searching examinations of the ideologies that define their future professional responsibilities. Students should engage in critical reading and collaborative writing. Their assignments should include mediation and negotiation exercises, investigations of writings produced by companies they admire, and case studies. Professional writing courses can become contexts for practicing innovative strategies. Revised perceptions of language use in the professional world can change that world for the better. (Twenty-seven references are attached.) (SG)
Publication Type: Opinion Papers; Speeches/Meeting Papers
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A