Prediscursive technical communication in the early american iron industry

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2006

Abstract

Examining the discourse surrounding the charcoal iron industry between 1760 and 1860 in North America, this article suggests that, prior to the industrialization of work, technical communication took place in a prediscursive setting, an oral and physical world that we can just manage to glimpse even as we watch it recede. The letters of Robert Erskine written in 1770 illustrate the prediscursive methods of technical communication. By the 1860s, a flood of governmental, professional, and commercial publications appeared, each signifying the disappearance of this prediscursive world. This transition from prediscursive to discursive methods may mark one of the largest changes in the history of technical communication. © 2006, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Identifier

38349021819 (Scopus)

Publication Title

Technical Communication Quarterly

External Full Text Location

https://doi.org/10.1207/s15427625tcq1502_3

e-ISSN

15427625

ISSN

10572252

First Page

171

Last Page

189

Issue

2

Volume

15

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