Technologizing Change: Rhetoric of Software Implementation at a University Campus
http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/944868.944906
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Faber, Brenton D.
ACM SIGDOC
2003

Abstract:

This paper reports on a study of new software implementation at a university. Seven emails distributed by a central Office of Information Technology were examined for semantic (content) meaning and syntactic (grammatical) function. Semantic findings show a high degree of topical shift. Syntactic findings show a high number of clauses and complements. The analysis also shows how determiners were used to construct 'new' information as 'given' (presupposition). The paper argues that discursive stability was created by technologizing the rhetoric of implementation. The study concludes by suggesting that a heavy reliance on dependent clauses, along with other features, may be indicative of technologized discourse.