Dysfunctional Workers, Functional Texts

Abstract

Emerging from the development of a workplace literacy program for entry-level tax examiners, this case study examines ways in which conflicts between management and workers over the division of labor are textually enacted in the two kinds of manuals that govern the work of tax examiners in an IRS Service Center. The first kind of manual, called an IRM, is the official government manual operationalizing the procedures for interpreting tax law and IRS regulations. The second, called a Desk Reference, is intended as an unofficial “translation” of the former. Closer analysis, using a critical application of systemic linguistics, reveals that systematic differences between the two manuals project contradictory views of the tax examiners' work. Consequently, tax examiners are put into the impossible position of attempting to be the compliant subjects of two opposing discourses.