Genre and Technical Translation

Abstract

Carolyn Miller's definition of genre as “social action” has become widely accepted in writing studies; this acceptance has prompted troubling questions about the teaching of professional genres. Because current research emphasizes Miller's reconceptualization of “exigence” as a socially construed need for particular kinds of writing and talk (155-58), some researchers now suggest that unless a genre's social exigence can be fully replicated in the classroom, the genre cannot be taught effectively. Genres, however, entail several kinds of exigence: social exigence that prompts generic writing; social exigence that is reflected in the generic text; textual exigence that shapes the rhetorical situation; and what I call educational exigence, an exigence that prompts writers to learn explicitly how to compose generic texts. Educational exigence was evident in the writing processes of two technical translators who composed in a variety of genres, both familiar and unfamiliar to them. The translators not only responded to educational exigence but also followed a well-considered strategy for gathering information about generic texts.