The Post-Process Era in Composition Studies and the Linguistic Turn of the 20th Century

Abstract

In order to present the post-process era in composition as part of the general phenomenon known as the linguistic turn of the 20th century rather than as only the social turn in composition, in this chapter I point to some epistemological developments in composition studies, developments that underlie and define the process and post-process eras in composition as distinguishable rather than distinct periods in the history of the discipline. I apply the term linguistic turn specifically to the epistemological evolution that has taken place in composition studies and present post-process as a phase of this evolutionary process. Accordingly, I try to pinpoint some crucial changes in the ways writing as meaning making was explained and so to uncover the important epistemological developments that may serve as evidence of the linguistic turn taking place in composition studies, with the post-process era seen as the consequence of a series of such epistemological shifts.KeywordsMeaning MakingComposition StudyDiscourse CommunityCognitive ResearchTrue KnowledgeThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.