Haas - Writing Technology : Studies on the Materiality of Literacy

First Published by

Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers

10 Industrial Avenue

Mahwah, New Jersey 07430

Transferred to Digital Printing 2009 by Routledge

270 Madison Ave, New York NY 10016

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Copyright 1996 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any

form, by photostat, microform, retrieval system, or any other means

without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Haas, Christina.

Writing technology : studies on the materiality of literacy /

Christina Haas.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-8058-1306-3 (cloth). ISBN 0-8058-1994-0 (paper)

ISBN 978-1-1366-8754-9 (ePub)

1. WritingSocial aspects. 2. WritingPsychological aspects.

3. Authorship. 4. Word processingSocial aspects. 5. Word

processingpsychological aspects. I. Title.

Z40.H325 1996

Publishers Note

The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint

but points out that some imperfections in the original may be apparent.

This book is dedicated to my father

Franklin Charles Haas

and to the memory of

Richard C. Deus

1915-1982

For over a decade, academic and practitioner journals in electronics, business, language studies, as well as the popular press, have been proclaiming the arrival of the computer revolution and making far-reaching claims about the impact of computers on modern Western culture. Although the actual technology identified as a revolutionary force may have changedfrom word processing in the late 1970s to electronic mail (e-mail) and hypertext in the 1980s to the InterNet as information highway in the 1990sin most cases it is a technology of words, a technology that changes how written language is produced, processed, transported, and used. Implicit in many arguments about the revolutionary power of computers is the assumption that communication, language, and words are intimately tied to culturethat computers transformation of communication means a transformation, or a revolutionizing, of culture. Although the term revolution may be hyperbolic, anyone whose own patterns of reading and writing have been electronicized over the last decade can attest to the sense of change in the character or even quality of written communication as the material circumstances of writing changed: As carbon paper gave way to photocopy machines; correction fluid and retyping gave way to word processors; memos and hallway gossip gave way (at least partially) to e-mail and bulletin boards; and searching (often in vain) through seldom-used library stacks gave way to on-line databases and the InterNet.

But moving from a vague sense that writing is profoundly different with different material and technological tools to an understanding of how such tools can and will change writing, writers, written forms, and writings functions is not a simple matter. Further, the question of whether, and how, changes in individuals writing experiences with new technologies translate into large-scale, cultural revolutions remains unresolved. The challenge of accounting for the relationship between writingas both a cognitive process and a cultural practice to the material technologies that support and constrain it is great. I call it The Technology Question, and I treat this question in more detail in chapter 1.

There are a number of difficulties inherent in addressing the Technology Questionthat is, attempting to account for the symbiotic relationship between writing and technology. These difficulties arise for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that writing and technology are each, in their own right, highly elaborate and rapidly changing systems. Much remains to be understood about the complex set of activities called writing, including the ways that writing systems are developed and used; how individuals master, albeit incompletely, the writing systems of their cultures and how social patterns support or constrain the mastery and use of various writing systems. However, most literacy scholars would acknowledge that writing is a cognitively and culturally advanced, highly sophisticated, and complex human act. Culturally, writing takes myriad forms in modern societies, functioning in vital but vastly different ways in the spheres of economics and business, education, family and community. Over the past two decades, scholars of writing have articulated some of these cultural forms and social functions of writing and of written texts (e.g., Bazerman, 1988; Fish, 1980; Heath, 1983; Radway, 1984; Scribner, 1984).

At the same time, other scholars have documented the complexity of the writing process itself (e.g., Flower & Hayes, 1981a, 1981b; Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987; Geisler, 1994), establishing that even the most straightforward of textual genres requires of the writer a store of relevant content and process knowledge; an ability to sustain not only the planning of the text but the complex physical and cognitive execution of text production; and the rhetorical wherewithal to consciously consider and act on relevant features of the discourse situation. More sophisticated textual genres, such as written argument, add to both the cognitive and the social complexity of writing. Further, when writers work together, as often happens in real-world writing beyond the classroom, the difficulties and complications of creating and using written texts are multiplied.

To say that questions of technology further complicate writing is, in one sense, accurate. Certainly an array of new computer-based literacy tools are available for writers today (e.g., word processors, hypertext authoring software, on-line information systems, email, talk programs, etc.). Each of these highly advanced technologies augments in particular ways written texts and the social and cognitive processes by which they are produced.

But to see technology as something that is added to writing in certain situations is to misunderstand the essential relationship between writing and technology, and this misunderstanding adds to the difficulty of addressing the Technology Question. Technology and writing are not distinct phenomena; that is, writing has never been and cannot be separate from technology. Whether it is the stylus of the ancients, the pen and ink of the medieval scribe, a toddlers fat crayons, or a new Powerbook, technology makes writing possible. To go further, writing is technology, for without the crayon or the stylus or the Powerbook, writing simply is not writing. Technology has always been implicated in writing: In a very real way, verbal behavior without technological tools is not, and cannot be, writing.

Such a statementthat writing is impossible without the tools of writingseems too obvious to need much explication. Yet it is precisely because technology is such an integral part of writing that it is often overlooked. As is often the case, what is ubiquitous becomes transparent: Writers do not notice most of the technologies they employ, simply because those technologies are always there, the technologies work, and their use has become habitual. Writers also tend not to notice the pen with which they jot notesthat is, unless it is out of ink, or unless a pencil was intended instead. Readers do not see the typeface of a text unless it is unusual or poor. Today, the personal computer is so much a part of writing that writers do not think about how it works, how it looks, or where it comes from: Its use has become habitual, and the technology itselflike pens, paper, typewriters, and maybe even clay tabletshas become virtually transparent.