Abstract

Technical communication faces several obstacles that must be overcome before the field can hope to achieve full professionalism. These obstacles include disagreement on a definition of the field, disagreement on educating and initiating new members, inconsistent professional procedures for generating knowledge of the field, difficulty in demonstrating any added value to work performed, and slowness in establishing ethical standards. These obstacles illustrate a central problem in the field--lack of a fundamental theory or paradigm on which to base professional practice and judgments. Certain theories appear to offer solutions to the obstacles facing technical communication. Five such theories are practitioner theory, writing process theory, register theory, social constructionism, and discourse theory. At a fundamental level all these theories are subsumed by Hans-Georg Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics, which holds promise for overcoming current and future obstacles in technical discourse and in other communication fields. In addition, the potential held by hermeneutics to provide a paradigm of normal practice and to suggest an ethical basis for technical communication may help the field to evolve into a mature profession