Cognitive Processing, Text Linguistics and Documentation Writing

Abstract

Software documentation is a growing field in technical writing, yet no synthesis of current research exists to bring together findings on content, form, and the invoked relationship between reader and writer. Without such an overview writers are apt to follow discrete, context-free prescriptions instead of guiding principles that account for the multidimensional functions of language in the communication act of a user's manual. This article reviews findings from research in cognitive processing and text linguistics to derive such a set of principles. It then assesses a widely-used wordprocessing manual against these principles to find that the writers manipulate form (the textual function of language) to achieve comprehension better than they do content (the ideational function) or reader-writer relationships (the interpersonal function). However, comprehension is stymied without equal attention paid to ideational and interpersonal strategies.