Channels, Fall 2016

Towne • Æsop’s Trumpeter, Aristotle’s Orator, and the Technical Communicator Page 90 Moreover, as technical communicators have adapted their writing to suit the discourses of science and technology, they have actually come to favor formal writer-reader relationships (Ede and Lunsford 1984). Since they may never encounter their audience members, their audience members cannot hold them directly responsible for what they communicate. They may learn to analyze or imagine their audiences, yet they remain anonymous. Since technical communicators have assumed a neutral position in their discourses, they do not believe they are responsible for what they communicate. They believe they are information channels who do not add or detract value from communication. They do not believe they are authors. Like Æsop’s trumpeter, they do not understand how their work— the blasts of their instruments—rally their audiences to action. They do not understand the power of their rhetoric or the responsibility they have for what they communicate. Reviving Aristotelian Rhetoric Although many technical communicators seem willing to divorce rhetoric from ethics, they must accept ethical responsibility for their rhetoric. Rhetoric and rhetorical situations necessitate ethics because rhetoric always involves judgment. Since technical communicators tend to assume a neutral position between sender and receiver, they do not receive credit—or perhaps do not want to receive credit—for how they decide to construct their rhetoric. However, like Æsop’s trumpeter, technical communicators cannot ignore the larger contexts in which they work, since whether or not they participate directly, they too persuade audiences. Ultimately, because technical communicators intentionally employ rhetoric to persuade their audiences to act, they are responsible for how and to whom they communicate as Aristotle suggests. Moreover, if they understand the power and responsibility they have, they should not be afraid to engage in political discourse. As technical communicators employ rhetoric, they must accept authorship because when they write, they persuade their audiences that reality is one way or another. For example, as communicators draft a report, they organize data they have collected, draw conclusions, and suggest how management should react. As they draft, they frame information to create meaning. Perhaps their data reveals that their corporation needs to have a friendlier social media presence to compete with other companies. The data points they choose to highlight and the ways in which they choose to structure their report determine what version of reality they present—and whether management believes what they have framed. Consequently, because language is the means by which communicators order realty, good writing is “a persuasive version of experience” (Miller 1989, 52). Whenever communicators employ rhetoric, they persuade their audiences. Moreover, as technical communicators write, they select and organize information and assess their audience members’ realities to create meaning. Since all communication happens in particular places and times and influences particular people, technical communicators should use what they know about theory and human nature to persuade their audiences (Kennedy 1991). Edelman states that language does not always correspond