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Subject:Re: History of technical writing From:Leo -dot- R -dot- Lentz -at- LET -dot- RUU -dot- NL Date:Fri, 17 Sep 1993 16:13:38 +0000
Who is interested in the historical dimension of technical documents?
I just started a project at Utrecht University in the Netherlands to invesitgate
some more or less "technical" genres of the last hundred years. We are
specially interested in manuals. Is there anyone who knows studies that have
been done in this domain?
We concentrate on:
manuals for housekeeping like vacuum cleaners and washing machines,
manuals for technical communication like radio and telephone,
manuals for games,
manuals for sexual behavior,
and manuals for things like how to save money at your bank?
Of course these manuals have changed in the last century, but what changes
can we observe? What are the relations between changes in technology and
changes in the manuals? How do manuals adress their users? What changes are
there on levels like content, graphics, style? These are some of the
questions we are interested in. If anyone knows an article or a book written
on this subject, please contact me.
Leo Lentz
Centre for Language and Communication
Utrecht University
The Netherlands
Email: lentz -at- let -dot- ruu -dot- nl
are some
