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Archaeology Reports: When Context Becomes an Active Agent in the Rhetorical Process.

By Bates, Christine
Publication: Technical Communication
Date: Sunday, August 1 2004

Archaeology Reports: When Context Becomes an Active Agent in the Rhetorical Process

K. Baake. 2003. Technical communication quarterly 12:389-403.

"This article explores the writing of archaeologists to argue that the metaphor of context-as-rhetorical-situation may understate

the power that context has to shape scientific discourse. The author offers instead the metaphor of context-as-active-agent in the rhetorical situation--one that sometimes reifies values that are dangerous to the archaeologists' belief systems. As scholars of technical writing, we must develop a greater understanding of the subtle but powerful influences that context wields on the writing we read and help to produce."

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