Rhetorical transformation

This framework enables us to identify Six Critical Moments of Rhetorical Transformation in large regulatory industries. At these moments, writers must extract information that is presented in one rhetorical modality (oral testimony, for example) and literally change the form so that the information can be re-represented for a different audience (1) when oral testimony and embodied experience are captured in writing (2) when the information in accident reports is re-represented in statistical records (3) when statistical accounts are re-represented as arguments for particular policies (4) when policies and standards are transformed into procedures (5) when written procedures are transformed into training and (6) when training is re-represented to workers at local sites. (Chapter 2 describes the cycle in detail.)... 

Chapter 2 describes the cycle of technical documentation within large regulatory agencies. This framework allows us to identify Six Critical Moments of Rhetorical Transformation when knowledge in one modality (oral... 

This framework allows us to identify six critical moments of rhetorical transformation within the Cycle. At these moments, writers extract informa-... 

In the chapters that follow, I focus largely on two particular moments of rhetorical transformation accident investigations and training. 

The following chapters focus on the rhetorical transformation and re-transformation of experience at the boundaries between agencies and the sites they seek to regulate. In exploring these transformations, we begin to discover the full range of rhetorical practices that constitute the Rhetoric of Risk (Fig. 3.3). 

FIG. 5.3. The Rhetoric ot Risk focuses on the rhetorical transformation and re-transformation of experience at tlie boundaries between agencies and experience. 

These documents allow the public to evaluate MSHA s conclusions based upon the evidence presented in the investigation. In this sense, they allow us to see the rhetorical transformations that occur as local information moves into the domain of science. At the same time, the variety of viewpoints represented in the documents creates a complex and heterogeneous representation that exists outside of—and in fragile tension with—the agency s technical findings and conclusions. 

Chapters 7-9 de.scrihe the prtx ess of rhetorical transformation in detail. 

Within the Cycle of Technical Documentation within Large Regulatory Industries, the processes of rhetorical transformation that shape the construction of instructions and procedures are designed to strip away the site-specific... 

Unfortunately, the process of rhetorical transformation that produces engineering knowledge is slow and often results in inadequate and incomplete... 

If embodied information is not present in written communication, we might ask, where is it to be located In the following chapters, we show how miners deploy both speech and gesture to construct representations of risk that integrate theory and practice. These interviews allow us to examine the rhetorical transformations that occur outside of written communication at critical moments within the Cycle of Technical Documentation within Large Regulatory Industries. 

Agencies would be horrified, we imagine, if investigators recorded their second-hand conclusions and impressions before they collected physical evidence from the accident site. But agencies have institutionalized the rhetorical transformation of experience in the post-accident interview. Agencies use the methods of science to help them collect physical evidence at the site. 

Both engineering jargon and miners vernacular expressions serve different purposes as warrants for risk decisions. The point is not that miners vernacular expressions are better or more accurate representations of risk. Rather, we must pay attention to the relationships and concepts that are lost in the rhetorical transformation from one set of terms to another. 

The Southmountain interviews thus allow us to examine one aspect of the rhetorical transformation of experience when local knowledge moves into the domain of science where it is captured and transformed in writing. But these interviews also demonstrate how easily the absence of any sort of negative feedback can create a sense of complacency that can lead to disaster. In fact, one of the questions that is never explicitly stated is why miners who heard bumps did not communicate with management or persuade management to take a different course of action. When Shane describes how the rock dust always kept going toward the outside, investigators ask if this was normal. They are particularly concerned about the direction of dust flow in the mine, which seems to indicate problems with the ventilation system prior to the accident. But that concern did not move individuals to action. 

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