The Complete and Forthright Testimony of Witnesses

As the testimony reveals, maps are useful in planning and development, but they tell little about actual conditions in a mine. When engineers and management view mine space solely through the perspective of static two-dimensional representations, they may inadvertently turn their attention away from the embodied experiences and changing conditions that signal risk in a hazardous environment. 

On May 10,1995, MSHA announced that the agency would conduct a review of its mine accident investigation policy, particularly with respect to witness interviews. According to McAteer (1995), then Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health, the complete and forthright testimony of any witnesses to the events leading up to an accident [is] essential in determining the cause of the accident and preventing similar accidents in the future.  

According to McAteer, MSHA s accident investigation procedures are designed to establish all relevant facts about a mining accident in an orderly manner. The investigation includes three phases physical inspection of the mine, complete analysis and testing of mining equipment that may have been involved in the accident, and interviews of persons who may have relevant information about the conditions which led up to the accident. 

Within the Cycle of Technical Documentation in Large Regulatory Industries, rhetorical choices can be strategic or habitual. As we have shown in previous chapters, interviewers can prompt miners to assume new viewpoints. Agencies can use these techniques to create the rhetorical conditions that evoke elaboration, demonstration, and redefinition. They can use gesture to explore, query, and co-construct a more adequate representation of risk. 

The interviews in this chapter remind us that agencies must learn to account for the ways that habitual and strategic rhetorical practices create uncertainty in the transcript even as they learn to use rhetorical strategies to create better representations of risk. In the final chapter, we explore the implications of our research more generally for rhetorical theorists. 

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