The Writing Process from a Sociolinguistic Viewpoint

1. 1997

2. 1997

3. The author´s argument is…
The challenges of writing within an
organization

4. The article´ scope

5. The theoretical framework for studies in modern
societies
The study focus are processes and products
communication, either for distant or everyday
interaction, within a group or organization.
Communication, including speech as well as writing, is
essential to the group culture (norms and attitudes),
and identity.
The individuals are of interest as members of the
groups or organizations.
The individuals are given certain roles within the
structure of the organization, have certain places
within the group hierarchy.
Internal structure and external networks influence
communication at every level.
The larger community forms the more stable and
widespread genres.
It is the communicative group, however, that chooses
to use certain genres and not others, that mixes them
and gives them their variant forms.

6. Methodological approach according
to the theoretical framework
The variables involved in describing a communicative
group:
Size and duration of the group.
The medium by which different types of information are
conveyed within the group.
How different individuals communicate with each other
to attain different goals.
The internal structure of a group is related to the
parameters of hierarchy and cluster.
The openness of the group can in turn be assumed to
be reflected in its uniformity, which will be manifested
in shared knowledge, evaluation, attitudes, and norms
as to the patterns and use of writing and speech.

7. Applying the sociolinguistic framework
A case of study
The research´s aims
Analyzing:
The organizational structure and its effects on
writing at work.
The communicative process and the role of
spoken discourse and collaboration in the
constructions of documents of various kinds.
The possible existence of group uniformity as it
pertains to norms, attitudes, and identity vis-á-
vis writing.

8. Applying the sociolinguistic framework
The data collection and analysis
Qualitative and quantitative analysis were conducted for the
following data collection
1. A questionnaire (26 questions and 33 employees answered the
questionnaire)
Types of texts they wrote and how frequently
Writing procedures
Incidents of collaboration with colleagues
Their role in relation to the texts they wrote
The influence on writing norms and patterns at the office
Their attitudes toward writing at work
2. Interviews: 6 members of the staff in different positions and with
varying bureaucratic experience were interviewed.
3. A set of texts: which were analyzed according to the type of text,
addressee, signature, sender, and purpose.

9. Hypothesis emerging from the study
High positions reported more difficulties; the author related this
with the length of the documents and the high stakes that they
impose. Therefore, the assumption is: if writing task has high
challenges, larger and complex planning processes are needed
because of more difficulties to write could emerge.
The high-stake texts mostly undergo both intensive planning and
revision processes. Overall, these types of texts are written by
higher positions in the organizations, because these documents
address to interlocutors who are outside of the immediate setting
and thus are more sophisticated texts. Moreover, these texts
could be seen as high-stake texts, because in some extent they
are related to how the organizations obtain their resources for
being sustainable through time.
There are a text hierarchy based on the importance of the
document that in turn depends on the addressee.
The collaboration for writing tends to happen among higher
positions in a social organization. If the job position is located in
the highest ranks within the hierarchy, there will be more
sophisticated writing processes; therefore, collaborators are
mostly peers or colleagues.

10. Conclusions
Texts and talks intertwined depend highly on
hierarchical positions.
The higher the position the longer and more complex
the communicative chains.
Ideas about the organization and work in general were
found to be reflected in norms and attitudes vis-á-vis
writing at work.
Internal structure of organizations, role patterns,
external relations, and group uniformity are important
focus of study if researchers would like to understand
what takes place in writing in real-life settings.