MA Thesis

discourse is inseparable from institutions, from organizational structures, from disciplinary and professional knowledge claims and interests, and from the day-to-day interaction of workers” (354). Thus, institutions not only influence the texts created in workplace settings, but they also shape the entire discourse, the social and institutional factors surrounding the text’s writer and the context in which these texts are produced and interpreted.

The discourse in which workplace texts are created is very different from that in which academic texts are produced. Although composing within two very different contexts, the business writer, like the academic writer, is faced with the task of solving a rhetorical problem.

Bazerman makes an important distinction between the rhetorical problem and the rhetorical situation, one that is helpful in understanding the task of the workplace writer. He defines the rhetorical problem as “the set of constraints and goals recognized by a person, framing a symbolic response within a rhetorical situation” (8). In distinction, Bazerman defines the rhetorical situation as “all the contextual factors shaping a moment in which a person feels called upon to make a symbolic statement” (8). Additionally, Bazerman claims that the writer’s perception, motivation, and imaginative construction play a role in interpreting both, and that her desire to gain more information about the situation and the problem can lead to a better understating of the rhetorical problem she must solve (8).

While most professional writers would not find business writing tasks commonly referred to as attempts to solve rhetorical problems, doing so helps to highlight the fact that at their core academic and business writing do indeed have the same goal. Both academic and workplace writers must first define and then work towards solving rhetorical problems. The rhetorical situation, as Bazerman defines it, however, is very different for these two types of writers.

Academic writers are most often asked to complete an assignment to the satisfaction of a single