From ATTW-L



Related to Roy's query -- and interesting follow-ups -- I heard or read

once that a key difference between technical and business communication

can be seen along vertical or horizontal lines. For technical

communicators, the communication might be horizontal in that there's less

emphasis on hierarchy among readers (you can see where this scheme begins

to crack already -- bear with me for a moment): "users," subject-matter

experts, editors, clients, consumers, other technical communicators, &

etc.





On the other hand -- this is what I heard, not what I'm arguing, mind you

-- business communication is more hierarchical, and thus vertical in its

taxonomy -- committees, boards, executives, shareholders, competition,

corporate oversight ... & etc.





Whether or not these are interesting or helpful distinctions is debatable;

but has anyone else hear or read the vertical-horizontal distinction

somewhere? Can you point to where I might find it?





In Kynell's Writing in a Milieu of Utility, she shows how the disciplines

overlap and how they differ: business comm emerged from the needs of

commercial- and business-related enterprises, whereas technical

communication emerged from the needs of increasing uses of technologies.

In contemporary discipline formations, these boundaries seem to collapse

even more. More recently, Faber and Johnson-Eilola suggest that we're

'hybrid professionals' and that product knowledge, strategic design, and

business knowledge belong in the domain of technical communication, too.

(Their context is globalization, which is the impetus for my

vertical-horizontal distinction query.)





I'm looking at it in disciplinary terms -- rather than programmatic, which

is local -- and collapsed business communication with professional

communication.





Having sufficiently muddled it, then -- best wishes,





Michael