2-00 (June 2000) by Andreas Baumert Special Aspects Germany

Preface by the Editor
At the end of a lecture ("Wittgenstein, Artificial Intelligence and Technical Communication") Andreas Baumert discusses briefly the work market for technical communicators and their careers. With his kind permission we reprint the last page of his paper.

When talking about technical communication I will concentrate on the program I work in. The technical writing program at the University of Applied Sciences in Hannover teaches a lot of techniques based on formal methods: Formal logics, programming languages, and other subjects in computer science. Furthermore, students in technical writing need to know how a reader comprehends a text. Therefore, they also get familiar with some basics of cognitive science. In cognition and understanding it sometimes is hard to say which science came first, psychology, AI (computer science), or linguistics.

So, the heritage of formal reasoning and formal logics is part of the program as well as writing, graphic arts, and others.

When discussing the conflict between formalism and creativity I often feel like being in the mid of a debate started in the first quarter of the last century and is carrying on since more than forty years of AI. It is the opposition between formal methods on the one hand and creativity or feeling for language on the other hand.

This opposition will also have its impact on the work market in the years to come.

 

Formal Methods

Industry requires cost-saving solutions to provide documentation on different media for international markets. To meet at least some of the requirements there is no other choice than to use formal methods in technical communication. Writers nowadays are familiar with document management systems, translation workbenches, formalized methods to structure contents of documents as for example SGML, and others.

Even one of the most creative tasks in technical communication cannot be executed without knowledge in programming techniques and therewith of formal methods: multimedia. Multimedia development systems use their own programming languages.

In some branches formal methods are deeply interwoven within word selection and sentence structures. These companies or branches use controlled languages to reduce costs, to integrate suppliers worldwide, and to make it easier to maintain large amounts of texts.

 

Creativity and Feeling for Language

A lot of work done nowadays by technical writers will be made available by computer systems in the near future. Do we really need writers with an academic education to feed systems based on very narrow restrictions for language usage? Here’s my prediction:

The market for technical writers or technical communicators will change. Only a few graduates of the future will work as technical writers. Some will manage the transition to computer based technical writing.

Others will start careers that require creativity and an extraordinary mastering of language. Currently the first graduates of our program start in marketing agencies, in multimedia companies, or as journalists in technical journals. To these students the certificate program in technical writing is a mere starting position for a career in industry and the media market. Once they get their degree they find a fast and appropriate way to react on requirements given by the age of internet and global communication.  

"transline Deutschland - Übersetzungsdienst für technische Übersetzung"