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This Is Too Formal for Us...

A Case Study of Variation in the Written Products of a Multinational Consortium

University of Essex, United Kingdom

Nigel Harwood

University of Essex, United Kingdom

This article reports a case study of three multinational companies that work together in a consortium, focusing on intercompany and intracompany variation in writing products and processes. The authors discuss variation in two genres: meeting minutes and internal memos. Adopting a social constructionist, communities of practice (CofP) approach, they argue that the companies form overarching constellations of CofP. Although the participants broadly work with the same genres of written documents, the form of these documents varies according to the local context, audience, and purpose. The authors discuss the implications of their findings, with particular reference to the difficulty writers face when they make the transition from writing for one community of practice to writing for another.

Key Words: workplace writing • communities of practice • variation in written products • multinational companies

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