Professional Literacy
In our Research and Specialisation in Professional Literacy, we conduct research on communication in a society based on the division of labour. We examine how communities, organisations and individual stakeholders use linguistic processes and language products in order to participate in professionally relevant discourses and communicate with society. For example, we investigate communication in the financial industry. This enables us to discover which factors are decisive for communication between the respective stakeholders. In the professional world and society at large, this knowledge has an important role to play because it shows how professional literacy can – and must – be developed further in a transdisciplinary manner in the areas of university teaching, continuing education and professional practice.
In focus
How Professional Literacy Can Guide Us in Times of Disruption. TEDxZHAW
The division of labour has led to a fragmentation of information processes that are sometimes uncoordinated. This is suboptimal. Especially in times of disruption, when we are anxious and insecure, we depend – or would depend – on information from professionals who are subject matter experts and at the same time know how to communicate with their stakeholders in a professional way. In other words: professional literacy is key.
Communication in the financial world
The book Transdisciplinarity in Financial Communication | Writing for Target Readers identifies and analyses problems relating to text production in the financial world from three complementary perspectives: problem identification, problem analysis and problem solving. It thus explains why solving these problems through transdisciplinary collaboration benefits both theory and practice as well as society. Based on 25 years of ethnographic research, around 2,100 text products and more than 190 interviews with various stakeholders, measures are being developed and evaluated in order to improve the communicative potential of financial texts and make them accessible to different stakeholder groups.
Projects
Unfortunately, no list of projects can be displayed here at the moment. Until the list is available again, the project search on the ZHAW homepage can be used.
Research-based teaching
The findings from the research conducted by the Professional Literacy professorship are integrated into the MA in Applied Linguistics as well as the CAS Writing: Professional Writing, Editing and Designing. The objective is always to promote and develop professional literacy in a sustainable manner so that language can be used in professionally relevant discourses within the subject area as well as in a domain-specific and social context.
