Professional identities: What is professional about

professional communication?

Brenton Faber

Journal of Business and Technical Communication 16(3):306-337

abstract

Professional communication is a growing component of English departments and other communication programs. Yet, in most cases, the term professional communication is used as a catchall term for various types of workplace and occupational writing. As such, professional communication, as it is currently framed, seems to have little to do with professionals or the process of professionalization.

This article calls for a more thorough examination of the concept of professional communication by reviewing (1) the ways in which researchers have used this term to describe the rhetoric of professionals who communicate, (2) the democratic and knowledge-based contradictions between rhetorical scholarship and professional powers, and (3) the current challenges facing professional workers, including de-professionalization and proletarianization.

I argue that if professional communication research and teaching are to remain prominent parts of academic programs, researchers, theorists, teachers, and students must become more aware of conceptual issues that inform and define professional work.