Viewpoints: Cultures, Text Models, and the Activity of Writing

This essay explores three issues related to the activity of writing: the role of knowledge as underlying any writing activity and an exploration of the kinds of knowledge that might be requisite for the writer; the interrelationship of the acts constituting any writing activity and the determination of when the activity of writing a particular text is completed; and the idea of text and textuality as these might affect the activity of writing. Each of these is viewed in the light of current thinking in cultural psychology, anthropology, and literary and linguistic theory. Each of these issues is seen as being in part culturally determined, whether the culture be the larger culture of a language or social group or the smaller culture of a profession or of an academic discipline. Finally each is viewed as it might suggest areas for future research.