From Black Codes to Recodification

This book examines Texas regulations from the Texas Black Codes of 1866, some of the most deceptive regulations in Texas history, to contemporary Texas Child Care Licensing regulations, which perhaps symbolize some of the most audience-friendly contemporary regulations in Texas. The author focuses on the contemporary African-American audience, often categorized as distrustful of government. The rationale for looking at these two extremes of regulatory discourse is to highlight regulatory invention and style in a relatively closed system from 1866 to Post-Reconstruction labor regulations, where comment and input from the true public was not always obvious, and in a current, somewhat open system, where public comment and opinion on the content and style of regulations is more obvious. Just as clinical trials test patients' responses to new medications during various stages of injury or illness, the case studies presented in this book test the effects of contemporary Plain English translation on the various stages of regulatory writing, with the Texas Black Codes representing the most severe case of injury and the Child Care Licensing regulations representing a much healthier system. The user groups examined here are African-American contracting parties whose work or labor is regulated by government entities. A discourse analysis of historical regulations and contextual inquiry into contemporary public policy writing will show how regulatory invention has evolved and how changes in these processes affect the perceptions of a contemporary African-American audience—an audience with an oral tradition for whom regulations were an introduction to technical documents, and an audience negatively affected by historical regulations. Intended Audience: Undergraduate and graduate programs in Technical Communication and Composition and Rhetoric. Undergraduate and graduate programs in public administration and public policy; the book can help public policy students understand the complexities of intercultural communication and negotiation in public policy development and implementation.

Miriam F. Williams, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Master of Arts in Technical Communication Program at Texas State University. Her research interests include public policy writing, ethics in technical communication, and intercultural communication. Her first book, Writing for the Government, was published in the Allyn and Bacon Technical Communication Series in October 2007.