The last 10-15 years has seen a strong focus on the roles and functions of writing in the Norwegian education system. A great deal of this interest has been tied in with innovational work in the area of the teaching of writing known as the process approach to writing. The ideas and practices related to this new approach have gradually begun their spread throughout the Norwegian education system. Instrumental in this process has been the DEVEL Project writing research group at the College of Arts and Science at the University of Trondheim which has been given a national and regional network responsibility for the development of competence in the area of literacy development and writing research in Norway (Evensen & al. 1992).
During the last few years validity issues related to the evaluation of institutionalised forms of writing pedagogy and practices have come more and more to the fore. The aim is to develop new forms of evaluation which are valid, both in relation to the main objectives of the process approach to teaching writing in educational settings, and also in relation to other forms and practices of writing which go on elsewhere in society: ie outside the academic environment (Evensen 1993(b)).
The process approach to teaching writing situates writing in a communicative perspective, with its point of departure in the mental and physical processes which writing involves. Communication and interaction, as well as response given during the writing process are considered important both for learning and personality development (see for instance Evensen & al., 1992). A recent case study of children's early written language development has shown that the development of genre awareness and skills in young writers seems to move from an early focus on interpersonal communication of the TO-FROM type, through an inner developmental process where several levels of discourse competence are gradually developed and co-ordinated with one another, and towards the complex interplay between various levels of meaning in a text which characterises academic writing at higher age levels. Early on in the process it appears that development and maintenance of a social identity bound to expression of the self in relation to others through writing is of more significance for novice writers than writing for oneself, or for the sake of writing itself (Evensen, 1993(a)).
It seems in other words as if the ontogenetic trajectory of young writers is marked by a gradual socialisation of the novice into a wider set of diversifying text- and discourse cultures over time, with the basis for this broader developmental process being laid in early communication practices and ways of making meaning through texts built within closer circles of interpersonal relationships. These relationships develop in more sheltered "local" environments with their own kinds of writing practices and texts, and the very basic kinds of communicative writing skills acquired here then become extended and differentiated in relation to other kinds of textual social fields as the writer moves into them and is socialised into these over time. This necessitates accounting for the relationships between the whole range of interpersonal and socio-cultural contexts within which different kinds of writing practices are fostered, and the ways in which these relationships and practices change and develop over time. It also means that the ways in which the transitions between the boundaries of the various fields of text praxis are negotiated as the writer develops need to be examined.
According to Dyson (1994), newer theories of reading and writing are slowly shifting focus away from the "cognitive consequences" of the acquisition of a literacy culture (Olson, 1977), and towards the relative lack of precisely these kinds of consequences (Scribner & Cole, 1981). We are becoming more and more aware of the fact that the influences of writing and script on individual ways of thinking depend on how they are used in in the instantiation and construal of cultures and societies through their characteristic textual practices. This revised view of writing as socio-cultural praxis necessitates changes in the ways in which the processes of text creation and development in science are framed and categorised, says Dyson. The new units of analysis must amongst other things be able to take account of individual and socio-cultural difference. In this kind of theoretical perspective people who write texts are first and foremost considered as social actors. Their creative and communication practices are studied as social acts in complex, constantly changing situations.
Young (1994) identifies two main kinds of writing practices, labelled by him as "writing to learn" and "writing to communicate" among novice scientific writers in the USA . Writing to learn has its point of departure in the writer's own language and values. The most important function of this kind of writing is to satisfy the writer's own personal and intellectual needs by leading to new discoveries, information and perspectives, and it is the writer him- or herself who is the main recipient of these. Writing to communicate has its point of departure in the needs of the reader, in his or her language and values. Its most important function or objective is to satisfy the needs of the reader by leading to new discoveries, information and perspectives. This can be in relation to an individual reader, as when an employee in a concern writes a memo to a superior, or in relation to a communicative community of readers, as when a researcher in psychology writes an article to a specialised journal of behavioural science. All writers have, according to Young, a natural desire to be heard and taken seriously. This kind of writing makes special demands on writers, both with regard to the goals or objectives of the writing, and with regard to recipient awareness.
Writing research seen from this kind of perspective is the study of culturally constituted processes and artefacts (Berge 1994). Script and writing are studied as culturally constituted, and culturally constituting, communication practices developed over time in certain types of societies. Writing is a fundamental skill which the majority of societies use large amounts of economic resources in order to get their members to acquire. Throughout history it has been noticed that the rise and development of writing practices have led to changes in traditional patterns of communication, and caused new patterns of communication and interaction to arise. Writing practices influence and change the ways in which traditional forms of knowledge are conceived and lead to the development of new forms of knowledge. Writing practiced in a correct way leads to the development and constitution of creative and innovative text cultures.
When we study writing or text production and interpretation processes in a more general sense we are concerned first and foremost with understanding, describing and explaining writing as cultural praxis. This means that we must operate with a theory of meaning as construed and instantiated through specific forms of socio-cultural practices, habits and rituals. We must also operate with a theory of meaning as it is represented through texts and message processes - i.e. a general theory of text and communication, as well as of semiotic systems (including, but not exclusively, the semiotic system of language) which allows us to understand, describe and explain how different texts and message processes are represented through different culturally constituted textual norm systems (Berge in press)