Overview

User experience (UX) writers are the professionals who create the verbal content of websites, apps, or other software interfaces, including error messages, help texts, software instructions, or button labels that we all see and engage with every day. This invisible yet highly influential language work has been largely ignored by sociocultural linguists. The book addresses this gap, examining the broader cultural politics of digital media through an exploration of the linguistic production and purposeful design of interface texts. It discusses UX writing as an influential contemporary domain of language work and shows how the specific practices and processes that structure this work shape the norms that become embedded in software interfaces. It highlights the nature of UX writing, its (meta)pragmatic organization, and its cultural-political implications. Foregrounding the voices and perspectives of language workers, it is essential reading for anyone interested in how language shapes the way people use digital media.

Full Product Details

Author:   Lara Portmann (University of Bern)
Publisher:   Cambridge University Press
Imprint:   Cambridge University Press
ISBN:  

9781009540582

ISBN 10:   1009540580
Pages:   220
Publication Date:   07 August 2025
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
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Table of Contents

Introduction; 1. The production, pragmatics, and politics of digital media; Part I. Mapping the Profession: The Language Work of UX Writers; 2. Designing words: the language work and expertise of UX writers; Part II. Establishing Status: UX Writing as Elite Language Work; 3. Skilling the writer: UX writing and the professionalization of (elite) language work; 4. Claiming (non-)creativity: the symbolic economy of creativity in UX writing; Part III. Producing Little Texts: Politics And Power in UX Writing; 5. Deconstructing the invisible interface: semiotic and media ideologies in UX writers' work; 6. Crafting an audience: UX writing, user stylization, and the symbolic violence of little texts; Conclusion. 7. The cultural politics of the interface: towards a posthumanist sociolinguistics of digital media; Appendices.

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Author Information

Lara Portmann holds a Ph.D. in Language and Communication from the University of Bern, Switzerland. She has also worked in user experience design for nearly a decade. Through her research, she strives to build a bridge between academic research and industry practice.

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