The Candlin Lecture Communicative expertise: The mutation of expertise and expert systems in contemporary professional practice

In this conceptual paper, I begin with a differentiation between generic 'competence' and professional 'expertise', the latter being manifest at the communicative level. I characterise professional expertise more broadly to include 'communicative expertise' as well as 'distributed expertise'. With regard to decision-making, expertise is no longer seen as an attribute of individuals deriving from scientific knowledge and practical experience. Instead, 'distributed expertise' in its mediated format underpins decisionmaking in many professional and institutional settings. I then extend the notion of 'distributed expertise' as constitutive of 'lay expertise' and 'expert systems'. Access to and use of 'expert systems' in optimal ways inevitably reconfigures the very conditions and consequences of professional expertise. I argue that 'communicative expertise' in professional practice comprises not only knowledge/skill about the mechanics of communication but also the channels through which the other types of knowledge/skill (including scientific, experiential, relational, technological, organisational, legal and ethical) are communicated in real-life settings.