ITC SIG of STC Article
Working across cultures

By ITC SIG of STC

In cross-cultural communication, there are two areas of ongoing concern:

• Differences in working relationships

• Differences among audiences

There are two associated challenges:

• Developing a strategy for communicating successfully with co-workers and audiences having various cultural backgrounds

• Ongoing development of in-depth knowledge of various cultures

Working across cultures is a series of interviews and informal communications with people who have worked in different countries at different times. The three stories are interesting and may be instructive. Patterns in the stories may suggest areas for in-depth exploration.

Border skirmishes and communication

This is a true story! A technical communicator was finishing a project for a non-US company. Part of the documentation included a map of the target country pointing out different manufacturing locations. The documents were delivered, and the technical communicator received a note of thanks, saying, however, that the map was not correct.

The technical communicator got the map from the US Geographical Service, and believed the map to be correct. However, there is a border dispute between the target country and a neighboring one. Most of the world recognizes one border, but the target country recognizes another. Additionally, there are stiff fines if the official map is not used for in-country documents. The company that received the map was required to notify the technical communicator of the error.

The correct map was located and promptly inserted. No business was lost! When working with different countries, we must use approved maps. These may be available on the web site of the country, and can be verified through its embassy. From Carolyn Luttrell, February 19, 2001

Many languages, many countries, and the World Wide Web

Insights on Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa Malaysia, Telugu, Arabic, teaching English speaking and writing skills, and web site development for the non-western world. Interview with John Osborne. Posted June 2001.

You are conversant in the languages Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Malaysia, and receptive in Spanish and Telugu. Where are these languages, other than Spanish, used?

Bahasa is used in Indonesia and Malaysia, the archipelago countries in South East Asia between Sumatra and New Guinea. Telugu is spoken in one state of India, Andhra Pradesh, in the south east part of the country.

Bahasa Malaysia and Bahasa Indonesia are the official national languages of their respective countries. They are closely related to each other, as well, both being forms of Malay. Some Malaysians also speak Tamil, Chinese, or English as native languages, along with numerous local languages, such as the languages of the Dayaks on Borneo.

Indonesia has a huge number of languages, over 300, which are gradually being pushed aside by Bahasa (or were, at least, in the 1980s; the weakening of the power center in Jakarta may be slowing the spread of Bahasa).

Are Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa Malaysia, and Telugu written as well as spoken?

They are all written. Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Malaysia are written in the Roman script. Telugu has its own script of syllabic characters.

Is there an extensive literature?

There is an extensive literature in Telugu. There is some amount of writing from Indonesia and Malaysia, but their languages were developed in the 1940s as part of their independence movements, so their literatures are limited.

What lessons can we learn about communicating across cultures from speakers of these languages?

They're all quite interesting in this respect. Telugu speakers are all multilingual, as they have three official languages within their own state, and at least five more official languages in bordering states. It is common for educated people to speak five or six languages. Their responses to other groups are affected by the caste system. This leads to a high degree of diversity, since people do not identify strongly with the behavior of another group, but it also leads to little acceptance of others.

Indonesia and Malaysia are a positive model for cross-cultural communication. Their national languages are based on a Creole trade language that has existed for thousands of years, and developed as a result of the sea-borne trade among the islands. I see it as a great example of commerce leading to healthy cultural exchange.

You have had several jobs outside the United States. What were the principal techniques and challenges of these jobs?

I was a writing instructor for the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature in Amman, Jordan in 1999. There I taught editing techniques and technical writing to senior staff of the Jordanian national parks and wildlife organization. At that time I also taught English speaking and writing skills to speakers of Arabic, for the British Council in Amman.

I also taught English speaking and writing skills to speakers of Bahasa Indonesia for the British Council in Jakarta, Indonesia, in 1989. The emphasis was on academic writing for technical specialists preparing for overseas study.

In these jobs, apart from the usual classroom challenges, there is the issue of getting students to put aside preconceptions. They must learn to think in their new language, not think in their own language and translate, and they must forget some things that local language teachers taught them from grammar-based textbooks, which are often incomplete or inaccurate. This is a bigger break from old cognitive structures than you get in most subject areas--language requires more unlearning that a subject we aren't so close to.

Also, it is very difficult for adults to learn a second language well, because they feel like a child and think they may possibly look silly. This is easier to overcome in some cultures than others, and requires some diplomacy on the part of the language teacher. Some groups want to discuss politics in English, while others are willing to engage in role-playing daily life scenes, pantomimes, composing songs, and having foot races. It always pays to have several lessons prepared, to fit the temperament of the group as they deal with the most challenging part of their work day.

Tell us about your web project with Chisna Institute in Seattle.

I have been working with this organization as a web developer. Chisna Institute is a web-based nonprofit organization, devoted to helping nonprofit groups overseas with writing English and communicating internationally. One project is training American college students to edit documents from nonprofit groups. Details of this project can be found at www.chisna.org.

I worked on designing a web site with Microsoft FrontPage 2000, on writing web content for training writers and editors, on designing databases in Microsoft Access for listing and selecting participants and documents, on connecting the databases to the web site, and on writing grant proposals, doing market research, and recruiting volunteers. The site will be available to the public in 2001.

How does the institute go about designing communications to ensure effectiveness with the audience, which has members from many cultures?

This is still under development. You can see its present state at www.chisna.org. I've worked successfully in the past doing essentially the same thing the Chisna site is meant to do, but that was face-to-face.

I find culture to be a bigger barrier to communication than language, which does not surprise me. In a Chisna Institute editing project, the expectations and work patterns of authors are quite different from those of the US editors. I think this barrier is surmountable, with the help of clear guidelines for authors and editors that make the procedures as explicit as possible.

I believe that one of our biggest challenges will be dealing with people from cultures where the tradition of communicating in writing still has not taken root, and where business is still conducted through personal relationships. This describes most of the non-Western world, which is going to be the source of Chisna's clients. The authors are usually highly educated, with college degrees and perhaps overseas travel, and they already write in English nearly every day for audiences like international agencies. Yet, they still typically function within their cultural norms of face-to-face relationships. Of course, Westerners also have this tendency, but to a lesser degree.

My strategy initially is to promote the service to thousands of nonprofit groups over the Internet, and then work with the small number that respond. Thereafter, I expect that there will need to be some in-person contact with nonprofit administrators to ensure that we reach a broader client base. I also expect that personalizing the service, with photos and non-work related communication (a virtual cup of Arabic coffee or chai--pick a beverage) will help things along. This, however, will need to wait for more resources.

From the UK to the US

Interview with Peter Sandford

Insights on working in the United Kingdom and the US mid-west, and addressing cultural differences in audiences. Posted June 2001.

In the early 1990s you moved from the United Kingdom to the mid-west of the United States. Tell us about your experiences of differences in working with subject matter experts and other colleagues.

Like the majority of technical writers in the UK, I'm a graduate in a technical subject, Applied Sciences in my case. Most technical writers in the US seem to be graduates in technical communication programs or liberal arts. There seems to be more of a cultural gap between subject matter experts and writers here because of the different backgrounds. I believe there are now a few technical communication programs started in the UK, but I suspect graduates from them are still in the minority.

In the UK, writers tend to have different tasks given to them. I remember being assigned to write several test plans, including devising the actual tests, as well as writing the words. Here we're largely "wordsmiths." This may be a consequence of the difference in typical educational backgrounds of technical writers.

It took some getting used to the culture of solving every problem with a meeting here in the US. The first project I worked on in the US was writing ISO 9000 procedures for a medical device manufacturer. The method their consultants chose for outlining the content of the procedures was to take the experts and writers off-site and to brainstorm until the task was complete. Several of the meetings ran for 4 or 5 hours. I worked on a similar project in the UK where I just walked between desks with my notebook until everyone was in agreement.

Different cultures have different perceptions of the role of work. The nominal working week for full-time employees in the US is 40 hours, whereas in Europe it's 35 hours. Vacation allowances are also significantly greater in Europe. Consequently, Europeans have more outside interests, and tailor their working patterns to accommodate those interests. Likewise, much of the in-office conversation tends toward those outside interests. In many US companies, people are not regarded as "team players" unless they work late nights, weekends, or both.

In different cultures, "yes" does not always mean "I understand." For example, I have worked with many engineers from India in the US on short-term contracts. Often they have been reluctant to say "no" or ask for further explanation for fear of losing face or looking stupid. I have seen Americans get very frustrated and upset when dealing with this.

Do you have any overall strategies for addressing cultural differences in audiences?

The overall strategy is cultural awareness. Several experiences serve as continual reminders.

The gender issue needs to be handled carefully. For one project I worked on in the UK, the ultimate customer was a middle eastern electricity company. The contact engineer was offended that the drafts implied that a woman might be doing the work and requested a global change to "he."

Sports analogies such as "high five" or "hit for six" are sometimes so embedded in a culture that it's difficult for a native to identify them.

The choice of words is critical. When the "Load Letter" message appeared on an early LaserJet printer, I recall several people (myself included) walking round a very large office, trying to find who was printing a letter on our networked printer. Eventually, we realized that all we had to do was "Load A4" paper.

My first full-time onsite position in the US was with a software company building its first web site. It took a lot of discussion before my boss would agree to add "USA" to the mailing address and internationalize the phone number. ("Doesn't everyone know where Eden Prairie, MN is?" " Isn't MN the abbreviation for Manitoba in the Canadian Prairies?" I responded.)

Local newspapers and television stations here sometimes seem dreadfully parochial ("Now, world news. In a neighboring state today..." and so on). It can be very difficult for Americans to comprehend that issues related to different currencies, measurements, and languages even exist. For the average British youngster who spends holidays in France and whose favorite football team is populated by Swedes, Algerians, and Slovenians, it's second nature.