Lesson Two
Writing for a Multicultural Audience
Dr. Nancy Hoagland

Lesson Objectives

After completing this lesson, you should be able to:

  1. identify variables to consider when writing in English to people of other cultures
  2. use these variables to analyze situations involving communication with people of other cultures
  3. identify and apply guidelines for writing to a multicultural audience
  4. select a topic for your class project


(Transcript)

||  Readings/Tasks  ||
|| Focus Questions  || Lecture ||  

Interview with
Dr. Donna Oti
Assistant Academic Director for Communication Studies
UMUC

"Writing English for Non-Native Speakers "
video

 

Readings/Tasks

Readings

  • Markel, Chapter 5: Analyzing Your Purpose and Audience, "Communicating Across Cultures" pp. 87-96.
  • Course Guide, Unit 2: Understanding Your Audience, pp. 2-13 - 2-15..

Tasks

  • Make 3 conference posts under the conference topics for Lesson 2.
    • Writing English for an International Audience
    • Insights into Writing for a Multicultural Audience
    • Writing a Sales Letter to a Japanese Customer
  • Identify your tentative topic for the class project as a post under the conference:
    • Possible Topics for the Class Project
  • Respond to at least one other student's post by sharing your own insights and experience.

Focus Questions

  1. What are some variables to keep in mind when for writing in English for a multicultural audience?
  2. What are some guidelines to follow when writing for an international audience?

Lecture Notes

NOTE: Lecture notes are intended as a guide to each week's reading assignment from Markel's Technical Communication, 7th ed.. In the notes, I will identify the topics that I consider important in a reading assignment. I will also try to relate the reading assignment to the writing assignments for the course. Questions on the final exam will be based on the objectives, focus questions, lectures notes, and assigned reading for each lesson.

Introduction

In Lesson Two, you will find basic concepts of communicating with nonnative speakers of English in the United States and abroad. Markle states that cross-cultural communication involves understanding and addressing two sets of variables:

This lesson also includes Guidelines for Writing for Readers of Another Culture.

This topic should be of special interest to participants in this course who are not native speakers of English. Because of your ability to speak more than one language, I think you are more likely to have the opportunity to write in English to an international audience. Also, I think you have particular knowledge of this topic that native speakers of English, including the author of our textbook, do not have. In the conference for this week, you will have an opportunity to share your opinions on this topic with others in the course.

This week is also a good time to decide on the topic for your class project. The class project will be the basis for four important writing assignments for this course: an audience analysis, a proposal, a progress report, and a formal analytical report. These four assignments will count for 40% of your final course grade. See the Syllabus, Grading Information and Project Descriptions for more information. You will also find a special conference for posting your topic in order to get comments and suggestions from other participants in the course.

 

Chapter 5: Analyzing Your Audience and Purpose, "Communicating Across Cultures"

Obvious Variables

In the section of Chapter 5 on cross-cultural communication, Markel first identifies some obvious variables or differences in culture to consider when writing to people from another culture. From the work of Nancy L. Hoft, an expert in the field, Markel gets seven "surface" variables: political, economic, social, religious, educational, technological, and linguistic (89). Markel also points out other basic differences such as the use of the metric system or the use of a different format for writing numbers and dates. You need to learn all you can about these obvious differences when writing to members of another culture.

Less Obvious Variables

In the next section, he identifies six variables that are less obvious but just as important. These variables include the focus on individuals or groups, the distance between business life and private life, the distance between ranks, the nature of truth, the need to spell out details, and attitudes toward uncertainty. On page 91, you will find a table that explains each variable and describes how the variable is reflected in technical communication. Markel says that these differences can vary greatly among cultures and among individuals. Unless you have lived for a long time in another culture, you should ask for help from members of the native culture to help you understand and apply these factors.

Textbook authors who write about the issue of communicating across cultures usually include only simple concrete ideas such as don't use jargon or write shorter sentences. Markel at least tries to address more complicated issues, but I think in the next edition of the book, he needs to give more examples of how these variables apply. Later in the book, he writes about the details of designing a document (293) or a graphic for a multicultural audience (354). We will consider those topics in future lessons in the course.

Guidelines for Writing for Readers from Other Cultures

On page 94, Markel states eight important guidelines for writing for readers from other cultures. Here is a brief summary of those guidelines:

REMINDER: Please post your topic for the class project in the conference Possible Topics for the Class Project. This conference topic has suggestions for topics you might want to consider. Four course assignments--Audience Analysis, Planning Proposal, Progress Report, and Analytical Report--are based on this topic. See the Syllabus, Grading Information, and Project Descriptions for more information.

For additional information on the basic concepts of technical communication, see Module 1: Understanding the Basic Concepts of Technical Writing.

Material for this course was originally written and developed by Michelle Didier, Edward Harris, James Gillin, Pat Kirby, Marj Crane,Danielle Bujosa, Andrew Joyce, Ed Brandmark, Traicy Garey, and Sharon Biederman.

||  Contact Nancy Hoagland || Back to Lesson Guide  ||
||  Library Services  ||  UMUC HomePage  ||  Writing Resources  ||
||  Back toTycho Login  ||
© 1999-2000 University of Maryland University College.