Inventing Others in Digital Written Communication: Intercultural Encounters on the U.S.-Mexico Border

Written Communication Apr 2020

Inventing Others in Digital Written Communication: Intercultural Encounters on the U.S.-Mexico Border

Beau Pihlaja Texas Tech University

Abstract

At a multinational company, daily written communication between staff, supervisors, customers, and suppliers is frequently conducted using digital tools (e.g., emails, smartphones, and texting applications) often across multiple nationally, linguistically, and conceptually defined borders. Determining digital tools’ impact on intercultural encounters in professional environments like these is difficult but important given the sheer volume of digital contact in technical and professional environments and the ongoing global struggle to broker peace and productivity amid communities’ many perceived differences. Using examples drawn from a case study of binational manufacturing sister companies, I build on recent work in professional, networked written communication to analyze two WhatsApp exchanges, one between a central study participant and his customer, another between the participant and an employee. This study shows how asynchronous digital communication tools created complex “silences” in writing between participants. In these silences (e.g., a lack of or delayed response to a text) individuals try to explain others’ actions for themselves. Drawing on a combination of third-generation activity theory and Latourian actor-network theory, I show that while explaining others’ actions in writing with whatever cultural shorthand is available may remain a common part of everyday life and research, it can be a poor guide for explaining others’ actions, especially in digital writing. My study shows how research of, and instruction in, digital tool use in intercultural writing contexts requires attention to the material conditions and objectives potentially shaping one’s own as well as others’ composition choices.

Journal: Written Communication
Published: 2020-04-01
DOI: 10.1177/0741088319899908
Open Access: Closed
Topics: genre theory qualitative research digital rhetoric online writing instruction multilingual writers

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (3)

Schneier (2023)

Modeling Mobile Writing: Applying Sociocognitive Models of Writing to Mobile Contexts

Written Communication
Pihlaja (2022)

Everyday Ethics at the Border: Normative Ethics for the 21st Century

Journal of Business and Technical Communication
Pihlaja et al. (2020)

Navigating Messy Research Methods and Mentoring Practices at a Bilingual Resear…

Technical Communication Quarterly

Cites in this index (15)

(2019)

Perspectives on Cultural and Posthumanist Rhetorics

Rhetoric Review
Grant (2017)

Writing Wakan: The Lakota Pipe as Rhetorical Object

College Composition and Communication
Fraiberg (2017)

Start-Up Nation

Journal of Business and Technical Communication
Swarts (2016)

Composing Networks

Written Communication
Spinuzzi et al. (2016)

How Magnets Attract and Repel

Written Communication

Show all 15 →

Micciche (2014)

Writing Material

College English
Pigg (2014)

Coordinating Constant Invention: Social Media's Role in Distributed Work

Technical Communication Quarterly
Pigg et al. (2014)

Ubiquitous Writing, Technologies, and the Social Practice of Literacies of Coor…

Written Communication
Haas (2012)

Race, Rhetoric, and Technology

Journal of Business and Technical Communication
Matsuda et al. (2011)

Globalizing Writing Studies: The Case of U.S. Technical Communication Textbooks

Written Communication
Spinuzzi (2010)

Secret Sauce and Snake Oil: Writing Monthly Reports in a Highly Contingent Envi…

Written Communication
McNair et al. (2010)

Activity Theory, Speech Acts, and the ‘‘Doctrine of Infelicity’’: Connecting La…

Journal of Business and Technical Communication
Lee (2007)

Affordances and Text-Making Practices in Online Instant Messaging

Written Communication
Paretti et al. (2007)

Teaching Technical Communication in an Era of Distributed Work: A Case Study of…

Technical Communication Quarterly
Bremner (2006)

Politeness, Power, and Activity Systems

Written Communication

Also cites 23 works outside this index ↓

10.4324/9781410617385

↗
10.1177/1368431008099642

↗
10.4324/9780203879900

↗
10.1017/CBO9780511812774.003

↗
10.1002/9781118504871.ch11

↗
Holliday A., MacDonald M. N. (2019). Researching the intercultural: Intersubjectivity and the problem with po…

↗
10.1207/s15327884mca1201_2

↗
10.1093/oso/9780199256044.001.0001

↗
10.1207/s15327884mca1201_5

↗
10.1207/s15327884mca1201_4

↗
10.7330/9781607326649.c009

↗
10.7330/9781607326649

↗
10.2307/j.ctt5hjqwx

↗
10.4324/9781351203074-5

↗
10.1017/CBO9780511809989.007

↗
10.7551/mitpress/6875.001.0001

↗
10.1017/CBO9780511509605

↗
10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199744763.001.0001

↗
10.4018/978-1-61350-450-5

↗
10.1111/johs.12124

↗
Tokunaga R. S. (2009). High-speed internet access to the other: The influence of cultural orientations on sel…

↗
Walther J. B., Burgoon J. K. (1992). Relational communication in computer-mediated interaction. Human Communi…

↗
10.2190/CPI

↗

CrossRef global citation count: 6 View in citation network →