Technical Communication Quarterly Jun 1998

The writing consultant as cultural interpreter: Bridging cultural perspectives on the genre of the periodic engineering report

Natasha Artemeva Carleton University

Abstract

The periodic engineering report can become a source of conflict and frustration when North American engineers collaborate with colleagues abroad. To overcome such difficulties, technical companies may hire writing consultants, who then take on the additional role of cultural interpreters, helping the partners bridge differences in both the practice of engineering and the language and culture of each country. As such a writing consultant, I worked with a Canadian engineering company, its Russian contractors, and a Russian translator to analyze the sources of difficulties in their reports. The language of the reports was English, but differences in tone as well as reader expectations about organization, format, and appropriate content caused misunderstandings among the collaborators. Contrastive rhetorical analysis helped to identify problems in both the conception of the report as a document and the translation of particular text.

Journal
Technical Communication Quarterly
Published
1998-06-01
DOI
10.1080/10572259809364632
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Topics
rhetorical criticism genre theory
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Citation Context

Cited by in this index (15)

  1. Batova et al. (2015)
    The Complexities of Globalized Content Management
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  3. Zemliansky et al. (2013)
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  1. Brewer (2010)
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  2. Artemeva et al. (2010)
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  3. Varpio et al. (2007)
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  6. Schryer et al. (2005)
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  8. Ding (2003)
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  9. Amant (2001)
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  10. Dragga (1999)
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