Communicating Risk in a Cross-Cultural Context — Rhetoric & Composition

Journal of Business and Technical Communication Jul 1996

Communicating Risk in a Cross-Cultural Context

BEVERLY A. SAUER

Abstract

This article analyzes how culture influences the rhetorical strategies writers employ to represent expert knowledge in the workplace and the underlying values and assumptions in a culture that enable readers to understand and evoke the knowledges represented as visual and verbal narratives. The study examines the problems of risk communication in a cross-cultural context at three levels: (a) the technical problems of representing safety information in an uncertain and hazardous environment, (b) the translation problem of multiple representations and cultural understandings in a cross-cultural environment, and (c) the rhetorical problem of defining a rational basis for argument about what constitutes safety in an economic and political context. This article expands upon previous notions of cross-cultural communication as the translation processes necessary to mediate cultural difference or translate from one culture to another. In examining risk communication within a larger global context, this article analyzes the problems writers face in applying generalized models of communication practice to solve technical problems in a culturally and politically complex global economy.

Journal: Journal of Business and Technical Communication
Published: 1996-07-01
DOI: 10.1177/1050651996010003002
Open Access: Closed
Topics: multimodality

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (10)

Welhausen (2023)

Wicked Problems in Risk Assessment: Mapping Yellow Fever and Constructing Risk …

Journal of Business and Technical Communication
Digmayer et al. (2022)

Analyzing Safety Communication in Industrial Contexts

Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
Itchuaqiyaq et al. (2022)

Sex Work and Professional Risk Communication: Keeping Safe on the Streets

Journal of Business and Technical Communication
Reamer (2015)

“Risk = Probability × Consequences”: Probability, Uncertainty, and the Nuclear …

Technical Communication Quarterly
Ding (2013)

Transcultural Risk Communication and Viral Discourses: Grassroots Movements to …

Technical Communication Quarterly

Show all 10 →

Teston (2012)

Moving From Artifact to Action: A Grounded Investigation of Visual Displays of …

Technical Communication Quarterly
Evia et al. (2012)

Beyond Compliance

Journal of Business and Technical Communication
SAUER (1998)

Embodied Knowledge

Written Communication
Longo (1998)

An approach for applying cultural study theory to technical writing research

Technical Communication Quarterly
Johnson-Eilola (1996)

Relocating the Value of Work: Technical Communication in a Post-Industrial Age

Technical Communication Quarterly

Cites in this index (5)

Sauer (1994)

The dynamics of disaster: A three‐dimensional view of documentation in a tightl…

Technical Communication Quarterly
Sauer (1994)

Sexual dynamics of the profession: Articulating the<i>ecriture masculine</i>of …

Technical Communication Quarterly
Bosley (1993)

Cross‐cultural collaboration: Whose culture is it, anyway?

Technical Communication Quarterly
Weiss (1992)

“Ourselves among others”: A new metaphor for business and technical writing

Technical Communication Quarterly
WITTE (1992)

Context, Text, Intertext

Written Communication

Also cites 2 works outside this index ↓

10.1109/47.108666

↗
10.1515/9781400828494

↗

CrossRef global citation count: 20 View in citation network →