By Lisa Heitzman Presented by Derek Woodward

 Introduction  Ideas of Cultural Awareness  Approaches  Conclusion

 Many of the products we use today come from different places all over the world  To produce these items, it has become ever more important to communicate across different languages and cultures  Technical writers must be aware of this when drafting their documents so as not to cause strife when presenting ideas

 Heitzman argues that technical writers must be taught cultural awareness  Its importance lies in understanding how one’s writing can reflect different social and cultural values ▪ This can translate into how well a document is received by a foreign audience  There are different methods that writers can use depending upon the situation at hand

 One way in which instructions can be communicated across languages is the use of visuals, or pictures  When using method, since different colors can mean different things, black and white is usually used  Although method appears to not have any drawbacks, it can as in the case of Ikea  When shipping products to Muslim countries, Ikea showed mostly men in their instructions which lead to the prime minister of Norway to label them “sexist”

 English is seen as an emerging global language due to its popularity in business and science  It must be emphasized that although English is being spoken more, this does not mean it is superior to all other languages  When using a single language to address an international audience, this is known as internationalization

 Clarity is often emphasized in technical writing  When writing to international audience, Plain Style is used which promotes the simplest of words choosen  This can backfire in the form of the audience not understanding certain idioms  Heintzman suggests rather than clarity, we should focus on “the astuteness of interpretation and translation” which focuses on getting the meaning across with as little “noise” as possible

 The author defines localization as the writing toward a specific culture as opposed to a universal one  Translation is a method of localization which, in essence, is the converting of documents to a specific language  For technical writers, this is learning how to write to translators which involves:  Carefully selecting word choices (such as metaphors)  Providing translators with contextual information  Chunking information

 Localization can backfire if one tries to group different cultures as one  In extreme cases, can lead to myth and stereotyping  It can also get expensive to translate documents into many types of languages  It is important to be able to strike a balance between over generalizing an audience and becoming to specific when translating documents

 It is important to teach cultural awareness and be aware of different methods to address it  These include internationalization or universalist approach, localization, and generalization  Knowing when to use each is important to the technical writer in our vast global market  i.e Airport signs universalist approach vs. a specific product geared to a particular group, localization  We certainly want to be able to communicate universally, but also be aware of the uniqueness of each individual