Week 4 -- Writing Across Cultures
"If communication and content are interdependent, and communication is about unfamiliar content in an unfamiliar language, how can that communication not suffer?"
I keep thinking about this logically multi-layered question in the Crossing Cultures piece. It reminds me of a tutoring session I observed in which the student was writing about gun control and started with something like, "Gun violence is an epidemic"--but epidemic where? It wouldn't make sense to a student from Europe or parts of Asia with strict gun-control laws or basically... anywhere except the United States. It would be a good rule of thumb for writers to think, "Would the way I write about X make sense to anyone?," which is a good way of enforcing clarity and context when translating thoughts into words and ultimately leading to the larger question of, "What is the universal story/question/understanding here?"
One transfer problem I've noticed in Chinese students' writing is their use of "we" instead of "I," even in personal or opinionated essays. They sometimes feel shy and even a bit arrogant declaring "I" and so hide behind a collective "we"--though of course some students have no trouble at all with "I"! But I think the use of "we" is another instance in which the student has certain assumptions about "this is what everybody thinks" / "this is just the way it is," which is similar to American textbooks which also assume a common "we" when the individuals reading can be enormously different.
I keep thinking about this logically multi-layered question in the Crossing Cultures piece. It reminds me of a tutoring session I observed in which the student was writing about gun control and started with something like, "Gun violence is an epidemic"--but epidemic where? It wouldn't make sense to a student from Europe or parts of Asia with strict gun-control laws or basically... anywhere except the United States. It would be a good rule of thumb for writers to think, "Would the way I write about X make sense to anyone?," which is a good way of enforcing clarity and context when translating thoughts into words and ultimately leading to the larger question of, "What is the universal story/question/understanding here?"
One transfer problem I've noticed in Chinese students' writing is their use of "we" instead of "I," even in personal or opinionated essays. They sometimes feel shy and even a bit arrogant declaring "I" and so hide behind a collective "we"--though of course some students have no trouble at all with "I"! But I think the use of "we" is another instance in which the student has certain assumptions about "this is what everybody thinks" / "this is just the way it is," which is similar to American textbooks which also assume a common "we" when the individuals reading can be enormously different.
I love the question you suggest that, as writers, we should all pose to ourselves ("Would the way I write about X make sense to anyone?”). Every semester, I assign an article by Rebecca Mead called “The Scourge of Relatability,” and it connects to your question. She largely argues against the idea that there are many universal experiences and that labeling things “relatable” always assumes a particular perspective (usually, in the United States, a white American, upper-middle-class male perspective). I encourage students to think about this issue when reading (to read not just to relate characters’ lives to their own experiences but to better understand the lived experiences of others). I’ve never thought about having them apply it to their own writing, though. I think your question is a good one for all students (and instructors) to consider during the writing process.
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