Communication, Culture, Collaboration, Capitalism: Considerations
Almost everything that I read or discuss over a multitude of courses can pivot on the idea of “awareness”. Awareness differs from learning in that you remove even the smallest doubt that the information has just been memorized and you are sure that it has been processed. Does it help us to just think that different cultures have different modes of communicating? Or can we delve a little deeper and think critically about how our similarities and differences cross-culturally, make us who we are and define how we communicate.
I think that Bosley makes some very enlightening points regarding the mentality of the “Euro-North American” versus that of the “non-Euro-North American”. The Euro-North American’s focus on the individual, the competition involved in reaching a goal, and “the emphasis on achievement” appears faulty and superficial compared to Bosley’s non-European-North American who focuses on cooperative learning, recognition of achievement based on contribution to the whole of the group, and the importance of “quality and aesthetic” as opposed to the quantification of our virtues. (Bosely, 469)
Within the section discussing decision making, one can see the emphasis on the extroverted personality type in the Euro-North American culture. “Euro-North Americans, with their emphasis on individuality, highly regard people who make their own decisions…Americans believe they should be their own source of opinions and solve their own problems.” (Bosley, 470) To draw back to my introduction, I believe this sometimes-blindness to the Other can be a major problem within the Professional and Technical writing fields. There is a lack of awareness of how other cultures process information, how they make decisions, think, and communicate which can decrease the efficiency of a professional writing text.
In order to successfully write professionally or technically, one must be able to communicate cross-culturally. With the growth of electronic technology, there is no limit to or for whom you might be writing. The Euro-North American “world” supposes itself to be particularly social. Social networks, websites that combine all of your social media, emails sent to all corners of the globe, yet the Euro-North American is less aware of how they and “that” (^^) fits into the social structure. With this I mean that they see themselves as an individual fitting in to “The Social Network” versus how their communications over the social network might affect the network itself. I drew these tenuous conclusions from Edward C. Stewart’s thoughts on this. “Many of the actions of people in non-Western cultures can be understood as directed toward preserving and enhancing their particular position within the social structure, whereas consideration about tangible progress and improvement are secondary in importance, if present at all.” (qtd in Bosley, 469) Obviously this generalization would not stretch to every single individual within the Euro-North American world, but I wished to examine how the Euro-North American generalized culture might be arranged for this particular point.
This viewpoint is interesting however, when compared to Greg Wilson’s discussion on “Technical Communication and Late Capitalism…”. At first, I connected these two readings as similar in that they are both reaching for the awareness of the student. Though Wilson does not address cross-cultural issues, he is striving for the education of the student in such a way that the instructor can “instill agency in [their] students that fosters more flexible careers.” (Wilson, 79)
In his view, it appears he is pushing for that individualistic mode of thinking for training professional and technical communicators. I feel that he sees this as a more survival oriented approach to being a professional and technical communicator in the workplace today. “By attuning the students to the ways that modernist conception might hem their agency, we can empower them by helping them intervene in corporate structures.” (Wilson, 78) In what ways are these “corporate structures” related to the type of collaboration Bosley refers to? How can we reach outside of the pedagogical sphere of group work in a professional/technical writing classroom to the workplace?
Wilson’s view is slightly more confined than Bosley’s, in that he is focusing mainly on technical communication and communicators. The definition of a technical communicator versus the professional communicator gathered from the English 305 PWE guide made this more clear for me; the idea that technical writing focuses on explication while professional writing is more determined to persuade. (305-2011, 1.3) The technical writer is a more specific occupation from the more general (to me) idea of professional writer/professional communicator.
In short, I wished to examine the idea of collaboration cross-culturally through Bosley as well as consider how the awareness of others and the awareness of how we fit together contributes to the social structure or collaboration.
Bosley, Deborah S. “Cross-Cultural Collaboration” Central Works in Technical Communication. Ed. Johndan Johnson-Eilola and Stuart A. Selber. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. pp. 466-474. Print.
PWE guides for teaching ENGL 304 & 305. (2011)
Wilson, Greg. “Technical Communication and Late Capitalism: Considering a Postmodern Technical Communication Pedagogy.” Journal of Business and Technical Communication. 15.1 (2001): 72-99. Web.