Promoting Intercultural Competence for Technical Writing Students: A Case Study of an Intercultural Business Memo Research Project
Keywords:
technical writing, intercultural communication course project, intercultural competenceAbstract
In the age of globalization, acquiring intercultural communication skills and developing intercultural competence are essential for technical and business communication students and practitioners. Using a case study from a technical writing course assignment, which explores the effectiveness of incorporating an intercultural business memo research project to improve students’ intercultural competence, the paper has come to some valuable conclusions. The findings show that it is useful and effective for teachers to use technical writing course research projects to help teach intercultural communication in the workplace for these ends.The findings indicate that the technical and business writing teachers need to find more effective ways of motivatingstudents in this intercultural communication learning process. The teachers also need to create more real-life tasks such as internship opportunities or service learning projects in some intercultural workplace settings to help students acquire intercultural competence.
Â
References
Byram, M., & Morgan, C. (1994). Teaching-and-learning language-and-culture. Bristol, PA: Multilingual Matters.
Chen, G. M. &Starosta, W. J. (1997). A review of the concept of intercultural sensitivity. Human Communication,1(1),1-16.
Chen, G. M., &Starosta, W. J. (1998). A review of the concept of intercultural awareness. Human Communication, 2(1),27–54.
Chen, G. M., &Starosta, W. J. (2000). The development and validation of the intercultural sensitivity scale. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of National Communication Association, Seattle, WA. Retrieved from http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED447525
Corbett, J. (1996). From dialog to praxis: Crossing cultural borders in the business and technical communication classroom. Technical Communication Quarterly, 5, 411–424. doi: 10.1207/s15427625tcq0504 3
Deardorff, D. K. (2006). Identification and assessment of intercultural competence as a student outcome of internationalization. Journal of Studies in International Education, 10(3), 241–266. doi: 10.1177/1028315306287002
Deardorff, D. K. (2009). Synthesize conceptualizations of intercultural competence: A summery and emerging themes.In D. K. Deaedorff (Ed), The SAGEhandbook of intercultural competence (pp.264-270). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
DeVoss, D., Jasken, J.,& Hayden, D. (2002). Teaching intracultural and intercultural Communication: A critique and suggested method. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 16(1), 69-94.
Freedman, A., Adam, C., & Smart, G. (1994). Wearing suits to class: Simulating genres andsimulations as genre. Written Communication, 11, 193–226.doi: 0.1177/0741088394011002002
Goodman, M. B. (2013). Intercultural communication for managers.New York, NY: Business Expert Press.
Gupta, S. (2010). A quick guide to cultural competency: Communication style.Retrieved fromhttp://hawaiidistrictumc.org/clientimages/53021/high%20context%20low%20context.pdf
Hall, E. T., & Hall, M. R. (2001). Key concepts:Underlying structures of culture. International HRM: Managing Diversity in the Workplace, 24-40.
Hofstede, G., &Hofstede, G.J. (2005). Culture and organizations: Software of the mind, 2nded. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Kratzke, C., &Bertolo, M. (2013). Enhancing students' cultural competence using cross-cultural experiential learning. Journal of Cultural Diversity,20(3), 107-111.
Markel, Mike. (2012).Technical communication. 10th ed. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s. Pfeiffer, W. S. (1994). Technical writing: A practical approach. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Planken, B., Van Hooft, A., &Korzilius, H. (2004). Promoting intercultural communicative competence through foreign language courses. Business Communication Quarterly, 67(3), 308-315.
Wang, J. (2013). Moving towards ethnorelativism: A framework for measuring and meeting students' needs in cross-cultural business and technical communication. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 43(2), 201-218.
Yu, H. (2012). Intercultural competence in technical communication: A working definition and review of assessment methods. Technical Communication Quarterly, 21(2), 168-186.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
- Papers must be submitted on the understanding that they have not been published elsewhere (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture, review, or thesis) and are not currently under consideration by another journal published by any other publisher.
- It is also the authors responsibility to ensure that the articles emanating from a particular source are submitted with the necessary approval.
- The authors warrant that the paper is original and that he/she is the author of the paper, except for material that is clearly identified as to its original source, with permission notices from the copyright owners where required.
- The authors ensure that all the references carefully and they are accurate in the text as well as in the list of references (and vice versa).
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
- The journal/publisher is not responsible for subsequent uses of the work. It is the author's responsibility to bring an infringement action if so desired by the author.