Writing for a specific discipline

When we learn a new thing, there is always a phase of acculturation. At first, we don’t feel comfortable but with time and training, it becomes better. It is especially the case when we learn a specific discipline, as I am currently doing with technical communication thanks to my master’s degree.

• ·         Identity crisis

This year, I am discovering what technical communication is. I did not realize there were so many specific rules when I applied for this master program. Even if courses started almost six months ago, I still feel lost and uncomfortable with this discipline. I still do not understand how technical communication works and I feel really incompetent.

Furthermore, technical communication is a discipline where English dominates. A lot of students are bilingual and have studied abroad during their bachelor years. I did not have this opportunity and my English is not as good as theirs. Even if I can understand when teachers speak in English, I need a lot of time to do exercises and I make several mistakes.

Also, I do not participate in class because everything that I would say would be simple and I would not be able to transcribe my thoughts as they are. I hope it is just difficult because it is the beginning and that, next year, it will be easier. In the end, this situation brings a lot of stress, accentuated by expectations of people.

•  Culture bound

Even if I am not bilingual in English, I am graduated with a bachelor of communication and I am supposed not to have difficulties with courses related to it. Nevertheless, I still need to learn things with design software for example.

Besides, I specialized in literature when I was in high school and even after for my bachelor, I was trained to do long sentences, using metaphors and lot of words to express one idea. But with writing in technical communication, we are currently learning how to use “minimalism” which consists in using the less words as possible. I think it is very hard to synthetize when we are not used to.

My academic culture is still controlling me and it will require quite some time for me to accommodate to technical communication rules.

• ·        To have a goal

I think it is very important to have a goal to stay motivate when we learn new things. It can rapidly become difficult and if we do not know why we do this, it will be easy to give up. My goal is to write in technical communication in order to obtain my master’s degree.

“Goals are your destinations in life; objectives are the stops along the way.” 
― Gerard de Marigny, The Watchman of Ephraim

Therefore, it is easier to accommodate when we have support from friends and family. Even if I do not live with my parents anymore, I often talk to them on the phone and it is very helpful when I have identity crisis. It is normal to experiment different steps during the process of acculturation and time is our best friend to go from one step to another, through objectives.

I might be an outsider in technical communication but I hope to become an insider in a few months. It is my challenge from my graduation in 2016: to be proficient in technical communication (and I hope I will be since it is supposed to be my future job!).

Writing style

Our culture influences our writing. But what role does it really play? What does it change concretely? This article is about the scope of language we think with.

• ·         European, Asian or African writing style?

People can guess were we come from regarding our writing style. For instance, in the western languages, we use Latin alphabet whereas Russians use Cyrillic alphabet. If French is read from left to right, Arabic and Hebrew, on the contrary, are read from right to left. Symbols are really important, especially in Asian languages. Furthermore, American people put a lot of space between letters whereas French does not. There are various writing styles reflecting particular cultures.

As Alton L. Becker said: 

“Writing involves more than technology, and more than most would call language”.

Indeed, it is true that our culture has changed. It changed from orality to writing and printing to another form of orality with television (Walter Ong). Technology has brought a form of standardization in our writing style. We have different rules to respect according to the support we use (newspapers, blogs, novels, scripts for videos…). However, we have our own personality which is reflected in our style. Writing involves more than rules and technology, it highlights our culture and our human-being.

• ·         Language and graphocentrism

When we learn a new language, graphocentrism (an unconscious interpretative bias in which writing is privileged over speech) is very powerful, especially in France. If we are so bad at languages although we learn English for ages, it is partially because we do not speak enough. At school, we study grammar rules, irregular verbs and conjugation but we become very uncomfortable when it comes to speaking. However, when we use phonetic writing (like pinying with Chinese) it is not the same than when we write the right way (with symbols in this case). To learn a language, it is better to speak and to write it. We use both in everyday life, they are complementary and it permits to understand the culture behind the language.

When I started learning Chinese four years ago, I was very anxious about writing with symbols. I had never done that before and it was new and very different from using Latin letters. Finally, I was glad when we were shown how to use “pinying” (the official phonetic system for transcribing the Mandarin pronunciations of Chinese characters into the Latin alphabet). I did not have to know every symbols to remember words, I could write them in phonetics. However, my teacher was really mad about it and I did not understood why. I thought she was just annoyed because she had to teach us symbols and we weren’t very cooperative. Now I understand better why she reacted that way. By ignoring the right way to write words in Chinese with symbols, I was denying a huge part of this culture. I did not pay attention to the meanings of symbols. I thought that they were just too hard to remember. When I look back, we did the same thing with colonization when we forced people to give up their languages to adopt ours.

At the end, literacy involves more than reading and writing. It includes all the cultures behind it. Now I understand more the role my culture and my cultural identity play in my writing style thanks to my experiences with other languages as Chinese or even English (it is so hard for me to write 7 without the bar!).

Culture

Culture includes a lot of things such as the way we think, act and interact with others. When we think about culture, we think about culture from countries and nationalities. From this point of view, there are a lot of cultures in the world. Nevertheless, culture is not only about that, it also concerns our beliefs, gender, occupation, age, class… All those things can influence us and our writings.

• ·         Understanding our culture to understand others better

As I said above, our culture has a huge impact on us and on the way we think. Our culture affects inevitably our point of view. Personally, I cannot express my opinion on the use of weapons in the United States without having my French background influencing me. In France, we do not use weapons and I do not really understand why they authorize them in the US. However, I know it is at the basis of the American identity for them to be able to defend themselves and I admit it exists different point of views on this topic.

It is really interesting to see how people act differently according to their culture. For instance, to say “yes” in India, they nod whereas in France, it means “no”. If we are not aware of that when we meet Indian people, it can create numerous misunderstandings and we can hurt people. An other example, if we want someone to be comfortable, for example an Asian person, we must avoid putting her at the center of the attention or asking questions which are too personal.

I think it is really important to notice how our culture affects us in order to understand how it could affect anyone else and become better at listening to other people.

• ·         The influence of my French culture on my writings

Culture flows through our interactions, acts, beliefs and our writings. I think that the culture we have influences the way we think and how we see the word.

As a French student girl and coming from a middle-class, I think it is normal that everybody has access to a free education or that we can make fun of politicians. Also, some topics such as money are kind of taboo and I would not be comfortable if I had to write about it. Coming from the country side, I love nature and it would be weird for me to write about city life. 

Furthermore, my academic profile (I love literature and writing) make that I like writing long sentences and I do not write in a synthetic way like scientists may do (even though I am trying to learn!). So it must be true that my culture (the fact I am French, having the opportunity to study, etc) affects me and my writings on different levels.

To sum up briefly, our culture shapes our human-being and our writings are culture-bound. Besides, globalization and technology build an open world which brings cultures closer together. The thing is that nowadays, we are often influenced by several cultures. So can we speak about one culture or several cultures?

Literacy

Regarding what happened in France recently and all the debates which followed concerning the freedom of speech, I am wondering about the importance of writing and reading in our societies nowadays. What does it even mean? What is literacy? Why it is so important?

• ·         Never stop

Since the dawn of time men have been using words as a weapon. When freedom was reduced by governments, men continued to speak through words, denouncing inequalities and power abuses, smuggling books and pamphlets. Words are a real testimony to the past and remain in people’ minds. Men never ceased to write, even when printers, electronic images and television appeared.

As Walter Ong said:

“Now we have electronic communication, we shall not cease to write and print”

• ·         An universal knowledge?

Nowadays, the majority of the population can read, especially in France and in western countries. The thing is, literacy is associated with wealth, power and access to education. But what is literacy exactly? This is the ability to read and write. It is nowadays extended to the understanding of complex concepts and knowledge specific to different culture.

To be able to read and to write gives access to jobs and facilitates everyday life. Furthermore, it gives access to power. According to Sarah Power, literate people were priests, oracles, poets, doctors, politicians, professors, lawyers, engineers and they had high positions in societies. In the 21^st century, to be literate has become indispensable.

Unfortunately, some people are still illiterate, and they are the poorest one. In France and other countries, they are seen as “outsiders”. In our societies, to succeed and be “insiders”, we have to be rich, to have a good job and own a big house. To fit in the system, we must respect those standards and it cannot be possible if we are illiterate.

• ·         Writer or not writer ?

I am convinced that writing is a natural ability for everyone once we have the skills to use it. I do not think rather often about the chance I have to be able to write and read. Since I was a child, I have always loved discovering new worlds and characters through novels. I enjoy writing very much, especially diaries out of school or newspapers in a more academic context.

I do not really see myself as a writer, even if, I guess, I am sort of one. I think that writers’ words can affect people in a specific way, as Martin Luther King’s speech “I have a dream” did. Of course, authors are not necessarily famous. In my opinion a writer gives a real meaning to words and he knows how to put them together.

To end with this article, I will add that literacy is very important for our civic duties (now more than ever). It helps us (a little) to understand what is going on in our crazy world. It is a real potential for political freedom and according to Sarah Power and Richard Bailey, literacy is very important for our roles as responsible citizens.