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Negotiating cultural encounters : narrating intercultural engineering and technical communication
Yu H., Savage G., Wiley-IEEE Press, Hoboken, NJ, 2013. 280 pp. Type: Book (978-1-118061-61-9)
Date Reviewed: Sep 8 2014

The narratives from various parts of the world in this tiny paperback demonstrate the issues that come with international/intercultural technical communication in the workplace. The narratives are presented as case studies. Each case, written by a different author or authors, is accompanied by a list of recommended readings grouped by topic and also by a list of questions to better acknowledge the message within.

Technical communication may seem at a first glance to be one field where intercultural and even international differences should not be too significant due to the exact nature of the communicated message. However, even with English prevailing for such communication, the book shows that an endless variety of issues still exist (some behind the scenes).

The interesting narratives cover various cases across continents and nationalities and even across technical fields. Though most of the topics are linked to translation, localization, and internationalization of technical texts, there are also other topics covered such as internal team and cross-team communication, and cultural differences in handling issues involving various types of stakeholders.

The list of challenges is endless; even after reading (and possibly learning from) all of the narratives, the reader will certainly be exposed to something unexpected. The narratives simply show a limited set of real recent cases without guiding the reader through good versus bad approaches. The book shows all of the real experiences as is, within a time frame and cultural framework. The vast majority of narratives are written by women in their 30s, which may have an impact on the scope of the experiences covered. Surprisingly, there is very limited application of humor in the cases, or even emphasis on some positive aspects linked to the intercultural technical communication enhancing the experience.

The cases do not conclude with a coherent summary of good and bad points. The book is thus not a guide or best-practice companion for technical professionals who are dealing with writing, translating, teaching, or passing information in some form. The book may be interesting for those already working in the field of technical communication, but would be perhaps more useful to students or to those preparing to become professionals dealing with textual (including graphical) material of various kinds.

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Reviewer:  Rita Puzmanova Review #: CR142700 (1412-1040)
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