Technical communication in the international and multicultural world

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Technical communication in the international and multicultural world

Aksiutina V.T.

Much of today's business and technical writing is done for international audiences, either to be translated or to be read in English by native speakers of other languages. According to numerous scholars, many companies view international communication as a major area of concern and as a significant expenditure. We cannot talk about audience these days without including the significant problems involved in writing for non-native speakers of English. Attempts to address these problems, as well as the relatively low literacy rate of English speakers in some lines of work, have included the development of systems called Plain English, Simplified English, and Controlled Language.

Plain English, Simplified English, and Controlled Language are three terms used to describe attempts to produce English that is easily readable, accessible, and usable. While usage of these terms is not necessarily standardized, Controlled Language systems tend to be designed and used to make both machine and human translation faster and more accurate, and to improve the clarity of communication among professionals in the same line of work.

Simplified English is the term used by the European Association of Aerospace Industries (AECMA) for its own controlled version of the language specific to aircraft maintenance. The AECMA says this about its Simplified

English system: AECMA Simplified English (SE) consists of a limited vocabulary and a set of rules intended to increase the readability of technical texts. It is called a "controlled language" because these rules impose on writers' simple syntax: english simplified aerospace

• a limited number of words

• a limited number of clearly defined meanings for these words--in general, each word has only one meaning

• a limited number of parts of speech for the words--in general, each word has only one part of speech [1, p. 34].

Plain English, on the other hand, is intended to be used for a variety of documents, settings, and purposes, and, as such, allows the writer much more latitude in language use. Plain English "movements" (established in the United Kingdom and Australia as well as the U.S.) have primarily targeted government documents, especially those intended for consumers, taxpayers, and other nonspecialist readers.

Plain English, Simplified English, and Controlled English systems are all based on research on how readers process text, so they tend to focus on the same principles of writing, particularly on the reduction of the vast vocabulary of English to those terms most readily understood and on the use of easily processed syntactic forms.

While Controlled Language and Simplified English schemes are used largely to facilitate translation and are applied in very restricted environments, the Plain English movement is influencing the writing of many types of documents that are intended to be read in English. The Plain English movement has had its ups and downs in the U.S. but has been widely applied and accepted in Australia and, to a lesser extent, the U.K. On 1 June 1998, U.S. President Bill Clinton issued a memorandum calling for the use of Plain Language in government writing.

The memo specifically recommends that writers use

* Common, everyday words, except for necessary technical terms

• You and other pronouns

• Active voice

• Short sentences [2, p. 89].

One principle of most Plain English, Simplified English, and Controlled Language guidelines, and a precept of many technical writing textbooks, is the use of simple everyday words, instead of ornate, technical or complex vocabulary. The SEC Plain English handbook, for example, advises writers to "use short, common words to get your points across" [1, p. 204]. Specifically, it recommends using end instead of terminate, explain rather than elucidate, and use rather than utilize.

However, the history of English is such that the majority of "everyday" words, including those recommended by the SEC, came into the language from German through Old English and Middle English. 86% of the terms considered too technical or "fancy" are listed in the American Heritage Dictionary as having Latin or French origins.

For an international audience, the implications of such lists are interesting. Readers whose native languages also derive from Latin (French, Spanish and Italian, primarily) may be more likely to comprehend the very terms that the Plain English advocates would like to eliminate from workplace writing. On the other hand, speakers of Germanic languages may find the shorter substitutions more familiar.

The SEC Plain English handbook recommends using the two- (and three-) word verbs (find out about instead of acquaint with; speed up instead of accelerate; put together instead of assemble; fill in instead of complete, etc.): You will not have to pay for or turn in your shares of Beco stock to receive your shares of Unis common stock from the spin-off (a nominalization of a phrasal verb); If you want to buy shares in FundX by mail, fill out and sign the Account Application form . . . . [1, p. 132].

Thus, the expectation of the Plain English advocates is clear that readers of English readily understand these phrasal verbs. However, with the dramatic increase in the number of non-native speakers of English in our workplaces, our audiences are more likely than not to include people who may have difficulty with the more idiomatic elements of English, particularly phrasal verbs. Therefore, writers may want to be judicious in their use of phrasal verbs.

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