Verbal reports of Japanese novices' research writing practices in English

The Impact of Language and Culture on Technical Communication in Japan.

An abstract of the dissertation of Miki Yamashita for the Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership: Postsecondary Education, presented January 30, 2009. Title: Japanese International Graduate Students in U.S. Higher Education Classrooms: An Investigation of Their Pedagogical and Epistemological Challenges and Supports International students have long been an important part of the U.S. higher education community, but generally they have received inadequate attention in the classroom. Also, American teaching and learning strategies have not taken full advantage of international diversity. The purpose of this narrative study was to qualitatively understand the experiences of Japanese graduate students in U.S. higher education classrooms. The study highlights the challenges that Japanese graduate students faced due to cultural differences, pedagogical differences, and language problems and provides a number of suggestions for faculty, domestic students, and institutions to help create a more welcoming environment for Japanese graduate

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Japanese international graduate students in U.S. higher education classrooms: An investigation of their pedagogical and epistemological challenges and supports

Results of a study of the process by which technical English was used by native Japanese are presented. Comparing the composing processes of experienced native Japanese and US technical writers showed that the preference for each phase-prewriting, writing, and rewriting-was idiosyncratic to the author regardless of native language. Process preference correlated with measures of product quality. Specifically, the prewriters produced text with greater lexical cohesion and the rewriters produced text with fewer grammatical and spelling errors. It is concluded that formal prewriting should improve the writing products of both native Japanese and US technical writers. >

Writing technical English: a comparison of the process of native English and native Japanese speakers

When document designers localize documents for readers in other cultures, they should consider what text organization will best suit those readers. The study presented examines American and Japanese readers' comprehension of and preference for expository text that contains a thesis and is organized either inductively or deductively. The results revealed that while Americans performed equally well with either organizational structure, Japanese readers recalled more information from inductively organized text. The implications for document designers in English and Japanese speaking countries are discussed.

The effect of inductively versus deductively organized text on American and Japanese readers

Technical writing in English by Japanese authors is examined. It is pointed out that Japanese rhetorical structure addresses an underlying communication goal that is very different from the goal of Aristotle's persuasive discourse; Japanese technical writers also consider elements such as beauty, surprise, and easy flow as desirable measures of good writing. This fundamental difference in approaching the problem of writing often produces confusing results. >

J.T. Dennett

Papers

Not to say is better than to say: how rhetorical structure reflects cultural context in Japanese-English technical writing