ENG 335 Professional Writing

Zeyao Wu
Short paper 2
The importance of knowing cultural differences and information
localization
Introduction
When I first communicated with native speakers in America, I realized that
the barrier for communicating is not only language itself but also how we
communicate with different language backgrounds. We all know that different
cultures teach people to communicate and work in different ways. Therefore,
in todays cross-culture society, when we have collaboration with other
cultures people, we need to have the consciousness about cultural
differences; and when we need to provide some information to other cultures
people, we need to localize the information for them.
Consciousness of culture differences
It is so common in America for people to compliment you, and I realized
that my answer of oh no, its ok annoyed them. When I learned the right
answer should be thank you, I rejected to say it because it totally destroys
the Chinese virtuemodesty. Answering thank you means you admit their
praise which makes Chinese people believe that you are arrogant. Therefore, I
tried to keep my own way because thats what Chinese believe, but I find if I
continue to use no, I would never have adapted to American society because I
found that I was trying to use a Chinese Communicational style in America. I
agree with Deborah S. Bosleys words in Cross-Culture Collaboration that
individuals from different cultures do have tendencies to behave in
identifiable ways (Bosley 468) just like my culture tendency to reject
compliment. Actually, cultures dont have ranking. There is no one culture
could become a standard rule to measure other cultures. When we need to do
a cross-cultural collaboration, we need to notice these differences to
understand cultural behaviors in order to effectively communicate and fully
understand each other.
With the consciousness of cultural differences, I changed my Chinese
communicational style, which always says something implicitly, to
accommodate American style. Americans are more likely to say their intention
directly and explicitly. I found my cross-cultural talk became more smooth and
clear because American students can better understand what I want to say. I
feel interesting when I did collaboration with my classmate Shelby for
podcasting, and she continued to ask me, how do you feel about this
suggestion and do you feel comfortable. She explained that after she had
learned that how Chinese culture shaped our Chinese students
communicational style, she wanted to consider our ways and try to use our
communicational styles while talking with us. I have to say that after she
asked me how I feel about the topic, I would like to say my personal ideas. I
think this is a progress because after students learn cross-culture
collaboration, they do have the consciousness about cultural differences. Just
like Shelby and I, we are both working to be aware of each others cultural
background, and this makes our communication effective because we have
awareness of cultural differences and what these cultural differences are.
Bosley said that culture shaped the behavior of students in classrooms
and employees in the workplace (468). This cognition could help people
better analyze why foreigners speak in this way instead of just assuming that
their actions are annoying, no matter in school now or work with foreigners in
future. Knowing cultural differences is important because we have more

chances to collaborate with foreigners in todays international society, and it

can help people better prepare for a cross-cultural collaboration. Therefore,
people need to get a thorough understanding of cultural differences because
we need to apply this cognition into every part. In Bosleys article, I am also
impressed with how she realized that, as a professor, the evaluation about
different cultures students should be changed because the way how students
perform in class doesnt represent their ability; to some extent, it reflects their
cultural value. For example, Chinese students always keep quiet in the
classroom, not because they have nothing to say, but because they are
taught their whole life that silence in the classroom is modesty. Therefore, it is
necessary for a professor to balance the cultural influence on their students
and these students personal work. Otherwise, it is unequal for these students
because they are evaluated with the rule of their professors cultures. Having
the consciousness of cultural differences could also provide the equality in
classroom both between peers and between professors and students.
Localization
I agree that it is difficult to have the cognition about cultural differences
because since I have the real experience talking with Americans in America, I
have realized that peoples actions reflect their culture. But if I live in China
and I want to provide information or products to another culture, then how
could I treat the information?
With the consciousness of cultural differences, people should know how
information becomes ambiguous if people only translate the surface meaning
and ignore what cultural background express deeply in a context. Similarly to
Bosley, Agboka points out the harm of ignorance of communication in
different culture context and importance of localization. In the relationship
between creators and users, users have a much more comprehensive and
intuitive understanding of values, standards, needs and interests than they
ever could in another cultural context (Agboka 31). However, there is often a
gap between different cultures creators and users, and this is the reason why
we need to localize the information.
For example, with the totally different medical theory between America
and China, when I tried to persuade my friend who had menstrual pain to stop
eating bananas, she was surprised because she thought she needed energy
but I tried to stop her from getting some energy. And I said banana could
increase her pain. Without giving any information, I argued in a way that
destroyed Americans value and they didnt believe this statement. As Agboka
would argue, I should have communicated from users view instead of mine. It
can make the audience better understand what the author is trying to say. In
fact, as a creator, I didnt localize the information by considering her
cultural context. Instead of telling her that this is bad, I should have
considered the differences between our medical theories that American
theory focuses on getting energy but Chinese focuses on relaxing and keep
away from cold food like bananas. I also didnt localize that we have different
physiques and diets. I realize that I cant assume that all things true to me are
true to American people. Actually, without localizing the information,
information itself will never make sense to a new culture.
It is not easy to participate in a community that you do not belong to.
Localization doesnt mean simple translation with clear words. In fact, it is
long term collaboration between creators and users in order to address the
needs of users and make users understand why the creators culture has such
an argument.
In conclusion, we couldnt deny that different cultures had different
expectations about thinking, living, being and working together (Bosley 466).
The best way to communicate with foreigners is to accommodate to other

cultures styles instead of keeping our own styles all the time. With the
consciousness of cultural differences, localizing the information will be
unavoidable because localization the information could better help other
cultures people access the creators culture.