SUBCULTURES AND TECHNICAL (MIS)COMMUNICATON:
RESPONSIBILITY AND SOLUTIONS WITH EMPHASIS ON
HISPANICS AND NON-NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKERS
Subcultures and Technical (Mis)communication: Responsibility and Solutions with
Emphasis on Hispanics and Non-native English Speakers
Brittany Hart
East Carolina University
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SUBCULTURES AND TECHNICAL (MIS)COMMUNICATON:
RESPONSIBILITY AND SOLUTIONS WITH EMPHASIS ON
HISPANICS AND NON-NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKERS
Abstract
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Natalia Matveeva’s study, Teaching Technical, Scientific, or Professional
Communication at Hispanic-Serving Institutions peaked my interest in the challenges
presented by language patterns and cultural values in the complex relationship of
technical communication to the Hispanic subculture, as well as other prevalent minority
subcultures in the United States. I chose to target my research on exploring some of those
challenges from two perspectives: the educators of minority subcultures and the technical
communicators attempting to market to those minority subcultures. The studies I
reviewed primarily focus on either the technical communication course structure as it
relates to various American subcultures (who are oftentimes comprised of non-native
English speakers) or the communication of technical healthcare information to Hispanics.
My awareness of the need to bridge the gap between growing subcultures, particularly
Hispanics, and technical communicators became significantly more acute as a result.
Throughout the texts, I noticed there was a distinct notion that the responsibility for
effective communication falls heavily on the party communicating to the subculture, and
not on the subculture to understand the messages. This led me to a new consideration:
the assignment of responsibility and the ratio of responsibility as divided between the
subculture and the communicator.
Keywords: subcultures, Hispanics, language, cultural values, technical
communicators
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Introduction
The existence of subcultures in the United States is not a new development, nor is
the concept of tailoring messages to effectively reach and be absorbed by niche
audiences; however, the Hispanic, non-native English speaking population is steadily
climbing and the understanding required to accommodate that growth from a
communications standpoint is not currently keeping pace. According to Mohsen
Mirshafiei in the early 1990s, there was a “need for more research on the problem of
cultural influence in technical communication” (1994, p. 282). Emily Thrush echoed
those concerns in the late 1990s, citing a scarcity of research regarding writing strategies
specific to subcultures, as well as a lack of ownership exhibited by writers to understand
subculture writing and communication needs (1997, pp. 424-425). Recent scholarly
articles display a shift toward more extensive research on the topic, yet concrete solutions
still have not been realized and initiated on a large enough scale to affect change;
troubling, considering this has been a rising issue in communications for a number of
decades.
The U.S. Census Bureau accounted for nearly 55 million Hispanics living in the
United States by July of 2013, making it “the nation’s largest ethnic or race minority”
(2014). Based on that statistic, there is no denying that the United States workforce and
economy are being affected by the presence of Hispanics and, jointly, native-Spanish
speakers, as they make up a large percentage of the nation’s employees and consumers.
Likewise, the arena of higher education is being affected as the number of Hispanic and
native-Spanish speakers grows. This review focuses on the challenges that technical
communication educators and technical communicators in the industry are facing with
SUBCULTURES AND TECHNICAL (MIS)COMMUNICATON:
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HISPANICS AND NON-NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKERS
respect to minority subcultures, the research that has been done to isolate those
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challenges, potential solutions to those challenges as suggested by the researchers, and
potential opportunities for future research on the topic of responsibility to accommodate
cultures.
Academic Communicators
Overarching Challenges
Natalia Matveeva’s study of course structure in Hispanic-serving Institutions
(HSIs) opens with the acknowledgement that “many Hispanic students are bilingual, and
some are ESL students who need additional instructions to succeed in college” (3). That
statement lays the foundation for the rest of this review: Hispanic, non-native English
speakers need additional instructions to succeed in college, and additional instructions to
succeed in the workforce, and additional instructions (or carefully crafted messages) to
succeed as consumers.
Matveeva’s study is less concerned with miscommunications between the
professor and the student than she is with how courses at HSIs connect to community
needs, however she warns educators about language barriers in her very first strategy for
course improvements: “be prepared to address possible ESL issues in your class” (2015,
p. 12). Mirshafiei, who is a particularly interesting because he is a non-native English
speaker himself, focuses his study on the cultural aspects of communication breaks that
he experiences with his diverse roster of technical writing and what student beliefs are
about those cultural influences.
Marion Barchillon and Donald Kelley discuss a reliance on course structure for
success similar Matveeva’s course structure discussion for HSIs, but they formulate a
SUBCULTURES AND TECHNICAL (MIS)COMMUNICATON:
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HISPANICS AND NON-NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKERS
broad model meant to be applicable to any technical communication course in any
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institution setting. Some of the attributes of the model reflect challenges that all students
might eventually face in the industry environment, including globalization, diversity, and
productivity. Ilona Leki follows up the potential challenges in industry addressed by
Barchillon and Kelley’s model by discussing some actual challenges faced as a technical
editor in the work environment. Her work still comes from an educator perspective in
that she suggests how writers, in this case non-native English speakers, might be
educated by the editors within the company in order to resolve language and cultural
gaps.
Research
Matveeva. Matveeva collected data, course catalogs and course descriptions of
HSIs, and analyzed their traits to find out what Hispanic students are being exposed to
currently in those environments. She intended to use this information to answer her
research question: what are some “programmatic adaptations and retention strategies that
can positively impact educational experiences of Hispanic students” (2015, p. 6).
Matveeva concluded that that HSIs are already actively including elements specific to
Hispanic needs in their courses and programs, but her solutions included further bilingual
development and emphasis on the cultural diversity of the students.
Mirshafiei. Mirshafiei created a questionnaire including multiple-choice and
open-ended questions that he then administered to his culturally diverse classes over a
period of several years. The information collected was meant to help him pinpoint
whether students were struggling in technical communication because of their
backgrounds or because of other factors (1994, p. 276). He concluded that a majority of
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students, both native and non-native, believed that their inherent cultural values as well as
learning experiences in former classrooms had an impact on “their writing style, their
thinking process, their role in class, and their treatment of technical and scientific
information” (1994, p. 278). His solution, similar to Matveeva’s, was that teachers
should structure their courses to attempt accommodating the cultural differences of
students enrolled (1994, p. 282).
Barchilon & Kelley. In A Flexible Technical Communication Model for the Year
2000, Barchilon and Kelley concur with the solutions suggested by Matveeva and
Mirshafiei. They suggest that educators are tasked with creating the flexible model to
which the article title refers, and go on to supply audience readers with a 10-attribute
model that will purportedly prepare all technical communication students to function
effectively in the industry even as new developments continue to occur. They also
provide a case study that showcases this model as it is incorporated into the Sun Devil
Bridge Program, whose objective is to “help eligible minority students forge an academic
bridge to the university so they can successfully obtain the baccalaureate degree in
engineering or technology” (1995, p. 594). This directly relates to the issue of minority
subculture representation (or lack of) in technical fields, and the possibility that said
underrepresentation may result from a difficulty to communicate about technical areas in
the classroom setting required to qualify them for those fields (1995, p. 594).
The existence of bridge programs, meant to “help increase the participation of
groups who are underrepresented in science, engineering, mathematics, and technology,”
(1995, p. 594) raises another question: are minority subcultures a lesser presence in
technical fields or fields that require extensive technical communication mainly because
SUBCULTURES AND TECHNICAL (MIS)COMMUNICATON:
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of the difficulties they experience with learning this information in English speaking
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contexts? From an educator’s perspective, Max Kirch claims, “misunderstanding of the
role of language in information and communication crops up frequently in college
faculties, especially in dialogue between language and science departments” (1973, p.
340). So, if faculty specializing in language and faculty specializing in science have
difficulty communicating with one another, it would be reasonable to assume that a
student of a different native language (and culture) would struggle to communicate with
an educator regarding technical information or technical communication itself.
Leki. Finally, Leki contributes to the educator perspective from the standpoint of
a technical editor educating coworkers who are non-native English speakers in a
workplace environment; technical editors are faced with editing the work of parties both
internal and external to their workplace, oftentimes meaning dealing with individuals
who may fall into a subculture that struggles with the English language. She establishes
three rules for learners of a language, discusses the difficulties those language learners
might face on a specific level (vocabulary and spelling, for example), and then goes on to
make several suggestions about how an editor might anticipate begin to anticipate these
communication breaks and bridge them. She suggests, “an awareness of the kinds of
problems non-native speakers have and where these problems originate may help to
alleviate frustrations of both writer and editor” (1990, p. 152).
Industry Communicators
Overarching Challenges
“Difficult to reach” and “hard-to-reach” are some of the phrases I found in
research studies that I consulted regarding subcultures and their response level to
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technical healthcare information (Alksne & Suchman, 1961, p. 307) (Delgado & Johnson,
1989, p. 588). Clearly, successful communication of healthcare information, and
likewise other categories of technical information, to Hispanics and subcultures is not an
easy feat. I also included a study in technology marketing The language and culturally
influenced areas I observed that were difficult to reconcile across the studies reviewed
were high-context v. low-context descriptions, graphics, linear v. non-linear writing
styles, and overall modes employed to disseminate information.
Research
St. Germaine-Madison. Natalie St. Germaine-Madison approaches the issue of
language and responsibilities of technical communicators as translators for the Hispanic
subculture. She poses the question: “how effective are instructions for electronic
documents in the areas of translation and localization for the Mexican-American
audience in the United States,” and seeks to answer that question by designing a research
methodology which considers various texts containing various levels of Spanish
translations (2006, p. 186). She collected data for analysis by choosing instruction
manuals from a variety of companies and spanning a breadth of electronic devices; she
then categorized the translations she found in each manual into one of five categories of
presence and depth in the text. St. Germaine-Madison concludes that “a translation in
Spanish should be included in any product meant for distribution in the United States,”
even acknowledging that this might be a “financial burden” for companies producing the
manuals (2006, p. 191).
Suchman and Alksne. Edward A. Suchman and Lois Alksne provide evidence
that communication difficulties between technical communicators, in this case public
SUBCULTURES AND TECHNICAL (MIS)COMMUNICATON:
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HISPANICS AND NON-NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKERS
health administration, and minority subcultures has been an issue for years; written in
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1961, Communication across Cultural Barriers draws statistics from the New York City
Health Department and prior research studies on several major subcultures, and the
cultural challenges that present difficulties to public health communicators. They discuss
the difficulty of both convincing minority subcultures of the importance of preventive
healthcare, and well as difficulty encouraging those subcultures to use health resources
due to different attitudes and motivations toward healthcare in those subcultures (1961, p.
311).
Suchman and Alksne, like the authors previously reviewed, openly confront the
issue of communication responsibility: “Is the Health Department to force upon these
people what we believe to be good standard public health practice, or do we attempt to
change our public health practice to meet these particular conditions?” (1961, p. 310).
Ultimately, they place responsibility on public health workers and, as a result,
communicators of health information, to develop an awareness of values – this time, their
own (1961, p. 311).
Marin. Gerardo Marin indirectly investigates the success or failure of healthcare
messages as they apply to Hispanics by studying the success or failure of the channels by
which they are disseminated. By gauging the success of one channel over another, he can
then investigate what cultural values make a channel successful. Marin conducts his
research by selecting a random sample of survey takers from the telephone directories of
two U.S. cities with high populations of Hispanics, asking them to rate different channels
on their perceived credibility, expertise, trustworthiness, and behavioral motivator (1996,
pp. 31-33). The goal of the information is to help communicators of messages about
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tobacco use and risks reach more Hispanics and, therefore, uphold their responsibility to
keep the Hispanic population healthy. Marin’s study is simply supplemental evidence to
the case that has already been made: the United States healthcare field, and the
communicators of its messages, feel especially obligated to maintain the health of
subcultures despite the communication gaps that culture and language can cause.
Johnson & Delgado. Elaine M. Johnson and Jane L. Delgado seek to find the
cause of ineffective healthcare messaging regarding alcohol and drug use prevention, and
to do so they research across three audiences who are most frequently affected by those
addictions based on data collected from the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse
as well as the Hispanic Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (1989, p. 590). They
formulate a hypothesis for message formulation strategies based on cultural values, such
as “persistent belief in the centrality and importance of family,” that might best attract the
attention of those target audiences (1989, p. 592). Johnson and Delgado conclude
“problems in communication result not from inherent characteristics of the Hispanic
population but from the relationship between the audiences and the communication
programs,” claiming that the effectiveness of communication lies in the knowledge a
communicator has about his or her audience (1989, pp. 592-593).
Questions: Further Research
Despite the range of source topics and authors consulted, the overall belief in the
responsibility of the technical communicator remained the same throughout. This leads
me to a new set of questions for further research:
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• What types of knowledge about a subculture makes a technical communicator
most successful in reaching that audience? Can those aspects of knowledge
be separated or ranked in order of importance?
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Which is more effective: knowledge of the language of a subculture, or
knowledge of cultural values and beliefs? Can one benefit a technical
communicator without the other?
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How specific does the knowledge need to be in order for the technical
communicator to be effective?
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If a certain amount or depth of knowledge can be determined for success, is it
a reasonable goal for all technical communicators to strive toward? How will
the time taken to learn about these subcultures affect the productivity of
technical communicators?
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How do you format a course in order to teach technical communicators not
only about the Hispanic subculture, but others? Can it be done successfully?
•
Is a bilingual technical communicator still more effective in reaching an
audience even if that audience does not speak either of the languages that a
technical communicator is familiar with? Does simply the knowledge of more
than one language benefit a technical communicator, or make them more
sensitive to the needs of subcultures?
Conclusion
As globalization continues to draw more attention in technical communication
trends, we cannot lose sight of the needs of subcultures in our own backyard. Cultural
and language differences between the subcultures and the majority population, especially
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technical communicators in both academics and industry, should be viewed as
opportunities for social and economical strengthening, not as limitations.
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