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Subject:Re: say please--cultural differences? From:Karen Kay <karen -at- WORDWRITE -dot- COM> Date:Mon, 15 Jun 1998 22:56:01 -0700
Jessica N. Lange said:
> However, it seems to me that the 'politeness factor' may be a cultural
> thing--that other countries think the direct approach in tech writing is
> rude. The Japanese culture in particular is very polite and indirect; I have
> read they do not like to say "no."
This is not exactly true. (Ha! What a Japanese answer! Well, that
what's I was going to say, that most of the time people talk around a
no rather than express it directly. It sounds odder to me when you
talk about it in English than it does when you say it in Japanese.)
> Does anyone take these cultural differences into account when writing
> documentation? Do you try to be more polite, less direct?
If you are going to be writing for an international audience, this may
be useful. But I suspect not. Most of them will be used to reading
English and will find circumlocutions unclear rather marveling at
their politeness.
If you are writing for translation, then absolutely, positively not.
It is the job of the translator to the language to put in all the
pleases, the same way that it's been my job in the past to take them
all out!
Karen
karen -at- wordwrite -dot- com
Former professor of Japanese
Former translator of Japanese
Current technical writer of nothing whatsoever to do with Japanese.
