12

Teaching English Business Writing to Chinese-Speaking Business Students Linda Beamer University, Los Angeles

California State

lassrooms in American schools of business increasC in 1 include students from Chinese-speaking backgrounds. Students from Asia make up more than or &dquo;visa&dquo; students in the United States, and over half of them are enrolled in graduate programs; of these Asian students more than 90,000 in 1992 were from three Chinese-speaking locales: China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong (Gonzales, 1993, p. H/6). More international students come from China alone than any other country: 42,940 in 1991-92, up 8.4% from the previous year. This is in addition to the large number of American students of Asian heritage-448,000 in 1986 (Digest of Educational Statistics, 1988, Table 146, p.170). Since immigration from Asia more than doubled in the 1980s, many of these Asian-American students are recent immigrants. Of them, a large proportionfrom Vietnam, Cambodia, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong and China-are Chinese-speaking. They and the visa students share certain identifiable problems in writing English. Some problems are due to differences in the grammars of Chinese and English, which are great. Chinese has neither verb tense, nor number, nor articles, nor gender of pronouns, nor the same prepositions as English. Some errors also have to do with the complexities of English; after all, native speakers also make mistakes. But there are less obvious differences about language, such as its structure, that affect nonnative English writing skills. Along with structure of language goes structure of thinking. There appear to be profound differences in how Chinese speakers and English speakers understand and process information.

60% of the international

According to a Los Angeles 7imes special report, 8% of university students in the United States from China in 1990 were enrolled in business and management programs (Iniguez 1993, p. H/4.) Other Chinese-speaking students choose business programs also. Business communication teachers in all parts of the United States,in all sizes of institutions and levels of programs, encounter Chinese-speaking students and their problems as nonnative speakers in writing effective English business messages. In my graduate and undergraduate business communication classes at California State University, Los Angeles, for example, about half the students are Chinese-speaking. Since the faculty who teach English business communication are largely native English speakers, the assumption normally goes unchallenged that their approach to understanding and communicating is the

only appropriate one. As Upton points out, many problems Chinese visa students experience are due to &dquo;misunderstandings between pupil and teacher arising from different culturally-based assumptions, but it is usually left to the student to make the adjustment necessary for success&dquo; (1989, p. 26). But adjustment on either side is difficult when neither recognizes the other is operating with a different expectation for the classroom experience or from a language structure that reflects different ways of organizing thought. There is another cultural consideration that can figure in the writing problems of Chinese-speaking students: students from different ethnic origins have different learning styles, as suggested by Gollnick and Chinn (1990) in their chapter on &dquo;Strategies for Multicultural Education.&dquo; &dquo;

This paper addresses four areas of difference: (a) conventions of writing in English, (b) the structure of thought and its relationship to language, (c) the meaning of learning, and (d) classification versus analysis. Each section includes recommendations for how business communication teachers can help Chinese-speaking students understand the cultural roots of their

writing problems. CONVENTIONS OF WRITING ENGLISH TEXT

Although post-secondary writing instructors assume students have learned the conventions of writing in English, often Chinese-speaking students and others from nonalphabetic languages must have these conventions explicitly identified. At the surface level are the conventions of punctuation. For example, I frequently see student writing that begins a line of text with a comma. This startling practice is not so incomprehensible when one recalls that Chinese text is often written top-tobottom and right-to-left. Students can adopt the convention that punctuation follows wording, once it has been explained. Native speakers of English, educated entirely in English, are sensitive to the conventions because of frequent exposure to them throughout their schooling (Kaplan, 1990). Students who come late to English education or who speak another language outside the classroom may not have perceived conventions in spite of exposure to them in English reading assignments. Conventions concerning tone are more difficult for students to master: why may it be inappropriate to use the word &dquo;perfect&dquo; about a product in a sales letter, but acceptable to use another superlative such as &dquo;best&dquo; or &dquo;most advanced&dquo;?

13

The concept of plagiarism and the principle of ownership of intellectual property, including the language in which it is expressed, is even more abstract, but documenting quotations is an important convention of written English, not to say an ethical social convention of American culture. Business communication students who have to do research for analytical reports and who may look forward to employment in an English-speaking organization need to learn documentation conventions. The address on the envelope of a business letter is a good example of a convention; the sequence in North America and Europe is exactly the opposite from China, where the envelope first identifies the country, then the city, then the street, then the specific location or lane on the street, then the person at that location. Asian students have little difficulty learning the process of correspondence-writing and the conventions of the formats, the process of report-writing and the conventions of the preliminary and supplementary material, and the process of presentation-giving and conventions of delivery, once they are explained. Similarly, in my experience, Asian students quickly learn the principles of writing sketched here as &dquo;conventions,&dquo; from punctuation to ethics, when they are explained and not merely assumed to be understood. By presenting these conventions neutrally, without surprise at the student’s failure to follow them, teachers can help students master them. STRUCTURE OF THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE Explicit and Implicit Messages Explicitness of encoding in language versus implicitness is another area of difference in English and Chinese communication. As a rule, business communication teachers urge students to use simple language, direct wording and to strive for clarity in messages. Kaplan (1990) follows Hinds in calling this &dquo;writer-responsible&dquo; language, in which the writer takes responsibility for delivering the meaning of the message by explicitly encoding it in words and by starting with a main idea followed by details. Kaplan offers an example in the BBC World Service news, which proceeds from headlines to exposition in detail to a summary of headlines again. The opposite is &dquo;reader-responsible&dquo; writing, in which meaning is implied rather than explicitly stated. It uses indirectness and metaphor, and it calls upon the reader to take responsibility for interpreting the meaning. Asian literature has a long history of readerresponsible writings, and much of the discourse of modern Chinese culture is also full of allusion, proverbial phrases, analogy, and inference the writer’s tools for indirect communication and implicit messages. Since Chinese messages often operate on more than one -

level, the real

message is not necessarily the message encoded in words. Reader-responsible writing is consonant with high-context cultures in which members share meanings, experiences, values and attitudes and in which messages can be understood without being

explicit (Hall, 1979). As members of

high-context culture, Chinese speakers enjoy communicating in proverbs. These fourword phrases may encapsulate an abstraction of some sophistication; for example, to &dquo;play the harp before the ox&dquo; (dui niu tan qin) means that to expend labor in the presentation of complexities and refinements-such as in negotiating a contract-is to labor in vain, since it is lost on the imperceptive listener. It comes close to the English adage about casting pearls before swine. While Chinese-speaking students rarely translate proverbs literally into English business communication exercises, they nevertheless tend to rely on implied mesa

a much greater extent than do U. S. business writers. &dquo;We have a problem about absenteeism and want to know whether we should institute a child care facility&dquo; is assumed by some of my Chinese-speaking students to convey the unencoded message: &dquo;Please do research into the effect of an on-site child care facility upon employee absenteeism, and write an analytical re-

sages to

»

port. Messages that are bad news for the reader are often implied rather than explicit. When a Chinese business writer says a manufacturing procedure will be &dquo;very difficult&dquo; to implement, but that there is &dquo;great strength of will&dquo; to overcome the problems, the real message probably is that it cannot be done. If a message is deliberately indirect so that the reader is made responsible for interpreting the bad news, rather than the writer for delivering it, the writer saves face that would otherwise be lost. Excessive courtesy in the wording of an unwelcome message also can cushion the reader’s loss of face or loss of harmony. A good example is an elaborately flattering refusal letter such as the one quoted in Andrews and Andrews’ Business Communiccztion: We have read your manuscript with boundless

delight. If publish your paper it would be impossible for us to publish any work of a lower standard (1992, p. 277). we were

to

The point is that whether the culture is high-context low-context, and whether explicit or implicit communication prevails, the skills of communicating are not

or

value-free. We cannot teach our students how to create business documents without also teaching cultural priorities.

Logic Logic is culturally defined. The syllogistic reasoning of Aristotle, for example, is not a universal phenomenon; it has been part of the Anglo-European tradition for such a long time that speakers of English tend to assume that it is a natural

14

phenomenon of the human mind rather than an invention of the human mind (Kaplan, 1990, p. 10). Logic in the Western tradition is frequently in a lin-

easily to this pun pattern, students are not so likely to use it in English; nevertheless written assignments from Chinese students may seem not to present logical

cause-and-effect pattern. The Chinese mind also perceives cause and effect, of course, but not necessarily in the same language pattern that a Western mind does. Words in a sequential pattern that imply causality to an English speaker do not necessarily imply causality to a Chinese. For example, English grammatical constructions that begin with &dquo;When&dquo; and are followed by the

arguments.

ear

imply causality: &dquo;When we reviewed our accounts [then] we discovered your overpayment.&dquo; In a Chinese mind, these are not necessarily related by causality but rather mean something like, ’We discovered your overpayment. We were reviewing our accounts at the time:’ &dquo;If then,&dquo; &dquo;because,&dquo; &dquo;therefore,&dquo; and &dquo;consequently&dquo; are just a few of many words in English that express causality. Correspondingly, Chinese-speaking students may use words that attribute causality when no cause-andeffect relationship exists. This problem often appears in sentences that begin with dangling modifiers: &dquo;For your convenience, Blue Crab is an international restaurant resultant &dquo;then&dquo;

...

chain.&dquo; The writer may be unconscious of the cause-andeffect pattern in this sentence because no causality is implied in the Chinese wording. (Dangling modifiers are also a common grammatical error for native speakers, however, so this suggestion is presented with qualified enthusiasm.) This is more than second-language interference; it is a conflict about what is illogical and what is logical. Particularly baffling to a Chinese mind is negative causality that is hypothetical or contrary to fact: &dquo;If the Minto takeover does not go through, the merger with Grummel might not happen.&dquo; In the mind of a Chinese speaker, the conditional &dquo;might&dquo; following a negative makes no sense-why even discuss the negation of something that did not happen? By the same token, Chinese logic may operate in a pattern that seems contrived or even fanciful to a Westerner. The pattern may be an auditory pun that seems to replace logic; what it does, of course, is juxtapose two unrelated categories on the basis of an apparent similarity, which pleases the Chinese sense of order. For example, a well-known landscape architect and authority on Chinese gardens seriously points out that the word for &dquo;pine tree&dquo; (sung) is pronounced like the word for &dquo;loose&dquo; (sung), and therefore pine trees should be planted loosely, not close together (Chen, 1984). The Hong Kong skyline includes five smokestacks, although one is a dummy; the reason is &dquo;four&dquo; sounds like the Cantonese word for death, and is an unlucky omen on the horizon. While many buildings in the United States lack a 13th floor from a presumed causality, it is not auditory-that is, it is not based on the sound of the word &dquo;thirteen.&dquo; Since English does not lend itself so

Business communication teachers can help Chinesespeaking students understand writer-responsible messages by appealing to the students’ need to develop skill in encoding explicitly in order to succeed in business in this culture. Native and nonnative English speakers alike need to learn how to plan messages that move in a sequence from summary or key idea, to details, then back to summary. I find examples are helpful and sometimes use specific examples of nonlinear texts translated from Chinese or Japanese; haiku poetry is useful. The logic of these examples is clear to speakers of those languages but not to native English speakers. It is important not to imply that one logic is superior to the other. When students can see the differences for themselves, without one being evaluated above the other, they can see how to emulate the linear logic that will be accepted most readily by Western employers. Native speakers of English also benefit by seeing that logic is not the same in all cultures, and some adaptation may be necessary on their part to communicate successfully with business counterparts in Asia. Directness and Indirectness Another problem for Chinese-speaking students is the directness of expository prose in English that puts the main idea first. Writing instructors in Englishspeaking classrooms teach that writers should begin with an announcement of what will be discussed, proceed to a discussion organized under main points with a degree of elaboration through subdivisions, examples, supporting evidence and other devices, and conclude with a summary. Business communication teachers usually spend time on outlining correspondence, reports and oral presentations in this pattern. An indirect approach is often taught as a contrast to the more normative direct approach. Many students have a great reluctance to come directly to the point in correspondence, especially when requesting an adjustment or a refund. In one assignment, I ask students to request that an auto body shop re-do unsatisfactory work. Even after class discussion, Chinese-speaking students often write in an indirect approach. Instead of saying &dquo;Please schedule an appointment to re-do the body work on my car&dquo; in the opening paragraph, they begin with a generalization. They give a history of the original body work, then mention that paint is peeling on what was supposed to have been a new part revealing rust underneath, and some students even praise the body shop’s reputation. Finally, at the end of the letter, they ask for the work to be done again.

15

Chinese-speaking students often open a discussion by establishing a context for an idea. Generalizations that a Western mind may not perceive as related to one another form

a

web into which the idea under discus-

placed. For example, a memo to a superior suggesting a meeting to discuss new software, say to facilitate an accounting function, may begin by referring to a previous purchase and recounting its benefits. Then the memo may describe the background of the present situation and then report a recent phone call from a supplier of specific software. Finally, after an account of the benefits the supplier is promising, the memo may suggest holding discussions with the supplier. Thus the suggestion to consider a meeting will only be made after a context for the suggestion has been established, and a web of interrelated issues has been sion is

woven.

By contrast, in the United States a native English speaker might write, &dquo;I think we should meet with Bennett to see what his new software can do for our account-

ing department,&dquo; and then give benefits. McLeod (1989), who describes the web thinking of Chinese business people, reports that often a &dquo;why&dquo; question draws a response that is a description of a web pattern, not a &dquo;

Cdcause

Perhaps the single most important characteristic of English language and thought for Chinese-speaking business students to learn is that cause-and-effect patterns dominate business communication in Englishspeaking cultures. Knowing that other patterns are used in Chinese cultures may give business communication teachers some insight into why Chinese-speaking students have difficulty writing English business messages that meet their expectations. Web Versus Cause-and-Effect Thinking A key to understanding the web pattern of thinking lies in the social system of relationships (guanxi) by which Chinese organizations exist. Each organization has a number of relationships or linkages to other units. The existence of the linkages is a constant in Chinese cultures; change only means change in how strong or weak the linkages are. Webs of relationships exist between businesses, between families, between all organizations. Web thinking, or emphasis on context drives business. By contrast, in the United States and other Western countries, cause-and-effect thinking, or emphasis on results, drives business. The way thinking is structured seems closely connected to the way syntax is structured. In English a cause-and-effect pattern is implicit in the structure of the message and is conveyed by the linear, temporal relationship of elements of the message; in Chinese, a web pattern is paramount and is conveyed by relationships or linkages between elements of the message that are spatial, from most general to most specific. In English,

usually follow a chronological sequence. This is mainly conveyed through verb tenses: for example, the sequence of past-to-present is implicit in a sentence such as &dquo;Your company has always given good service, but this turnaround time is unsatisfactory.&dquo; Many prepositional and adverbial clauses also contain references to time: when, after, by, while, during, before. A sentence such as &dquo;I go to a restaurant for lunch every day&dquo; is understood by an English speaker in the same sequence in which it takes place in real time, except for the indefinite adjective and its noun telling when (&dquo;every day&dquo;). &dquo;I,&dquo; the subject, is introduced first. &dquo;I go&dquo; describes the movement of the subject in time; &dquo;to a restaurant&dquo; describes the arrival of the subject and the completion of the verb action; &dquo;for lunch&dquo; describes the purpose of going, which takes place after arrival. The written text travels from left to right across the page, just as the sentence unfolds in syntactic sequence and just as the event unfolds in chronological sequence. Syntactic elements are related to one another in time. Causality is also implied in the message: the reason for going to the restaurant is to eat lunch. This characteristic of English, causality in temporal terms, makes it an excellent language for planning (McLeod, 1989) and for analysis that uncovers cause-and-effect relationships. The same sentence in Chinese would, according to rules of grammar, have to begin with the largest, most universal category first: &dquo;Every day.&dquo; This frames the statement like a frame around a painting. Next is the next-most-universal category, &dquo;to a restaurant,&dquo; placing the event in a more narrowly defined frame. &dquo;Go&dquo; is next; it is not the means by which (causality) the event takes place, but rather it is another dimension or plane of the whole pattern. &dquo;Eat lunch&dquo; is the last element, and the most specific meaning in the sentence since it is the most narrowly defined activity. In Chinese, &dquo;lunch&dquo; is expressed as the activity of eating, not the noun object of a verb (in fact, the words literally are &dquo;eat mid-day rice&dquo;). This is the center of the frames that make up the message. The pronoun &dquo;I&dquo; does not necessarily appear. The whole sentence in Chinese is, &dquo;Every day to a restaurant go eat mid-day rice.&dquo; The point of this comparison is to illustrate that English-speaking writers favor the chronologically sequential pattern, while Chinesespeaking writers favor a spatially sequential pattern that moves from largest to smallest or most general to most specific. An analogy can be drawn to the discussion above about the way envelopes are addressed in Chinese: general to specific. The Chinese syntactic elements form a context, frames within frames like concentric circles. The English syntactic elements form a linear pattern. Chinese texts use other nonlinear patterns. An argument may be presented from two contrasted points of view (correlational logic), or an idea may be developed in terms of what it is not (Kaplan, 1966). An example of sentences

16

the former is contrasting opposite seasons, summer and winter, in order to advise a business traveller about what diseases to prevent: summer diseases include malaria and hepatitis A, winter diseases include influenza and bronchitis. Or something &dquo;may be explained by pointing to another event that occurred at the same time, even though by Western logic the two are not related&dquo; (Stewart & Bennett, 1991, p. 44). An example of developing an idea in terms of what it is not is familiar in the rhetorical device of litotes (understatement) in antiphrastic phrases such as &dquo;worthless son,&dquo; &dquo;humble administrator,&dquo; &dquo;foolish scribblings,&dquo; and &dquo;poor student.&dquo; Business communication students from Chinese-speaking backgrounds may embed similar antiphrastic terms in business correspondence, thinking the reader will correctly interpret the true meaning. A phrase such as &dquo;our poor efforts&dquo; may be used to describe extraordinary activities, and &dquo;this humble organization&dquo; to denote a successful firm. Teachers can respond with constructive comments when they understand the cultural values behind this preference for patterns of logic other than linear. Giving students the opportunity to describe their own logical thinking processes can open their eyes to the possibilities of other approaches. Asking students how they think can yield a range of responses, some obviously more perceptive than others: &dquo;in words,&dquo; &dquo;in images,&dquo; &dquo;by remembering where I was and where the teacher was standing,&dquo; and so forth. When asked, &dquo;Do you think in an outline?&dquo; some students may respond with the a~rmative because they think it is expected, but others may say they use clusters of ideas or visual or auditory signals, or a process of association that they can’t explain. The objective is to make students aware that there are many ways to be logical and that linear logic is worth learning because of its use in business in Western organizations, not because it is the only way to be logical. WHAT &dquo;TO LEARN&dquo; MEANS How one learns and what it means to know are primary cultural constructs, along with what constitutes knowledge (Beamer, 1992). Teachers of Chinesespeaking students whose early education was in a Chinese dialect (or whose parents’ education was in Chinese) must confront their own and their students’ assumptions about what it means to learn. In Chinese cultures, the teacher is the authority whose message never deviates from the textbook and who imparts the text’s correct information to the students. A famous educator and university president, Qian Weichang, gave me this (tongue-in-cheek) description of the university teacher: First the teacher comes in and spends twenty minutes writing on the board from the textbook. Then the students copy that into their notebooks, which takes twenty minutes. Then the teacher reads what is on the

board, and that takes twenty minutes. The bell rings and class is over (personal conversation, November 1985).

Most Chinese believe a good teacher is an enthusiastic lecturer, but whether entertaining or not, the teacher has a primary responsibility to dispense true information. In China, Western teachers who walk into a classroom and ask students, &dquo;What do you think?&dquo; are perceived to be either unprepared (without a lecture to read) or unfamiliar with the topic. Class discussion is considered a waste of valuable time: Why should students have to listen to peers who are as ignorant as they, when they could be listening to the teacher? The role of the student is to listen, write down, memorize, and thereby master what has been imparted. In the classroom, the student’s role is passive. Although physical presence in the classroom is considered obligatory, mental attention may not be so important. (I once sat at the back of a classroom in Shanghai, where the subject was classical Chinese poetry, among students who slept, read newspapers, and even sang aloud!) At home, students con their textbooks until they can repeat them verbactim in the ancient and honorable tradition. Dong Qing, a graduate student in an International Business Communication course I taught in Shanghai, had this to say about not having a textbook: at first, no textbook made me feel a bit at a loss, because I used to take notes in class, then studied the notes and the book after class. So at the beginning of the term, when I came home and looked at my notebook, I find [sic] nothing. Later, I realized that what I should do is listen carefully and think in class, not write in class and study at home. From then on, I felt I’m the master of learning (personal ...

communication, January 23,1986). In

China, as Matalene notes, &dquo;The usual response to literary text is to repeat it, not paraphrase, analyze or interpret it&dquo; (1985, p. 791). This goes back millennia; the famous communicator of Confucius’ teachings, his disciple Mencius, claimed not to have altered anything but to have transmitted the Master’s words exactly as he was taught. Mastery by memory is demonstrated in examinations. Historically, in order to pass the Civil Examinations and thereby hold an office in the civil administration of China, scholars had to memorize classical texts, some over 2000 years old, and understand them (Upton, 1989). They were not to change or interpret or assess the wisdom of the masters, but simply reproduce it. Good students obtained choice government posts; good students were the ones who memoa

rized best. The legacy from historical precedents of famous scholars is still strong in modern Chinese cultures. Examinations at all levels measure how accurately students have committed written texts to memory. Examination results determine whether students pass or fail a course, whether they graduate from high

17

school, whether they succeed in a university. Students learn to pin their expectations on exam grades, attaching less importance to performance in other assignments. A ditty I heard in 1986 sung by university students in Chongqing, Sichuan, China goes: Exams,

exams,

that’s the teacher’s weapon; Grades,

grades, that’s the student’s lifeline!

By contrast, in North American culture learning asking questions, probing what is known, atomizing and measuring it and then making forays into the unknown with projections and hypotheses. Many teachers extol the virtue of &dquo;asking a good question&dquo; above knowing answers. Teachers see their responsibility as developing critical faculties in students, sharpening their intellectual curiosity and helping students think. Western teachers believe they can and should teach students how to reason. The processing of information and the organization of concepts in a logical sequence are what matter. means

Business communication instruction often describes a situation or case and gives strategies for framing a suitable message along with examples, then asks students to apply the strategies in a similar but different situation. Students need to abstract the strategies and apply them based on an analysis of the situation in the assignment. They are asked to reason what outcomes are desirable and how best they can be achieved. Of course, reasoning and problem-solving are not the exclusive property of English speakers-the Chinese have been doing both for millennia. But students from a Chinese educational background where abstraction and analysis are not emphasized are uncomfortable with such assignments. The discomfort also involves cultural issues such as the Asian attitude towards the apparent arrogance of an individual who proposes something without first seeking consensus or strictly modeling it on a precedent. One approach toward easing Chinese-speaking students’ discomfort is for instructors to explain that class discussion is a way of providing a group example of &dquo;processing&dquo; information, of reasoning. In-class processing of information aloud can be contrasted with other learning styles in other cultures. Students at least begin to have an appreciation for different ways to learn, and at best they experiment with using class discussion to understand. Instructors can also inform students that in their jobs they will be expected to attend meetings and participate in the discussions. CLASSIFICATION VERSUS ANALYSIS What it means to learn is closely related to what it means to know. Academic learning in the Chinese cultural tradition begins with Chinese characters, which

have to be memorized. Characters are copied from models; this is the basis for later learning methodology. (It can be seen in the preference by students from Chinese-speaking backgrounds for letter models to copy from when doing assignments.) Being able to reproduce learning is not the same thing as being able to analyze or abstract from one level to another. In Western classrooms, where students are asked to take an idea apart and draw inferences, to test and make projections, to analyze and hypothesize, students trained in a Chinese system may flounder. Instead of analysis, they may respond with lists. This is particularly true in my experience with Chinese-speaking students in North America when they write an analytical report: points are simply identified. The writers, seeking objectivity, are not comfortable giving unequivocal recommendations based upon their interpretation of findings and conclusions. &dquo;The Chinese do not analyze a topic by breaking it into parts. Their thinking ... lacks the power of precise analysis but it excels in identification&dquo; (Stewart & Bennett, 1991, p. 43). Throughout their formal education, students in Chinese cultures memorize and classify an enormous amount of data. At a primary level of learning, the thing is not only identified by, but is identified as, its name. A written word not only has meaning, it also has a graphic representation in the Chinese character. More than in an alphabet language, a word has an objective identity. To name or identify something is to know it. Learning a number of categories and classifications constitutes a large part of early education. When identification of a concept stands for knowing the concept, classification itself is knowledge. Classifications take the place of analysis. In later education, students learn more and more classifications but they have little experience with a learning process that requires abstraction and critical thinking (Gadda, 1991). On the other hand, Westerners who attempt to learn Chinese have their greatest grammatical problems with the &dquo;classification words,&dquo; for which no European language has consistent counterparts (they are usually translated as &dquo;a&dquo; or, when used with a number, &dquo;of ’). These words classify nouns according to characteristics, often physical. Long, stick-like objects have one word, roundish objects have another word, and so on through scores of denominators. They are precise, in a way English definite and indefinite articles are not. The importance of classification is difficulty to stress, since its equivalent does not exist in English discourse. One example of its power is the continuing reference in modern times to a debate that reportedly took place in the Spring and Autumn period (about 720-480 BC) over classifications. It is in the phrase, ’A white horse is not a horse&dquo; (bai ma fei ma): &dquo;white&dquo; is a meaningful distinction, so it is argued a white horse&dquo; belongs to a different category from &dquo;horse:’ ...

18

Students from Chinese-speaking backgrounds are likely to offer classifications in response to an assignment to write an analytical report. For example, students simply give categories of drug treatment programs rather than evaluate the effect of drug treatment programs on, say, employee morale. Yet these students work hard to gather data from published sources and compile it into categories; they believe they are fulfilling the &dquo;analytical research&dquo; requirements.

Teachers can explain the pedagogical position that their goal is to encourage students to learn to reason, to think critically, and to analyze, and that this is as important as providing facts for students to assimilate. Employers expect to hire students who can identify problems, not just wait to be told about problems; this information can motivate students to understand anal-

ysis. When I assign the formal analytical report, rather than assuming students understand what &dquo;analysis&dquo; means, I discuss analysis as an investigation of a relationship between two variables. One example I use is the problem of employee theft. The class generates a number of solutions to this problem: surveillance systems, security guards, undercover observers, pre-employment honesty tests. I discuss with them how going to the library and finding published information on theft and reporting it carefully and exhaustively-the behavior of a good student in Chinese cultures-will not yield an analytical report, but rather a descriptive one. Analysis will result only when they can show the effect of A upon B. Then we identify the research they must do for the report as an inquiry into the effect of variable A (one of the solutions) on variable B (theft). I discuss cause-and-effect logic as part of the introduction of the assignment. Next, I have students create a context for their research. This is specifically to assist the Chinese-speaking students for whom context is an important cognitive precept, but it also helps other students. I ask them to identify the problem that gives rise to their own research and name the person who will read their report. A context for their analytical research helps them focus the scope of their project and makes them aware of the role of reports in business: to tell the reader what the reader needs to know-as opposed to reports from students to teachers that try to show the students’ mastery of knowledge the teacher already has. CONCLUSION What may at first appear to be problems of grammar and vocabulary often, in fact, have their origin in cultural differences. The suggestions offered here for teachers all have in common their contextualization in Western business culture.

Business communication teachers have to teach business culture in a more conscious way than they may have realized. After all, the skills taught for successful business communication are not value-free. Our goal has to go beyond the teaching of process as if it were neutral. Our goal is for our students to be able to use communication skills in a meaningful way, and meaning comes from culture. Conversely, teachers also need to be sensitive to the cultural priorities in business messages to and from Chinese speakers. Native English speakers in the classroom need to learn to appreciate this diversity as well, since our students will likely work in multicultural organizations, and work with overseas associates, as the global marketplace continues to grow. Once Chinese-speaking students have understood the cultural reasons for the differences in how English speakers think and learn and know and organize their messages for business communication, they will be empowered to use this understanding to perform in business communication classes and beyond. REFERENCES

Andrews, D. C., & Andrews, W. D. (1992). Business communication (2nd ed.). New York: Macmillan. Beamer, L. (1992). Learning intercultural communication competence. Journal of Business Communication, 29 (3), 285-303.

Chen, Z. Z. (1984). An essay on Chinese gardens. (Unpublished trans.) Shanghai: Tongji University. Digest of education statistics. (1988). Washington: United States Department of Education, Office of Education Research and

Improvement. Gadda, G. (1991). Writing

and language socialization across cultures: Some implications for the classroom. In F Peitzman & G. Gadda (Eds.), With different eyes. Los Angeles: California Academic Partnership Program.

Gollnick, D. M., & Chinn, P. C. (1990). Multicultural education in a pluralistic society (3rd ed.). New York: Macmillan. Gonzales, P. (1993, January 19). Speaking of foreign students

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