Intercultural Communication: Writing to An International Audience

When you are asked to prepare a document for an international audience, you should apply many, if not all, of the traditional techniques of business, technical, and professional writing. However, there are unique requirements that you might not have considered.

Use Plain Language Techniques

If even governments now recognize and support plain language, you know that there must be something valuable about the principles it advocates. Those principles are even more important when it comes to international audiences, for whom English is likely a second language (ESL). So when you write for an international audience, use

• Logical organization with the reader in mind
• “You” and other pronouns
• Active voice
• Short sentences
• Common, everyday words
• Easy-to-read design features

Write Shorter Sentences

Writing shorter sentences is a basic tenet of professional writing anyway, so it should not come as any shock that it proves relevant to international exchanges. Writing shorter sentences does not mean, however, that you should “dumb down” your writing so that it sounds like you have produced a first-grade reader (“See Spot run. Run, Spot, run.”) Topic sentences, transitions, and a blend of sentences styles (simple, compound, complex, etc.) create a pleasing, clear style.

Avoid Overly Formal Language

Avoiding overly formal language does not mean you should avoid technical terms, because often they must be used, particularly when you are discussing technology, mechanics, science, and other subjects for which there are no suitable replacement terms. It does mean, however, avoiding formal language, including words like heretofore (before) and peruse (study). Don’t choose the $25 word when the 25 cent one will work just as well.

Use Active Voice

Although active voice can sound “stronger,” which might be risky in cultures that are more deferential, it also leads to clearer meanings because sentences written in active voice always use fewer words. 

Opt for Positive Constructions

Imagine if your friend asks you this: “Do you not want to go to dinner with us?” If you want to go, is the correct answer “yes” – or “no”? How much simpler and easy to answer is the question “Do you want to go to dinner with us?” Use of negative constructions can be confusing if English is your first language, so don’t make things difficult for ESL readers. Instead of writing “You cannot select a color until you select a size,” avoid the “cannot”: “You must select a size before you select a color.”

For additional grammatical guidelines, check out a site like Writing for a Global Audience: 25 Dos and Don'ts Links to an external site. or read Michael Kriz’s archived article “10 Tips for Writing International Technical Content" Links to an external site. (an older article, but a good one).

Avoid Idioms

An idiom is a phrase that has become so commonplace in a language that most natives know what it means, although it might actually seem pretty nonsensical to someone unfamiliar with it. Does it really rain cats and dogs? If you’re avoiding getting to the point, are you really beating around the bush? 

Through relatively consistent use across the English language and among English speakers, those phrases and others like them are well known. But even within English, geography can have its own effect on what things are called. 

For example, when you were growing up, did you make eggs for breakfast in a frying pan, a skillet, or a spider? Did you get your water from a faucet or a spigot? On summer nights, did you catch lightning bugs or fireflies? Did you go to the playground and ride the teeter-totter, see-saw, or dandle? Do you wear sneakers or tennis shoes? Do you drink soda or pop? Do you eat subs or hoagies? The Wikipedia page on “American English Regional Vocabularies” Links to an external site. is just one source for information on how where you live can shape what you call common, everyday items.  

And when it comes to other countries, even English-speaking ones, idioms might not cross border checkpoints or oceans. For example, if someone from England told you that you were over-egging the pudding, would you know what it meant? [It means you’re over complicating the situation!] And if the same person says you’re doing something off your own bat, is that a good thing – or a bad thing? [It’s a very good thing; in fact, it means that you’re doing something on your own initiative, without being asked.]

In order to avoid possible confusion, avoid idioms. 

Choose Visuals Wisely

Visuals definitely enhance the written text. They clarify a point that in writing might be vague or confusing. They illuminate or extend a word description. So when you can add visuals to a professional document, you are being friendly to the reader by helping them picture what they have read. However, when you are writing to an international audience, choose your visuals wisely. 

For example, if you are creating an international advertising campaign for a new toothpaste that leaves your breath kissably fresh, the television spots or print ads you produce for Turkey or India should not feature the obvious lovers’ kiss. Why? Because in those countries, public displays of affection are culturally inappropriate. 

And while slapping your hand with your fist in America represents certainty or firmness of resolve, don’t plan on showing that image in an ad in Brazil, where the gesture can mean “screw you”!  

Avoid Stereotypes

Although it would seem to go without saying that you should also avoid stereotypical, racist, or culturally insensitive portrayals of the people to whom your work is being directed, the real-world ad shown  below — archived at the site Ads of the World Links to an external site. — prove that cultural awareness does not always come naturally.

This 2011 Turkish Airlines ad, designed by McCann Erickson in Istanbul, Turkey, is meant to advertise the Turkish Airlines app and show the far range of their flights — even to Beijing, China. As it represents images we traditionally associate with Chinese culture, particularly those that tourists would appreciate — the pagoda, the dragon float common to traditional parades, the cherry blossom tree — the ad does a fairly good job of representing Chinese culture in a positive way. 

Yet in the foreground, the ad features two finger puppets (a link to the phrase “the world is at your fingertips” in the tag line) dressed in traditional Chinese attire, eating what is essentially Chinese takeout. Even if the puppets can be given a pass for their clothing, the fact that they are eating Chinese takeout of the paper cartons does not accurately depict food customs for those who live in China, but instead recalls a practice common to the western world. 

Besides incorrectly portraying Chinese food culture, the ad can be viewed as perpetuating racial stereotypes. Both of the puppets have eyes that are slanted. This could be a natural result of their wide smiles, but it also suggests a common stereotype associated with the eyes of Asians. Also, we know that one puppet is male; the other, female. Certainly, the attire provides a clue, but the puppet in front also has a small red bud mouth, which has been a makeup fashion in different periods of Chinese history, but it most often associated with the sexual objectification of Chinese (and Japanese) women.

As these ads show, when you select visuals, you should base your decisions on research into the culture of the country or countries depicted. Consider not just the cultural taboos, but also religious prohibitions and any laws that are in place. Be aware of the  ways that the culture has been stereotyped and avoid perpetuating those stereotypes in your own work.

Although you might spend your entire career working within a confined geographical area and with a very local audience, chances are good that at some point – whether you become a writer, teacher, scientist, physician, or [name your career of choice] – you will need to interact with ESL or international audiences. If you keep in mind the principles discussed here, you will have a good start on ensuring that such interaction is positive for all involved.