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Subject:Re: Examination for Japanese tech communicators From:Nancy Hoft <itech -at- MV -dot- MV -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 8 Mar 1995 21:34:04 -0500
I'm a bit offended by Robert's statement about Japanese technical
writing. I am the Manager of STC's International Technical Communication
Professional Interest Committee. One of our missions is to liaison with
technical communication societies around the world. One of them is the
Japanese Technical Communicators Association (JTCA), which is currently
sponsored by the MITI. I know many of the trustees of JTCA, and I can
assure you that their companies are more devoted to creating quality
technical documentation than many American companies. What you are
describing here is a translation problem, and possibly--very
possibly--NOT a writing problem.
In addition to JTCA, STC has a Tokyo Chapter, which was successful enough
to warrant the attention of the Japanese government (MITI). (No comment
on whether this will be a good thing or not.)
There is so much technical documentation that comes from Japan, and you
would never even know it because it's very goo and its translation is
equally excellent.
The ITC PIC has a liaison to both the JTCA and the Tokyo chapter. We
publish information about their activities in our newsletter, Global
Talk, which is published quarterly. One of the projects we're currently
working on is getting a copy of a survey JTCA submitted to technical
writers throughout Japan (and perhaps others) to find out more about what
constitutes quality technical documentation. Do you see the U.S.
government doing this? (The European Community also undertook a similar
project a few years back.) We have a volunteer who is bilingual and is
helping us to find out more about the survey, and perhaps get permission
to republish some of the results in Global Talk.
Anyway, I think you should be careful about statements like the ones made
below. If you could read the original Japanese and draw the same
conclusion, I might be persuaded that the particular author did a
bad job, but I don't think this is what you mean.
Technical communicators are being taken very seriously in
Japan. Japanese technical documentation is most definitely _NOT_ the
laughingstock of the entire world. American's inability to read and
speak many languages fluently is, however, THE laughingstock of the
entire world.
Nancy Hoft, Manager, STC, International Technical Communication Professional
Interest Committee
On Wed, 8 Mar 1995, Robert Plamondon wrote:
> >One of the reasons is that (they hope) this kind of examination can help
> >enhance the status of technical communicators, whose profession is almost
> >unknown to the general public in Japan, and help make tech communicators/
> >writers more visible specialists in companies (manufacturers). I hear
> >tech communicators are often regarded as second-class citizens by
> >engineers in Japan. Does this make sense?
> Yes. When you realize that phrases like "stereo instructions" are in
> common use among the general public to indicate "writing that makes
> no sense at all, even though the topic isn't very difficult," you'll
> understand that Japanese technical writing is the laughingstock of the
> entire world. Not just among professionals, but among hundreds of
> millions of annoyed users.
