Review: A Review of "Listening to the World: Cultural Issues in Academic Writing" and

"Intercultural Competence: Interpersonal Communication Across Cultures"

Reviewed Work(s): Listening to the World: Cultural Issues in Academic Writing by
Helen Fox: Intercultural Competence: Interpersonal Communication Across Cultures by
Myron W. Lustig and Jolene Koester
Review by: Judith Kilborn
Source: The Writing Center Journal , FALL 1995, Vol. 16, No. 1 (FALL 1995), pp. 74-80
Published by: Writing Center Journal

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43441989

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A Review of Listening to the World:
Cultural Issues in Academic Writing and
Intercultural Competence : Interpersonal
Communication Across Cultures
Judith Kilborn

Helen Fox. Listeningto the World: Cultural Issues in Academic Writing.

Urbana: NCTE, 1994.

Myron W. Lustig and Jolene Koester. Intercultural Competence: Inter-

personal Communication Across Cultures . New York: HarperCollins,
1993.

Two recent books deal directly with the challenges of global change and
the increasing frequency of intercultural encounters in our institutions and
in our daily lives. Listeningto the World zná Intercultural Competence address
powerful changes occurring in the academic contexts we inhabit; these books
can assist us as we teach, direct writing centers, and tutor an increasingly
multicultural clientele. Both books intermingle theory with practice and
address similar diversity issues; however, the writers' backgrounds and
specialties as well as their audiences and primary purposes are dissimilar.
These differences make the books nice companion pieces for training
graduate and advanced undergraduate writing center tutors and, I would
argue, required reading for writing center directors.
Helen Fox, author of Listening to the World ' has lived and taught in
various cultures and contexts. She has taught one-to-one and in the
classroom for the Center for International Education at the University of
Massachusetts at Amherst, where she developed and taught graduate-level
writing courses for international and U.S. students, and has worked in
conferences with those writing masters theses and doctoral dissertations.

The Writing Center Journal, Volume 16, Number 1, Fall 1995

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 A Review of Listening to the World and Intercultural Competence 75

Fox's research, including the powerful stories she shares in her book,
originated in this context. While at the Center for International Education,
Fox also directed cultural and language programs for international graduate
students and scholars and trained U.S. business representatives to work more
sensitively and productively in cultures overseas. Additional overseas expe-
riences include Fox's work in the Peace Corps (training science teachers and
volunteers in West Africa and the South Pacific) and teaching French-
speaking adults in rural Quebec. In other words, Fox's book emerges from
many years of truly "listening to the world" and learning from its people.
The experiential and academic backgrounds of Myron W. Lustig and
Jolene Koester, co-authors of Intercultural Competence, are quite different
from Fox's. Both live and teach in California, which between 1980 and 1 990
experienced an increase of 1 .5 million in its Asian population and 3. 1 million
in its Latino population and is now 43 percent "nonwhite" (9). Therefore,
Lustig and Koester have significant experience in dealing day to day with a
diverse environment - both within and outside the classroom. They draw
heavily upon this experience for their "ideas and examples about intercultural
communication" yet "increase the number and range of other cultural
voices" through the "lessons and illustrations" gleaned from colleagues,
friends, and students (xvi). Lustig and Koester also differ from Fox in their
academic backgrounds. While Fox's interest is in the effects of cultural
"assumptions and habits of thinking" on writing primarily and interpersonal
communication secondarily {Listening to the World xxi), Lustig and Koester's
expertise is intercultural communication; they cover oral and nonverbal
communication extensively, and writing is addressed only peripherally.
Nevertheless, since interpersonal communication is what writing centers do,
and since we strive to train our tutors to be good oral and nonverbal
communicators, Lustig and Koester's expertise is a valuable addition to our
resources. This is particularly true given the resonance between their general
communication theory and writing center perspectives: communication is,
they say, "a symbolic, interpretive, transactional, contextual process in which
people create shared meanings" (48).
Given the differences in the academic and experiential backgrounds of
these authors, it should come as no surprise that their intended readers and
purposes differ too. Lustig and Koester are writing for students taking course
work in intercultural communication, and their book is, in fact, a textbook.
Lustig and Koester are aware of the enormous changes in the world's cultural
coalitions and alliances, in economic relationships among people, in patterns
of travel and migration, in communications technology, and in shifting
demographics in the classroom and the workplace; and they are sensitive to
the fragile interdependencies among cultures both within and outside the
United States. The authors' intent in writing Intercultural Competence is to
prepare undergraduate students to deal with an increasingly "global village,"

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76 The Writing Center Journal

and their direct address to readers in their Concluding Remarks explicitly

indicates this intent:

We urge you to view this book and each intercultural experience as

steps in a lifelong commitment to competence in intercultural
communication. Intercultural competence is, in many ways, an art
rather than a science. Our hope is that you will use your artistic
talents to make the world a better place in which people from all
cultures can live and thrive. (3 1 9)

Fox would agree that positive intercultural interactions require more art
than science. Despite the fact that Listening to the Worldls firmly grounded
in theory, the impetus for this book comes from Fox's strong conviction that
multicultural programs in higher education are not as successful as they
might be because of over-reliance on scientific approaches.
[M]any universities have set - and reached - ambitious goals for
diversity that have made their student bodies and academic offerings
more representative of the world's cultures. But despite these
admirable changes, multiculturalism in the university has been
limited for the most part to theoretical understanding, a mastery of
facts and theories and major ideas, knowledge about difference rather
than a real feeling for what it is to make sense of the world and
communicate it in totally different ways, (ix-x, emphasis in original)

Fox's book is, to a large degree, a demonstration of the complexity and

art of intercultural communication within the educational system. Like
Mike Rose's Lives on the Boundary in its interweaving of compelling stories
of Fox's work with students and faculty, Listening to the World is meant to
make readers feel the differences of radically different perceptions of
teaching, learning, communicating, and understanding the world so that
teachers in the classroom and in conferences can truly begin to listen to
students and hear and respond sensitively to differences.
These differences, learned from early childhood, affect the way
students interact with their professors and classmates, their attitudes
toward the books they read, and the problems they are called upon
to solve. They affect how students give oral presentations, from short
critiques of articles they've read to dissertation defenses. They affect
how students understand assignments, how they study, and how
they comment on their classmates' papers. But most of all, these
differences affect the way they write. For writing touches the heart
of a student's identity, drawing its voice and strength and meaning
from the way the student understands the world, (v)
Fox addresses her argument to college and university faculty who wish
to "encourage a deeper, more meaningful multiculturalism," a multiculturalism

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 A Review of Listening to the World and Intercultural Competence 77

not unlike that described by Lustig and Koester. However, while Lustig and
Koester attempt to move students into a deeper appreciation for and
understanding of other cultures as well as to prepare them to work and live
in a more global environment, Fox intends to make those of us who work with
students feel the need for change: change in the ways we interact with
students, react to their writing, and value their voices; systemic changes - in
our classroom and conference methods, in our conceptions of academic
writing, in our views of the world. Fox conceives of these changes as a
broadening of our perspective that can enrich our intellectual lives; Lustig
and Koester conceive of intercultural communication competence as an
expansion of our interpersonal communication repertoire that can challenge
and excite us. Both perspectives can contribute to our classrooms, writing
centers, and lives outside of academia as we move toward the educational and
workplace environments of the next century.
Intercultural Competence is divided in four parts. Part One provides
Lustig and Koester's theoretical underpinnings for communication and
intercultural competence. The authors neatly argue international and
domestic imperatives for intercultural competence, citing persuasive statis-
tics demonstrating the political and economic interdependencies among the
U. S. and other countries and the truly multicultural nature of the workplace
and higher education. The authors also define types of intercultural
communication encounters and describe the United States as an intercultural
community. Of particular value to writing center readers, especially tutors-
in-training, is the discussion of metaphors of U.S. cultural diversity, which
Lustig and Koester show have underlying assumptions that need exploration.
Also of value is their analysis of terms used to "label" cultural groups. What
do we as U.S. citizens call ourselves? (The authors' preference is U.S.
Americans.) What do we call cultural groups within the United States? Do
we call residents of the United States whose surname is Spanish "Hispanic"?
Latino? Chicano? Mexican-American? Lustig and Koester argue the extreme
urgency of finding "ways to refer to these cultures with terms that accurately
express their differences but avoid unwanted negative connotations and
evaluations" (20). (Fox might want to read this discussion since the only
indication of insensitivity I saw in her book was a brief mention of "Hispan-
ics." My Chicano, Puerto Rican, and Costa Rican students have taught me
the pain this colonial label brings them.) Finally, I find Lustig and Koester's
boxed "Culture Connections," begun in this chapter and interspersed
consistently throughout the text, an effective way of enabling a variety of
voices to speak. These quotations - from multicultural fiction, nonfiction
accounts of those working and living overseas, student writing, popular print
media, and more specialized academic publications - provide not only a
wealth of perspectives on intercultural communication but also grist for lively
classroom and writing center discussion.

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78 The Writing Center Journal

The rest of Part One defines characteristics and discusses models of

interpersonal communication and culture, as well as providing examples of
intercultural interactions, definitions of intercultural communication and
related terms, and the components of intercultural communication compe-
tence. The discussion is thoughtfully and sensitively presented, and compet-
ing models are carefully distinguished. Of particular interest for classroom
and tutor-training applications are the examples of intercultural interactions,
accompanied by guiding questions which surface assumptions about the
meanings of intercultural and communication and provide an effective
backdrop for the authors' discussion of similarities and differences among
communicators as well as effects of differences.
Part Two focuses on why cultures differ, the foundations of cultural
patterns (beliefs, values, and norms), and cultural patterns and communica-
tion taxonomies, including Stewart's work on activity orientation, social
relations orientation, self-orientation, and world orientation; Hall's tax-
onomy of high- and low-context cultures (covert and overt messages,
ingroups and outgroups, and orientation to time); and Hofstede's cultural
patterns (power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and individualism-collec-
tivism). My tutors have found Lustig and Koester's discussion of these
taxonomies clear, informative, and very useful in helping them unpack their
intercultural conversations with students and in knowing how to more
effectively interpret future tutorial conversations.
Part Three focuses on verbal and nonverbal intercultural communica-
tion: verbal codes and intercultural competence, the effects of body
movements, space, touch, time, voice, and other types of nonverbal messages.
This section also provides information about preferences in the organization
of verbal codes and cultural variations in persuasion and in the structure of
conversations, including the value of talk and silence and the rules for
conversation.
Part Four covers cultural variations in interpersonal relationships, strat-
egies for improving intercultural relationships, and obstacles to intercultural
competence: ethnocentrism, stereotyping, prejudice, racism, lack of knowl-
edge, motivation, and skill, as well as intercultural contact, incompatible
goals, and culture shock or cultural adjustment. The authors also raise serious
issues concerning the ethics underlying intercultural competence. Tutors-
in-training and writing center directors will find these issues lively topics for
discussion and the book very informative about intercultural communica-
tion as a whole.
Readers will find Fox's Listening to the World theoretically less cumber-
some than Intercultural Competence but no less theoretically sound. Fox's
introduction provides - in a refreshingly accessible voice - the purposes,
assumptions, and methodology for her research into "nonwestern" students'
writing. Her book is based upon her own experiences and observations;

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 A Review of Listening to the World and Intercultural Competence 79

ongoing, informal conversations with international and naturalized students

deeply influenced by communication styles different from the European and
American mainstream; and in-depth interviews with professors who have
extensive experience working with international graduate students. This
research and a thorough knowledge of significant, secondary sources provide
the theoretical underpinnings for the author's stories of students' frustrations
with academic writing and an educational system based on different cultural
values, norms, beliefs, and practices. Writing center directors wishing to use
Fox's book for tutor training might need to supplement-it with the theories
and writing samples provided by Robert Kaplan and other contrastive
rhetoricians since Fox assumes a knowledge of these sources tutors-in-
training are unlikely to have.
Chapter One of Listening to the World focuses on the frustrations of
students Fox has had the luxury of seeing "one by one." Fox says these are
students who

want to learn what the university expects of them; they are accus-
tomed to doing well in their home countries, and they want to
continue to excel. But reaching them is not always easy, even when
we are well meaning and knowledgeable. Students are resisting, and
we react, sometimes, with exasperation, for we may underestimate
how difficult it is for them to change not only their writing style, but
the way they think about themselves and the world. And because of
our country's long history of ethnocentrism and racism, students
may be insulted when we bring up the subject of "difference," for
which they read "deficiency." We have to tread carefully. But we
do have to understand. (10)
Chapter Two, "Worldwide Strategies for Indirection," elaborates upon
"linguistic, rhetorical, poetic, and psychological" differences in writing
which "create a richness that to world majority students makes the spare,
relentless logic of the Western tradition seem meager in comparison" (21).
The chapter also includes information on why writers who are skilled and
experienced when writing in their first language are often evaluated by faculty
as "inexperienced" or "basic," why their interactions with professors some-
times are perceived as irritating, how cultural differences in audience
expectation impact on writing, the political exigencies of some students'
indirectness, the effects of Confucianism, and the holistic nature of high-
context cultures.
Chapter Three, "'In Solidarity': The Voice of the Collectivity," provides
an overview of collectivism, which sheds light on students' difficulty with
using and citing sources and affects their notions about evidence. Interna-
tional graduate students' difficulty with academic writing, including theses
and dissertations, is further elaborated upon in Chapter Four, "'What Is

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80 The Writing Center Journal

Ancient Is Also Original.'"

Chapters Five and Six, "Something Inside Is Saying No" and "Stigma
and Resistance," document in compelling terms both students' feelings
about being asked to change the way they write and the sources of those
feelings. Fox elaborates upon these sources - a complex intermingling of
academic and personal backgrounds which are cultural, contextual, and
individual in nature - with sensitivity and clarity.
Chapter Seven, "Helping World Majority Students Make Sense of
University Expectations," provides concrete advice about "When to Talk to
World Majority Students about Cultural Differences," "Making the Main
Point Clear," "Digressive or 'Irrelevant' Material," "Compare and Contrast,"
"Critiquing Authorities," "Plagiarism," and '"Analysis' or 'Critical Think-
ing.'" Listening to the World ends with a powerful story showing the gap
between faculty perceptions of an international graduate student and who
she actually is. Fox has truly provided knowledge aboutis well as feeling for
different cultural perspectives and communication preferences.
Fox, Lustig, and Koester provide coherent theoretical backgrounds and
pedagogical strategies that can enable those of us interested in orchestrating
learning in a multicultural setting to do so in informed and powerful ways.
However, as Fox demonstrates that attending to a diverse student population
requires "art" as well as "science," and as she blends sound theory with
powerful stories, she makes a compelling and cogent argument for the power
of "listening to the world." The focus of Listening to the World is more readily
relevant to a writing center audience than is Intercultural Competence :
Interpersonal Communication Across Cultures. Such an audience will un-
doubtedly appreciate Fox's seemingly effortless blending of theory and story;
Fox's voice is also more engaging and forceful than are the often too separate
and distinct collaborative voices of Lustig and Koester. Nevertheless, both
books are important multicultural resources that should become part of our
writing center libraries.

Judith Kilborn has written and implemented numerous cultural diversity

grants, trained tutors for the Advanced Preparation Program for students of
color, and implemented a tutorial program for ESL students at St. Cloud
State University's Writing Center. Dr. Kilborn, who has published several
articles in the Writing Lab Newsletter and has served on the board of the
Midwest Writing Centers Association, has also co-authored with Jeanne
Halpern and Agnes Lokke Business Writing Strategies and Samples (Macmillan,
1988) and is co-authoring with Robert Inkster The Writing of Business:
Managing Complexity and Risk with GRACE (Allyn and Bacon, forthcom-
ing).

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