Balancing clarity and politeness in editing sessions with non-native speakers

摘要

When communicating with writers who are non-native speakers, technical editors need to be both clear (to prevent miscommunication) and polite (to maintain good working relationships). Concepts from speech act theory can be used to identify linguistic forms that are maximally clear, as well as those that are maximally polite. A problem arises, however, because these two sets of forms do not entirely overlap: maximally clear forms such as direct speech acts may be perceived as impolite, while maximally polite forms such as indirect speech acts may be ambiguous and therefore not entirely clear. Research on intercultural pragmatics can be used to decide how to choose or modify specific linguistic forms so as to maintain both clarity and politeness when communicating with non-native speakers.