Thesis and Dissertation Writing in a Second Language: a handbook for Supervisors

particularly the case where students and supervisors come from different lan-
guage and cultural backgrounds. As Cargill (2000) points out, although
students have passed the university’s English language admission require-
ments, they are often under-prepared for the face-to-face interactions that are
part of the student/supervisor arrangement. These face-to-face interactions
are a crucial part of the supervisory process. They are, however, fraught with
the potential for misunderstandings, especially in cross-cultural communica-
tion situations (Moses 1984).
Supervisors and students, then, need to be aware of and expect cross-cul-
tural differences in their interactions with each other. If communication
problems arise, they need to be prepared to talk about them. Native speakers
of a language, in fact, are often much less tolerant of these kinds of errors in
cross-cultural communication situations than they are, for example, of gram-
matical errors. If a student says something the supervisor thought was rude, it
is easy for the supervisor to think the student ‘meant to be rude’, rather than
that they did not now how to do something in a culturally different way.
These are issues which are discussed in further chapters of the book.
Introduction
13
Applications
1
Ask your student to tell you what is typical of academic writing in
their first language and culture. Then ask them to compare this to
their understanding of academic writing in English.
2
Ask your student to think of a situation where they have had a
cross-cultural communication problem in an academic setting.
Discuss what happened and what might have caused the mis-
communication. Think of ways in which the situation might have
been resolved.