The State of Technical Communication in the Former USSR: A Review of the Literature

THE STATE OF TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION IN

THE FORMER USSR: A REVIEW OF LITERATURE

PAVEL ZEMLIANSKY

University of Central Florida

KIRK ST.AMANT

East Carolina University

ABSTRACT

Over the last 2 decades, the nations that once comprised the Soviet Union

have begun to play an increasingly important role in the global economy.

As a result, today’s technical and professional communicators could find

themselves interacting with co-workers, colleagues, and clients in these

nations. Being successful in such contexts, however, requires an

understanding of the cultural, historic, educational, and economic factors that

have affected and continue to shape technical and professional communi-

cation practices in these countries. This article provides an overview of the

literature that has been published on technical and professional communi-

cation practices in the former USSR as well as reviews educational factors

that have contributed to such practices. Through such an examination, the

article provides readers with a foundation they can use to engage in future

research relating to technical and professional communication practices in

post-Soviet states.

INTRODUCTION

Over the last decade, Russia, Ukraine, and other members of the former Soviet

Union have emerged to play key roles in the global economy. Some nations,

such as Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, have achieved this effect by becoming

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J. TECHNICAL WRITING AND COMMUNICATION, Vol. 43(3) 237-260, 2013

members of the economically powerful European Union (EU Facts, 2012). Others,

such as Russia and Ukraine, have leveraged their advantage of a highly educated

and well-trained workforce to become a major hub for a range of skilled technical

work including computer programming, software design, and computer gaming

(Aspray, Mayadas, & Vardi, 2006; Levine, 2011). And still others, such as

Kazakhstan, have used an abundance of natural resources (e.g., oil and uranium)

to create a pivotal space for themselves in the global economy (30 countries,

2012; Domjan & Stone, 2010; Wakeman-Linn, Mathieu, & van Selm, 2003).

As a result of these factors, the nations of the former USSR have become

growing and dynamic markets for a range of goods. They have also become

important providers for a range of technical products and services. Companies

from Apple to IKEA have, in turn, opened offices, stores, and distribution centers

in a number of these nations in order to tap these trends (AppleStore, n.d.;

Ikea, 2012). Moreover, international business practices indicate these nations

will continue to play an important role in the growing global economy.

These developments have important implications for today’s technical and

professional communicators who will increasingly need to:

• develop instructional and informational materials for these markets; and

• collaborate with engineers, technicians, and other subject matter experts

(SMEs) in these cultures.

The successes of such undertakings—as with any international collaboration—

hinges on effective communication across cultures (Ang & Inkpen, 2008).

Thus, the more Western technical communicators know about professional

communication practices in the former USSR, the more successfully they can

interact in these contexts.

This article presents a review of the technical and professional communication

literature written on technical and professional communication practices in the

countries of the former Soviet Union. The purpose of this article is to familiarize

technical and professional communicators who work outside of the former

USSR with professional communication practices in this region. In so doing,

this article identifies trends in the previous scholarship on professional writing/

professional communication practices in the former USSR. By understanding

such practices—and the factors that influence them—technical and professional

communicators can develop approaches for interacting effectively with col-

leagues, collaborators, and clients in the former Soviet Union.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND PRINCIPLES

OF LITERATURE SELECTION

To research this topic, the authors conducted a review of the research litera-

ture in technical and professional communication. The purpose of this review

was to identify articles published specifically on technical and professional

238 / ZEMLIANSKY AND ST.AMANT

communication practices in the former USSR. In conducting this review, the

authors looked at:

• articles appearing both in North American venues and in publications pro-

duced in the former Soviet Union; and

• work published between the dissolution of the USSR (1991) and the present

(2011 as of this writing).

The authors believed this two-part focus would help them better identify trends

in technical and professional communication practices in former Soviet republics

during the post-Soviet era.

Selecting Texts

The Western journals identified for review were:

• Journal of Technical Writing and Communication;

• IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication;

• Technical Communication;

• Technical Communication Quarterly; and

• Journal of Business and Technical Communication.

These publications were selected based on their field-specific focus on publishing

research in technical and professional communication. The authors reviewed the

titles and the abstracts of articles published in these journals between 1991-2011

and looked for wording indicating the focus of an article was on examining

technical and professional communication practices in the former USSR. As the

focus of this review was to examine technical and professional communication

practices in the former USSR, publications that did not directly address this

topic (e.g., Sapienza’s work on Russian-American immigrant websites (2001),

Batova’s work on offshoring clinical trials (2010), Stanchevici’s work on the

rhetoric of Soviet science under Stalin (2012)) were excluded from this review

as were works that only tangentially focused on post-Soviet states as part of an

examination of a larger, different topic (e.g., Lanier’s (2011) mention of Russian

nationals involved in international peer-to-peer forums used to discuss open

source software).

The resulting works reviewed for this study span approximately 20 years

(1991-2011). While, in absolute terms, 20 years seems to be a relatively

short period of time for fundamental shifts in the theory and practice of a

field to occur, the situation in the former Soviet Union is dramatically dif-

ferent. The political, economic, and social systems on those countries have

undergone profound changes since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in

December of 1991 (Drahokoupil, 2009). As a result, the nature and the practices

of technical and professional communication in these nations have been

influenced by:

TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION IN THE FORMER USSR / 239

• major changes in the political and economic systems (Drahokoupil, 2009);

• ongoing moves toward more democratic and free-market approaches to

governance and regulation (The World Bank, 2009);

• continual reforms of language and educational policies in relation to political,

social, and economic changes (Goodman, 2010);

• rapid transformations of the labor market—particularly for skilled knowledge

workers—as driven by the globalization of online access and related off-

shoring practices (Library of Congress, 2011); and

• other fundamental shifts (e.g., the growth of a new, younger middle class)

which can influence the nature of professional writing and communication

(Zhurzhenko, 2001).

At the same time, the countries of the former USSR are still in transition from

the old system to the new one. Additionally, these systems will likely remain

in a state of transition for the foreseeable future. Therefore, theories and prac-

tices of technical and professional communication in these countries are

influenced simultaneously by the old and new realities, mores, and attitudes

present in these cultures.

Identifying Perspectives

In the West, audiences might think that the former Eastern Bloc is, by and large,

moving progressively closer to adopting a more “Western” political, economic,

and social order. Our study, however, indicates that technical and professional

communication practices in the former USSR are influenced by a range of

variables, which remain in flux. These mixed influences often result in theoretical

approaches and practices that are not readily recognized by Western audiences.

Such differences include:

• the amount of technical and professional writing being done (in industry)

and being taught (in universities) in the former USSR;

• the methods through which technical and professional writing are taught in

the higher educational system of those countries; and

• the attitudes of practitioners in the former USSR toward specific genres of

professional written communication.

In order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the topic, it is necessary

to include works written both by Western/North American authors and authors

within the former Soviet Union.

This review of the literature indicates that North American and post-Soviet

scholars often differ dramatically in their understanding and interpretation of

important features of the professional writing scene in post-Soviet countries.

Many North American scholars, for example, explain the Eastern European

tendency to avoid entering into a written contract by citing the generally

corrupt nature of a post-Soviet society (e.g., Harootunian, 2007). A scholar from a


post-Soviet state, however, might be able to offer a more nuanced interpretation

of the same phenomenon due to his or her deeper understanding of the local

history, culture, and tradition. In fact, North American authors such Richmond

(1995) note that, to some Eastern European cultures, a request for a written

contract can be perceived as a lack of trust—or for failing to take someone at his

or her word/promise.

The crux of this problem/these misperceptions has to do with the lack of related

scholarship published by researchers in the former USSR. According to a study

conducted by Tarasheva (2011), authors from the “East” do not publish much

in Western scholarly outlets (p. 206). Tarasheva, who is Bulgarian, attributes

such a lack of publishing activity to “Eastern research [containing] features

which would appear as faults in academic writing and research, such as idio-

syncratic quotation lists, odd use of corpora and elusive research design”

(Tarasheva, 2011, p. 207). Likewise, Ulijn and Strother (1995) have noted that

language can be a major impediment in this area. That is, the relatively limited

number of professional communication publications available in Russian

means that scholars from the former USSR often find themselves in the pre-

dicament of needing to publish works in English in order to distribute them

through available venues in technical and professional communication. In such

cases, the research might exist, but a lack of familiarity with other languages or

with publications from other cultures means key research from “the other side”

gets overlooked.

These issues provide technical communicators with an important reason to

expand our research on this topic to cover works published in academic journals

based in the former USSR. They also provide an important incentive for tech-

nical communicators to pay continued attention to the fact that academic and

professional discourses are often not culturally and linguistically contained. The

authors consider the latter factor as closely connected to the ways in which

North American and post-Soviet technical and professional writers often

interpret and misinterpret each other’s discursive practices and habits. It was

easy for the authors to read and analyze academic literature published in the

former USSR as one of the authors is a native speaker of Russian and Ukrainian.

This factor has allowed the authors to move the review of this topic beyond

more conventional parameters of language to explore topics in new, important,

and more comprehensive ways.

Finally, the scope of the analysis provided here is to the former republics of

the USSR, excluding other countries of the former Eastern Bloc. The reasons for

the exclusion of those countries are the substantial political, economic, and social

differences between them and the former Soviet states. The rest of the former

Eastern Bloc are integrating into “Western” political, economic, and social struc-

tures such as The European Union, NATO, The Bologna Process, and others,

faster than the former republics of the Soviet Union. The notable exceptions to

this rule among post-Soviet states are Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, which have


all been admitted to both NATO and the European Union (EU Facts, 2012;

NATO member countries, 2009).

PROFESSIONAL WRITING IN THE FORMER SOVIET UNION:

GENERAL TRENDS OF COVERAGE IN WESTERN LITERATURE

With the fall of the Iron Curtain, more U.S. and Western scholars were able

to visit and work in the former Soviet Union. As a result, a relatively small

but significant body of literature on technical and professional writing in the

former USSR is available to North American readers via different journals in the

field (e.g., the IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, the Journal

of Business and Technical Communication, and Technical Communication

Quarterly). Thus, an interest in this topic exists; the objective now is to deter-

mine what information is currently available in order to further inquiry into this

area. The review of literature presented in this article represents a step toward

providing technical and professional communicators with the foundation

needed to engage in further research on this topic.

While some coverage of this topic exists, it is fragmented. Most of the research

published in Western technical or professional communication journals tends

to focus narrowly of specific genres (resumes, engineering reports, etc.), sub-

topics (EFL, the teaching of business writing), or political or problems relevant

to professional communication (corruption, economic crises, etc.). As a result,

there is a paucity of integrated studies of the topic. This factor means there

is a need to create a more holistic interpretation of professional writing in the

former USSR by bringing theory and practice together and by synthesizing

divergent topics and views.

With relatively few exceptions (e.g., Artemeva, 1998), researchers in technical

and professional communication have tended to examine the topic of professional

writing in post-Soviet space from the perspective of North American scholars

(e.g., Bowen, Sapp, & Sargsyan, 2007; Harootunian, 2007) who spent rela-

tively short periods of time (usually a year or two) in Russia and other post-Soviet

states. While such perspectives are certainly valid, it can be argued that North

American scholars would view the topic through a different terministic screen than

their counterparts in the former USSR. (See, for example, Lu’s (2012) use of

terministic screens as a mechanism for better understanding Chinese rhetoric.)

AN OVERVIEW OF TECHNICAL AND PROFESSIONAL

WRITING PRACTICES IN THE FORMER USSR

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, professional, educational, and

cultural interactions between post-Soviet countries and the West have increased

markedly. According to the literature, such interactions generally develop in

two ways:


• collaborations between companies and businesses working on joint projects

(e.g., Artemeva, 1998; Pinelli, Barclay, Kenne, Flammia, & Kennedy, 1993);

and

• educational collaborations designed to reform or improve the teaching and

learning of professional writing in the former Soviet Union (e.g., Hagen,

1998; Harootunian, 2007).

After the Iron Curtain fell, the United States and other foreign companies

and organizations gained access to the highly educated and skilled workforce

of the former Soviet Union, a workforce that included some of the world’s

best scientists, engineers, technicians, and members of other professional fields

(Artemeva, 1998). In response to this opportunity, a range of public- and

private-sector organizations in the United States and other Western nations

began to develop collaborative projects with their post-Soviet counterparts

(Artemeva, 1998).

At the same time, a growing number of Western scholars and teachers of

technical and professional communication found themselves teaching technical

and business communication at universities in the former Soviet Union

(e.g., Bowen et al., 2006). Continued interest in such educational opportunities

remains high due to continued interest in:

• further aligning post-Soviet educational systems and curricula with the

demands of the globalized economic system; and

• increasingly providing the graduates of such systems with the ability to

compete in such an economy.

Both factors have led to a tremendous interest in the genres and practices of

professional writing that exist in the West. In spite of these trends, few com-

prehensive studies of professional writing practices in the former USSR have

been published in Western journals. However, those studies that do exist offer a

useful glimpse into the technical and professional communication practices of

post-Soviet engineers, scientists, and educators.

Initial Research

Shortly after the dissolution of the USSR, Pinelli et al. (1993) conducted a

survey of the technical communication practices of engineers and scientists

working in the Russian and the U.S. aerospace industries. The survey was

distributed among employees of two U.S. and one Russian aerospace research

facilities, and subjects were asked to describe the amount of and the kinds

of writing they did on the job. Subjects were also asked to describe their atti-

tudes toward collaborative writing and their views on how professional writing

should be taught to future scientists and engineers. The authors of the study

received 325 completed surveys from the Russian participants and 340 surveys

from the Americans, for a total of 665 surveys received (Pinelli et al., 1993, p. 95).


The results indicate that just after the fall of the USSR, there were more differ-

ences than similarities in the professional writing practices of U.S. and Russian

engineers and scientists working in, essentially, the same field.

According to the study, U.S. scientists and engineers spent about twice as

much time on writing tasks than did their Russian counterparts (Pinelli et al.,

1993). Pinelli et al. attribute this discrepancy to the “strict control exerted by the

Communist Party” over scientific and technical information (Pinelli et al., 1993,

p. 102). According to Pinelli et al., such control resulted in less communication of

scientific and technical results—particularly to external audiences among Russian

participants than among their American counterparts. Pinelli et al. also note that

material conditions, such as shortages of paper and limited access to information

resources, could have affected the writing practices of Russian engineers and

scientists. These conditions, as well as censorship, “would limit the ability of

Russian aerospace engineers and scientists to produce documents and make

presentations” (Pinelli et al., 1993, p. 102).

The study also found that the U.S. participants were generally better than their

Russian counterparts at using computers and other then-current technologies in

their professional writing practices. According to Pinelli et al., the Russians

seemed to use computers primarily to save their data, while the Americans were

more adept at using desktop publishing applications and computer networks

for both document production and for collaboration. Of course, it is worth

remembering that, at the time Pinelli et al. wrote the article (the early 1990s), both

desktop publishing and computer networks were cutting-edge technologies that

were not as widely used as they are today and were very (if not prohibitively)

expensive in Russia at the time.

The final significant difference Pinelli et al. (1993) noted between the two

groups of respondents was in their attitudes toward professional writing educa-

tion. While both groups thought that a course in technical communication

would benefit future scientists and engineers, the Russians emphasized product-

oriented outcomes, such as stylistic form and grammatical correctness, while the

Americans preferred more process-oriented outcomes like audience awareness

(Pinelli et al., 1993).

The only area where members of the two groups did not differ significantly

was attitudes toward collaborations. Both the Russians and the Americans

reported frequently engaging in collaborative writing. Pinelli et al. attribute the

similarity of attitudes toward collaboration to the “nature of engineering work

itself,” which “requires engineers to function as teams and to share their

knowledge and the results of their work with others in order to create products”

(Pinelli et al., 1993, p. 102). In essence, the study by Pinelli et al. describes two

professional communication environments that are profoundly influenced not

only by local institutional conditions (e.g., the availability of technologies

and other material resources), but also by larger political and social forces

(e.g., societal ideologies, censorship, and others).


The results of Pinelli et al.’s work suggest that the fundamental commonality

of engineering and scientific work across borders and institutions led to the

similarity in collaboration practices. The results also indicate that differences

in ideological and material conditions surrounding this work might have led

to the variations in other writing and communication practices. For example, the

stronger emphasis the Russian respondents placed on the form and correctness

of written documents over audience and other rhetorical concerns could be

explained by the predominantly in-house nature of professional communication

in Russia. In this way, such practices are considerably different in comparison

to America where engineers and scientists are often required to write for external

audiences such as grant providers and regulatory agencies.

Later Research

In contrast to Pinelli et al.’s more general focus on technical and professional

communication, Artemeva’s (1998) article “The Writing Consultant as Cul-

tural Interpreter: Bridging Cultural Perspectives on the Genre of the Periodic

Engineering Report” presents an in-depth analysis of specific professional writing

activities within a joint project involving a Canadian “high-tech company” and

its Russian contractor (p. 286). For this project, Artemeva (1998) “provided

writing support for Russian engineers and translators who were required to

submit their engineering reports in English” (p. 286). In reporting on this collab-

oration, Artemeva highlights both linguistic and cultural difficulties faced by

individuals from both sides of the project. According to her, the communication

difficulties that emerged stemmed not only from the fact that the Russian

engineers were required to use a foreign language for communication, but also

from the institutional, professional, and cultural differences between the two

organizations and countries (Artemeva, 1998).

As Artemeva explains, Russian engineers’ “difficulties with English” nega-

tively influenced the project (p. 287). She writes that, because the Russians’

English was often sub-par, the Canadian firm began to question the quality of the

Russian engineers’ work itself (Artemeva, 1998, p. 287). Moreover, the Russian

engineers “did not understand the concept and requirements of the periodic

report [genre]” (Artemeva, 1998, p. 287). Artemeva also notes that, in Russian

engineering organizations, technical reports are seldom read by outside audiences.

As a result, the genre of the engineering report, as it is practiced in Russia, tends

to focus on reporting the “time spent” on the project and thus describes all the

activities and their results, but does not include “directions for future research or

raise questions” (Artemeva, 1998, p. 289). Artemeva additionally found that

many Russian engineers consider only scholarly articles prepared for publication

in journals to be “worth their time” (Artemeva, 1998, p. 289). For this reason,

Russian engineers tended to relegate the “in-house technical report” to a secondary

role (Artemeva, 1998, p. 289). By contrast, the conventions of the genre of the


engineering report in Canada focus more on rhetorical concerns such as purpose

and audience. This difference in focus often meant the Canadians believed the

format or template of a specific report needs to fit “a specific project” for which

the report is written (Artemeva, 1998, p. 290).

Overall, Artemeva’s findings about Russian engineers’ primary concern with

in-house audiences and their treatment of professional writing as primarily a

template-filling exercise generally fall in line with the earlier findings of Pinelli

et al. (1993). Artemeva’s analysis also demonstrates that professional writing

genres, such as the periodic engineering report, are cultural constructs influenced

by local conditions and institutional histories. In the case of Russia, one such

condition is the historically “closed” nature of many scientific and engineering

organizations. That is, this closed context limited or sometimes completely elimin-

ated the need for Soviet engineers to write for external audiences. (A similar

trend was noted by St.Amant (2002) in his reflections on working as a trainer

and a writer and editor in Ukraine in the early 2000s.) Researchers such as

Pinelli et al. (1993) tend to attribute this focus to the centralized nature of scien-

tific and engineering work in the USSR, compared to a more decentralized system

that exists in North America. It could follow, then, that such centralization of

professional activity in the former USSR might have led to the development

of uniform and rigid procedures and formats for writing.

THE TEACHING OF PROFESSIONAL WRITING

IN THE FORMER USSR

To better understand how the afore-noted communication patterns emerge,

it is important to consider articles dealing with the teaching and learning of

professional writing in the former USSR. To date, relatively few technical or

professional communication articles have been published on this topic. The

available literature, however, indicates that U.S.-based teachers of professional

writing sometimes collaborate with their post-Soviet counterparts to apply

similar theoretical and pedagogical frameworks and to emphasize similar concepts

(e.g., rhetorical sensitivity). Yet, in other instances, these counterparts seem to be

using very different theoretical frameworks, which results in different pedagogies

and possibly different educational outcomes.

Additionally, the available literature indicates some of the genres common to

professional writing in North America (e.g., written contracts) are either radically

different or non-existent in post-Soviet countries. (Interestingly, Mikelonis

(2000) noticed a similar sort of trend in her work teaching professional writing

practices in post-Communist Romania and Poland.) This factor suggests that

post-Soviet professionals and students might have a great interest in learning

about Western communication strategies. In fact, work by Herrington (2005) and

by Herrington and Tretyakov (2005) reveals an interest in using different media

and modes to learn about such strategies (as well as learn more about Western


cultures). Teaching them those strategies, however, involves more than showing

them how specific genres and forms of technical and professional writing

function in the West and then asking them to imitate those genres. Rather, the

focus of such educational activities must be on understanding the deeper rhetorical

issues and ideas (e.g., audience and purpose) on which such genres are founded

(see St.Amant, 2006).

Initial Research

Hagen (1998) provides initial insights on these issues when describing her

experiences teaching research and business writing in Karelia, Russia. Hagen’s

audience consisted of educators, students, and aspiring entrepreneurs who

were all fluent in English (Hagen, 1998). Interestingly, the primary problem she

encountered involved the teaching of the overall topic—business writing. Hagen

discovered that this difficulty was related to the oral nature—or the orality—of

professional life in Russia. For example, when she asked her students, most

of whom were working professionals, how many memos they received in a given

week, “‘crazy American’ chuckles rippled through the group” (Hagen, 1998,

p. 114). Similarly, one of her students, a businessman, told her that when he

bought merchandise for his store—$30,000 to $40,000 worth of merchandise

at a time—no contracts or promissory notes were ever signed. Instead, all

transactions, from payments to the delivery of goods, were carried out orally,

via simple verbal promises and a handshake. In fact, Hagen discovered that, in

many cases, mechanisms for written professional communication simply did

not exist in Russian in the late 1990s.

Later Research

Bowen et al. (2006) extend Hagen’s work when recounting their own diffi-

culties teaching the genre of the business resume to Russian students. Much of

Bowen et al.’s reporting is devoted to explaining the orality of professional life

in Russia. However, the specific difficulties with the teaching of the genre of the

resume, which the authors also recount, are tightly connected to the oral nature

of professional interactions in Russia. For example, according to Bowen et al.,

“Russian students found some aspects of the American resume format ‘peculiar’”

(Bowen et al., 2006, p. 132). When Bowen asked the students to create a section

entitled “Education” in their own resumes, the students did not understand the

need for such a section. Their Russian teacher explained:

[S]uch a description of courses would be redundant in Russia, where uni-

versity programs are more standardized than in the United States, not

unlike many universities in other parts of Europe. Any potential employer,

she said, would know from a student’s degree which courses he or she

completed. (Bowen et al., 2006, p. 132)


Given this finding and other similar conversations that Bowen and her colleagues

had while teaching in Russia, they conclude any attempts to teach genres of

business and professional writing in Russia (and overseas in general) should

be situated in the local culture and conditions. Bowen et al. also argue the same

is true of any attempts at professional development of faculty.

These different findings in the literature give rise to a central question:

What factor(s) could be influencing perspectives that affect the practices—

and the teaching—of technical and professional communication in former

Soviet republics?

In many ways, the answer seems linked to two inter-connected notions:

• the idea of orality—or the historical importance of oral communication

over written communication in professional interactions; and

• the focus on orality in the education systems of these nations.

To understand such factors, it is important to review the role oral communica-

tion plays in the discourse practices of post-Soviet nations.

THE ORALITY OF PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION

IN THE FORMER USSR

Understanding differences between professional communications practices in

post-Soviet nations and in the West will allow researchers and practitioners to

move beyond the differences of every-day activities (see, for example, Mikelonis’

(2000) work on teaching business communication in post-Soviet Romania

and Poland). It can also enable the creation of comprehensive frameworks of

theory and practice (see, for example, St.Amant’s (2006) work on globalized

rhetoric). As Harootunian (2007) notes, “A great part of our work as professional

communicators rests on Western . . . theoretical assumptions, mainly derived from

Greco-Roman assumptions” (p. 91). She further notes that Western professional

communicators will benefit from an understanding of “the real otherness of

practices” which exists in the post-Soviet countries (Harootunian, 2007, p. 91).

Orality and the Function of Writing

One the most fundamental manifestations of this “real otherness of practice”

could be the different functions of technical and professional writing in post-

Soviet countries and in North America. In North America, the ability to function

in writing is often considered a cornerstone of one’s professional success. Testi-

mony to the importance of writing is found in a higher education curricula

infused with writing, required composition courses for entering students, and

the general “culture of writing” that exists in the educational and professional

spheres across the West.


By contrast, the culture of professional communication in the post-Soviet

countries is more focused on oral vs. written communication. Post-Soviet

states are certainly familiar with and use writing for a variety of tasks and in

numerous contexts. However, in the former USSR, writing for professional

communication is used much less frequently than in the West, and it is generally

used in different ways.

According to the literature, in the former Soviet states, many more professional

communications and transactions are carried out orally rather than in writing.

In discussing her experience working at a university in Armenia, Harootunian

(2007) suggests that such relatively low importance of writing in the post-Soviet

space might be due to the fact that writing creates a permanent record of a

transaction. Moreover, leaving such a permanent record in a country with an

oppressive or corrupt political system is not prudent. As a result, most of the

university professors and administrators with whom Harootunian interacted

preferred oral communications to written ones. Harootunian explains this

orality of professional discourses is connected to the basic need for professional,

if not literal, survival. She states: “In my accumulating understanding of a fun-

damentally corrupt system, I began to see why, as a means of survival, citizens in

that system rarely speak the truth in public—and even more rarely risk recording

the truth in public” (Harootunian, 2007, p. 93).

The Implications of Oral Communication

Harootunian also notes that, during some professional interactions, the oral

promise or contract can carry more weight than a promise or contract in writing.

She states that in Russia and other post-Soviet states, phrases like “Go in

person” replace “the American axiom of ‘Get it in writing’” (Harootunian, 2007,

p. 95). As an example of what she sees as an inherently broken and corrupt

educational system, Harootunian recounts her conversation with one top uni-

versity administrator who refused to put anything in writing before encouraging

her to bribe the people who could make a favorable decision (Harootunian,

2007, p. 96). Thus, in such contexts, putting something in writing is not seen

as the first step in initiating an action or process (e.g., the Western tradition of

using a written proposal to initiate a larger, future research activity). Rather, it

represents the conclusion of several rounds of oral exchanges that finally brings

a project to fruition.

In many ways, these findings parallel earlier works done by Betsy Stevens

(2000), who contrasts “the former Soviet oral culture . . . to the incipient Western-

style writing culture” (Stevens, 2000, p. 94). In her article “Russian Teaching

Contracts: An Examination of Cultural Influence and Genre” (2000), Stevens

argues that—in written form—Russian contracts “are not only brief and factual,

but also reflect a more oral, less litigious environment than Westerns countries

like the United States” (Stevens, 2000, p. 38). Stevens concludes that Russians


have developed the genre of a professional contract—an approach that functions

well “in a high-context, oral culture” (p. 38). According to her, this development is

due to the fact that Russia had been a centralized society with little lee-way.

Stevens (2000) further states that “Russian history, economics, and politics

have played key roles in shaping the culture and have precipitated the lack of

written business documents and the relative brevity of those that do exist” (p. 55).

Thus, both Harootunian and Stevens note the importance of orality to pro-

fessional communication in post-Soviet countries. Such orality, however, means a

preference of oral communication over written communication vs. an inability to

communicate in writing. Accordingly, both authors observe that the preference

toward oral communication over written might be due to political, social, and

economic factors. But, while Harootunian (2007) appears to squarely blame

corruption in the Armenian educational system for the lack of written com-

munication, Stevens (2000) attributes the development of an orally-centered

model of professional communication to both the lack of freedom in society and

the fact that these oral genres, in their current forms, serve the purposes of those

who communicate well.

To illustrate this point, Stevens (2000) explains that U.S. legal contracts tend

to be more detailed because American lawyers “structure [them] to guard against

worst-case scenario, anticipating problems and addressing them upfront” (p. 55).

By contrast, in emerging economies where unstable infrastructures and fluctu-

ating currencies make it difficult to establish the fine details of an activity in

advance, genres that focus on specifying such details make little sense. And as

most post-Soviet nations are in the midst of major economic, legal, and political

transitions, “writing very short, straightforward contracts with few words makes

sense” (Stevens, 2000, p. 55). Thus, the focus on orality is in part cultural and in

part developmental (i.e., tied to the development of infrastructure, legal systems,

and economies). And both factors have a pronounced effect on education—the

very mechanism that teaches individuals how, when, and where to use writing.

THE ORALITY OF EDUCATION IN

THE FORMER USSR

The preceding section examined the oral nature of professional communi-

cation in the former USSR as compared to the United States. This section traces

connections between the orality of post-Soviet professional communication prac-

tices and the related educational system that trains members of the post-Soviet

workforce. Accordingly, it is reasonable to assume that just as the U.S. educational

system helps shape its workforce through the methods used for teaching and

training, so does the educational system of the former USSR help shape the

attitudes of working professionals in those nations. Similarly, just as the educa-

tional system in the United States changes under various market pressures (Dill,

2003), so would the educational systems of the former Soviet Union transform


and adjust under the influence of the rapidly shifting economic, political, and

social systems that are establishing themselves in these countries.

A Tradition of Oral Instruction

Several authors note that, historically, the educational systems of the former

USSR have preferenced oral methods of instruction and assessment vs. the more

writing-based educational system of the West. As Bowen et al. (2006) note,

in the former USSR, university curricula have traditionally paid less attention

to writing than what we are accustomed to in the United States. To show this lower

importance of writing, Bowen et al. point out that oral examinations are the

preferred method of testing students’ knowledge in Russia and other post-Soviet

nations (2006, p. 131).

Tarnopolsky (2000) confirms the same idea in the article “Writing English as a

Foreign Language: A Report from Ukraine.” A faculty member of Dnepro-

petrovsk State Technical University of Railway Transport in Dnepropetrovsk,

Ukraine, Tarnopolsky describes his work to create an English-as-a—foreign—language

curriculum that would include the teaching of writing. According to Tarnopolsky, the

teaching of writing has long been neglected in Ukraine for practical reasons rooted

in the political realities of the former USSR:

But never in the former USSR was the objective of teaching writing in English

as a communicative activity seriously and practically set in any kind of

curricula, except for university courses training future teachers of English as

a foreign language. Even there, it was treated as a skill of lesser importance

than the other three. (Tarnopolsky, 2000, p. 210)

These statements can easily be confirmed by the experiences of anyone who went

through the Soviet university system. (One of the authors of this article completed

his BA in Ukraine in the early 1990s and took very few written examinations.

Instead, a typical set of end-of-semester assessments consisted of four or five

“Socratic-style” oral examinations, during which each student answered a set of

open-ended questions in a one-on-one conversation with a professor.)

A Tradition of Limiting External Communication

As seen in Harootunian (2007) and other sources, Western scholars are often

tempted to ascribe the more oral nature of professional communication in the

post-Soviet states to the general lack of transparency and freedom in society.

According to this view, writing was not important in the Soviet higher education

because the Soviet government limited its citizens’ abilities to communicate

with the outside world.

One way to minimize such communication is by making sure that the citizenry

is not proficient in a foreign language. Tarnopolsky (2000), for example, states

that, since the 1950s when foreign language instruction was introduced in the


USSR in a systematic way, various aspects of that instruction were declared

more or less important during different periods, with writing never gaining a

prominent role (p. 210). Thus, a culture of writing in relation to language—and

the teaching of language—never emerged.

As a result of these factors, educational systems remained focused on oral

methods of communication and perhaps created the impression of orality being

the preferred means of interacting in global contexts. Tarnopolsky (2000), for

example, refers to Troyanovich (1974) who wrote that “the majority of our

students have neither the psychological nor the practical need to write the foreign

language” (qtd. in Tarnopolsky, 2000, p. 210). Tarnopolsky takes Troyanovich’s

statement to mean that because very few Soviet citizens had been allowed to

travel or to send written materials abroad, the teaching of writing and other

communicative skills in foreign languages had been relegated to a secondary role.

It is probably true that the Soviet regime consciously worked to limit the free

flow of information and the ability of its citizenry to communicate with people

in other countries. It also makes sense that, to achieve these goals, the Soviet

ideological machine might have curtailed the teaching of foreign languages,

particularly as a means of communication. But this theory fails to satisfactorily

explain the lack of structured writing instruction in the native languages of the

USSR under the Soviet higher educational system. (Such a topic is one ripe for

future research in this area.)

A Context of Limited Resources

Another factor that could have influenced this situation—particularly in the

decade after the dissolution of the USSR—is the availability of educational

materials. In the years after 1991, the economies of post-Soviet states experienced

a time of great upheaval (Brady, 1999). As a result, the costs of many items were

in a wild state of flux. During this period, printed educational materials, such

as textbooks, became very costly and were sometimes difficult or too expensive

to obtain (Driskill, 1996). This factor would have had a pronounced effect on

technical communication education in those nations, for at this time texts on

technical and professional communication were produced primarily in nations

outside of the former USSR and would need to have been imported from overseas

at costs that were often prohibitively expensive. (Even today, these economic

factors limit access to a range of educational materials—such as textbooks—in

many regions of the former USSR.) This economic factor, in combination with

the strong oral tradition of education in these nations, could explain why technical

and professional communication remained primarily an oral practice in the years

after the fall of the Iron Curtain.

Such economic factors might also have affected the teaching of foreign lan-

guages in the post-Soviet era. Driskill (1996), for example, notes that effective

foreign language texts and textbooks were often too expensive to purchase in the


1990s. Moreover, skilled speakers of other languages often left teaching

positions for more lucrative jobs in industry (Driskill, 1996). This educational

context, however, is quickly changing and will likely continue to evolve rapidly in

response to forces within and beyond the borders of the former Soviet republics.

EDUCATIONAL REFORM AND THE

ROLE OF ENGLISH

In recent years, the higher education systems of the post-Soviet countries

have undergone significant reforms. With changes in the political, social, and

economic systems of post-Soviet nations came the realization that, in order to be

competitive in the globalized and more open world, professionals need to have

improved communication competencies, including competencies in English. The

development of technical and professional communication practices emerging in

these contexts hinges on two features of post-Soviet higher education:

• the growing role of foreign language instruction as part of professional

curricula; and

• an increasing realization of the importance of written communication as a tool

for academic and professional success.

Generally, the reforms aimed at improving of the teaching of technical and

professional writing are centered on the improvement of instruction in foreign

languages, particularly in English (Levitska, 2011). Such a direction is largely

dictated by political forces emanating from Western Europe. It also emerges

from the desire of former Soviet states to be integrated more tightly into Western

European political, professional, and intellectual spaces. In this respect, Russia,

Ukraine, and other post-Soviet states appear to be adopting the trend of using

instruction in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) as a key mechanism providing

students with foundational competencies in technical and professional communi-

cation. At the same time, the desire to revise education at a global level has given

rise to new policies that could have a pronounced effect on education—and on

communication/writing—in post-Soviet nations.

THE BOLOGNA PROCESS AS A DRIVING FORCE

FOR INTERNATIONALIZING EDUCATION

The Bologna Process has become an important force driving the reforms of

higher education in post-Soviet countries (particularly in Russia and Ukraine).

The Process focuses on the joining of national educational practices and is “aimed

at creating the European Higher Education Area” (About the Bologna Process,

2010). Among the stated purposes of the Bologna-based reforms are:


• the increased mobility of students, faculty, and staff among higher educational

institutions of Europe; and

• the increase of the quality of education and of employability of European

citizens across national borders (The Bologna Process, 2007-2010).

The movement seeks to fulfill its goals through the creation of “comparable” and

“easily-readable” higher education degrees, a mechanism of “quality assurance,” and

a system of “fair recognition of foreign degrees and other higher education qualifi-

cations” (The Bologna Process). Currently, 8 of the former 15 Soviet Republics

are members of the Bologna Process and they include arguably the biggest players

on the post-Soviet educational and professional scene, Russia and Ukraine.

Changing Perspectives on Learning

Other Languages

To achieve the stated goals of The Bologna Process, the former Soviet republics

have had to make rather profound changes to their philosophies and methods of

higher education. For example, in her 2011 article “Frameworks for Professional

Preparation of Translators in the Countries of Western Europe,” Levytska refers

to the increased role of the teaching of foreign languages in Ukraine due to the

country’s integration into “European educational processes” and into the Bologna

Process in particular. Levytska analyzes institutional systems and frameworks

for training translators and interpreters in Germany, Great Britain, and Austria.

From this analysis, she concludes that if Ukraine wants to become integrated

into European higher education structures, it must adopt some of those frame-

works. In particular, Ukraine must develop more programs and curricula that

focus on the training of translators and interpreters and do so by paying more

attention to modern communication technologies, among other things.

Safonova and Marchenko (2010) express a similar idea, but with regard to the

educational system of Russia. Just like Levytska (2011), Safonova and Marchenko

argue that bilingual education is an important component of modernization of

education in Russia. Safonova and Marchenko name the “preparation of students

for international partnerships and collaborations in the modern multi-lingual

world” as one of the most important aspects of the bilingual education model they

propose (p. 2). By advocating integration into global communication systems,

these authors indirectly create framework for including writing—which plays a

central role in such systems—into the educational practices of these nations.

Connecting Language and Communication

to Global Business Contexts

Morozova and Noskova (2008) refer to the increased globalization of many

professions as a sound reason for reforming foreign language instruction in

Russia. Citing the “changes in the geo-political situation,” they advocate for a


university-level program of study called “Translator in the Area of Professional

Communication” (Morozova & Noskova, 2008, p. 25). According to Morozova

and Noskova, Russia must “transform” its system of professional training of

translators and interpreters. Moreover, it must do so by equipping college

graduates from various disciplines with foreign language competencies which

would allow them to effectively use English in the professional environment of

their own discipline (p. 27). (Again, such a re-orientation could create important

spaces for integrating the teaching of technical and professional communication

into these systems.)

Another piece illustrating the re-orientation of education on the post-Soviet

space is a description of the curriculum of the Department of Physical Metallurgy

of Donetsk National Technical University in Eastern Ukraine (The Faculty

of Physical Metallurgy, 2012). In this description, the authors reveal a move

toward increasing graduates’ professional communication abilities in a foreign

language as an innovative feature of their curriculum. The authors of the piece,

for example, mention “groups of students who are taught general education and

specialized courses in English and French” (p. 5). According to the article, a

more robust integration of foreign languages into the science and engineering

curricula at the university increases, among other things, graduates’ employability

overseas. (Once again, such an approach can crate spaces to bring technical and

professional communication into the curriculum.)

This last statement in the curriculum description from Donetsk is indicative

of a significant shift in the understanding of the purposes of foreign language

instruction in post-Soviet countries. In the former Soviet Union, foreign languages

were often taught and learned more as an academic exercise than as a means

of communication and professional function. Now, the possibility of a tighter

integration with Europe and the rest of the world, however nebulous at the

moment, compels post-Soviet educational institutions to reform the teaching of

foreign languages and of professional communication. Levitska’s (2011) findings

only confirm this situation. If and how such changes affect professional writing or

technical communication practices remain to be seen. But, these shifts do indicate

an interest in taking the steps needed to provide students with the communication

skills needed to succeed in the greater global economy—and technical and pro-

fessional communication practices will surely be among these skills.

CONCLUSIONS AND DIRECTIONS FOR

FUTURE RESEARCH

It is likely that the business, technological, educational, and other professional

connections between Western countries and nations of the former USSR will

continue to grow in the foreseeable future. With this expansion comes the growth

of professional communication activities. Moreover, such activities are likely

to include both the creation of written documents for and by professionals in the


former Soviet states and opportunities for Western scholars and teachers to

conduct research and teach in those nations.

Western practitioners of professional communication will face significant chal-

lenges as they begin to interact with colleagues in former Soviet republics. Based

on the review of literature presented in this article, the most fundamental of these

differences appears to be the largely oral (at least for now) nature of professional

discourse in the former Soviet republics. It is clear that this orality might

have profound implications both for production and use of written documents

(Stevens, 2000). Research also reveals that Western and post-Soviet professionals

come to joint projects with very different understandings of the roles and nature

of writing, ideas about audiences, and expectations of genres (Artemeva, 1998).

Similarly, scholars interested in studying technical and professional communi-

cation practices in the former USSR need to consider both the orality of pro-

fessional practice and the traditionally oral nature of education in the former

USSR as evidenced from the early work of Pinelli et al. (1993) to the more current

work of Tarnopolsky (2000).

Westerners who wish to teach technical and professional communication in

the countries of the former Soviet Union must be cognizant of the local language

and of education politics. Moreover, Western teachers need to understand how

such factors influence the teaching of technical and professional communication

in these nations. These issues might be particularly important in countries like

Ukraine, which has joined the Bologna Process and thus increased the role of

English as the professional “Lingua Franca” in their higher education curricula.

Interestingly, this development also presents an important opportunity for an

expansion of technical and professional communication instruction in English

in those countries. At the same time, the increased role of English in higher

education in the post-Soviet space is not without its problems (Goodman, 2010).

As professional contacts with the West increase and as educational systems

engage in reform, the situation may change. Such change, however, is likely to

take a long time. Thus, when designing studies of professional communication

practices in the post-Soviet countries, researchers will often need to operate within

a different set of assumptions and results that they would researching the same

questions in their home countries. For example, a survey of first-year college

writing instruction, while popular in North America, would be practically

meaningless in Russia, Ukraine, and many other post-Soviet countries. (The

universities there almost never teach writing to first-year students.) Instead, a

more productive research direction might be the study of professional writing

instruction in English, which is typically conducted in disciplinary courses such

as business, engineering, science, or public relations.

In conclusion, the ideas, findings, and trends presented here should not be

viewed as a definitive analysis for how to engage in effective technical communi-

cation practices with colleagues in the former USSR. Rather, readers should view

this information as a starting point from which they can launch further—and much


needed—research into technical and professional communication practices in

former Soviet states. By examining the role of writing, conceptions of audience,

and notions of genre in these nations, individuals can better develop communi-

cation practices that can lead to effective collaboration with colleagues in these

nations. Likewise, by analyzing perspectives on orality, language learning, and the

Bologna Process, educators can conduct more focused research that can facilitate

the shifting of educational practices in the former USSR. Through such focused

research, members of the field can help to remove those final barriers that might

impede exchanges between West and East.

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Direct reprint requests to:

Kirk St.Amant

Dept. of English

East Carolina University

Greenville, NC 27858

e-mail: [email protected]


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