False friends and true

An annotated cross-cultural glossary of terms

Abstract

The currency of writing research includes terms with which we believe we are all familiar. But frustration can quickly dominate cross-cultural exchange when the meanings of these apparently obvious terms seem to be just beyond our collective reach. The contribution uses translation theory, linguistic analysis, and educational theory to present key terms apparently shared by academic writing researchers and teachers in France and the United States, but in fact serving as obstacles to understanding because of their culture-specific, discipline-specific or institution-specific uses.