Papers
I have written a bunch of stuff during my BA, MA, and PhD. Most of it was not worth publishing nor remembering; the few things that may be of interest are below, including the full texts of my MA thesis and PhD dissertation.
All papers are distributed under the Creative Commons license - anyone can read them or re-distribute them in the original form, but altering them or distributing them for payment is forbidden.
Featured paper
Epistemology and rhetoric of database-driven translation
PDF File (160 Kb)
Both translators and translation scholars depend more and more on the digital distribution and storage of texts. Relational databases drive most storage solutions. They are ubiquitous yet invisible to the average user. This paper explores how these databases structure our knowledge and hence have an epistemological significance and how they have a persuasive, or rhetorical, potential. Databases are a symbolic code that favors one possible way of parsing information while suppressing alternative modes of expression. Databases depend on rational logic, completeness, and atomism, and as a result encourage associative arguments, create an illusion of objectivity, and weaken the connection between the text and the author. The goal of the paper is to raise awareness among translation scholars about the power of databases and offer alternative solutions that would be more suitable for storing knowledge rather than information. It also invites other studies of technology as a symbolic code.
Other papers
Cultural identity and personal involvement of community interpreters
PhD Dissertation, University of Oklahoma, 2008
Abstract PDF 60 Kb - Full text PDF 1.1Mb
An ethnography of an international office: Interactions between employees and students
Results of a year-long ethnographic study focused on the experience of international students
Full text PDF 275 Kb
Complexity as a metaphor
A paper presented at NCA and written as a summary of a long foray into reading complexity literature
Full text PDF 175 Kb
People in glass houses: Cultural biases in intercultural studies research
MA Exit Project, Texas State University, 2002
Full text PDF 185 Kb
Clichés in the intercultural communication research (co-authored with Steven Beebe)
A re-working of my BA project that I started in mid 1990s
Full text PDF 210 Kb