At a multinational company, daily written communication between staff, supervisors, customers, and suppliers is frequently conducted using digital tools (e.g., emails, smartphones, and texting applications) often across multiple nationally, linguistically, and conceptually defined borders. Determining digital tools’ impact on intercultural encounters in professional environments like these is difficult but important given the sheer volume of digital contact in technical and professional environments and the ongoing global struggle to broker peace and productivity amid communities’ many perceived differences. Using examples drawn from a case study of binational manufacturing sister companies, I build on recent work in professional, networked written communication to analyze two WhatsApp exchanges, one between a central study participant and his customer, another between the participant and an employee. This study shows how asynchronous digital communication tools created complex “silences” in writing between participants. In these silences (e.g., a lack of or delayed response to a text) individuals try to explain others’ actions for themselves. Drawing on a combination of third-generation activity theory and Latourian actor-network theory, I show that while explaining others’ actions in writing with whatever cultural shorthand is available may remain a common part of everyday life and research, it can be a poor guide for explaining others’ actions, especially in digital writing. My study shows how research of, and instruction in, digital tool use in intercultural writing contexts requires attention to the material conditions and objectives potentially shaping one’s own as well as others’ composition choices.

在一家跨国公司中，员工，主管，客户和供应商之间的日常书面交流经常使用数字工具（例如电子邮件，智能手机和短信应用程序）进行，这些工具通常跨越多个国家，语言和概念上的界限。在像这样的专业环境中，确定数字工具对跨文化交流的影响是困难的，但很重要，因为在技术和专业环境中，数字联系的数量非常庞大，并且在社区之间存在许多可察觉的差异的情况下，全球为维护和平与生产力所做的持续努力。我使用从跨国制造姊妹公司的案例研究中得出的例子，以最近在专业网络书面交流中的工作为基础，分析了两次WhatsApp交流，一个在中央学习参与者与其客户之间，另一个在参与者与雇员之间。这项研究显示了异步数字通信工具如何在参与者之间以书面形式产生复杂的“沉默”。在这些沉默中（例如，缺乏对文本的响应或延迟响应），个人试图自己解释他人的行为。我结合了第三代活动理论和拉图尔安行动者网络理论，表明尽管用文化速记来解释他人的写作行为可能仍然是日常生活和研究的一部分，但它可能是一个糟糕的指南用于解释他人的行为，尤其是在数字写作中。我的研究表明如何研究和指导