Crosscultural Communication

Computer-aided instruction has assumed a prominent role in language teacher preparation programs, as educators increasingly turn to online environments to extend learning beyond the classroom, stimulate critical thinking, and motivate future language teachers to " think outside the box " and take responsibility for their own learning. In online educational settings, instructor presence plays a significant role, and its impact has been extensively explored. However, the majority of the research has been carried out in Western countries, where the cultural norms of individualism, low power distance between teachers and students, and a high level of acceptance of instructor feedback typically play a positive role in online student-teacher interactions. Few studies have looked at the issue of instructor presence in Eastern cultures, where teachers are traditionally granted a high degree of authority, and learners often have a lower tolerance for situations where independent thought and creativity are called for – as is often the case in online learning.

Die Themen Flucht und Migration bestimmen stärker denn je den öffentlichen Diskurs. Im Vordergrund stehen die Unterbringung, Versorgung und Klärung der Aufenthaltsstatus, gefolgt von der sprachlichen und beruflichen Integration der Migranten. Neben den administrativen Aufgaben des Staates liegt eine große Verantwortung bei der Bevölkerung der Aufnahmegesellschaft und den Migrant/innen selbst. Nicht nur praktische Hilfestellungen sind gefordert, ebenso evident ist die Herausforderung für jeden Einzelnen in der persönlichen Interaktion.
Jede Begegnung findet in einer kulturellen Überschneidungssituation statt und ist somit außergewöhnlich. In primär zweckorientierter Kommunikation sind die Auswirkungen des differenzbedingten Potenzials für Missverständnisse überschaubar. Soll Willkommenskultur durch eine gemeinsam gestaltete Gesellschaft der Vielfalt abgelöst werden, wird es komplexer. Denn es kommen nicht nur Arbeitskräfte, sondern Menschen nach Europa (nach Frisch 1965). Das Deutschland des noch jungen 21. Jahrhunderts möchte dem Narrativ der Gastarbeitergeneration etwas optimistisch Zukunftsweisendes entgegensetzen. Dennoch ist die Frage berechtigt, wieviel Fremdheit eine Gesellschaft aushalten kann.
Die neue Präsenz des Themas fordert von jedem eine kulturelle Verortung und bewusste Auseinandersetzung mit Kategorien von Fremdheit und Vertrautheit. Interkulturelle Kompetenz erlangt einen neuen Stellenwert und besondere Vermarktbarkeit in ganzer Bandbreite: Eigen- und Fremdkulturwissen, Selbstreflexionsfähigkeit, Perspektivwechsel, Fremdsprachenkenntnisse. Damit einhergehen ein Wandel in der Wahrnehmung und eine Aufwertung der Voraussetzungen von kulturell Hybriden, von Defizit- zu Ressourcenorientierung. Doch haupt- wie ehrenamtliche Flüchtlingsunterstützer/innen sind keine Expert/innen interkultureller Kommunikation und erhalten diverse Fortbildungen. Zentrale Inhalte sind interkulturelle Sensibilisierung und Umgang mit Alltagsrassismus, und auch die Schulung ehrenamtlicher Sprachtrainer/innen gewinnt an Bedeutung – sämtlich originär fachliche Domänen der Interkulturellen Germanistik.
Der Beitrag untersucht, auf welche theoretischen Konzepte von Interkulturalität sich Maßnahmen renommierter, staatlich subventionierter Träger beziehen. Dabei spielt der verwendete Kulturbegriff eine Rolle, Fragen der Qualitätssicherung und Wirksamkeit sowie der Adäquatheit von Theorie und Methoden für die Zielgruppe.

A model of uncertainty reduction theory was tested that was derived from Berger and Calabrese's (1975) theory of initial interactions and recent extensions of the theory (e.g., Berger, 1979; Berger & Bradac, 1982) across three relationships (acquaintances, friends, and dates) in three cultures: Japan, Korea, and the United States. The model was tested using LISREL and found to be a reasonable fit to the data for all three relationships in all three cultures. The percentage of variance explained in attributional confidence was found to be lower for friends than for dates and acquaintances. For the United States data more variance was explained in attributional confidence in acquaintances than dates; however, the findings were reverse for the Japanese and Korean data. These findings were discussed in light of previous research on uncertainty reduction theory and relationship development. Shortcomings of the model also were pointed out based on early critiques of the theory (e.g., Bochner, 1978) and a recent elaboration that examined the context in which romantic relationships develop (Parks & Adelman, 1983).

DESCRIPTION: Ce séminaire (de niveau M1) propose aux étudiants des langues enseignées à l'Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO) une introduction générale à la communication interculturelle. Nous traitons les 7 sujets suivants:
1/ Le contexte historique qui a vu émergé la problématique dite interculturelle.
2/ La notion de « différence culturelle ».
3/ Le « sentiment », la « perception » de la différence culturelle.
4/ La communication interculturelle et la compétence interculturelle.
5/ La communication interculturelle et la communication stratégique et participative.
6/ Quelques domaines prioritaires de la communication interculturelle.
7/ Quelques types récurrents de programmes et projets de communication interculturelle.

This paper attempts to explore the online shopping pattern of females who are employed in both public and private sectors in India. Many studies on the general consumer behaviour of online shoppers in India have been done before but developing a systematic understanding on the shopping behaviour of working females would be beneficial for ecommerce companies operating in India to serve their customers with tailor-made offers. As there is an untapped market of female buyers in India, making slight adjustments to the existing ecommerce websites or developing new websites to accommodate the needs of female online shoppers will enable online marketers to improve their reach and revenue.

In diesem Aufsatz wird eine im internationalen Forschungsdiskurs kaum wahrge­nommene, in der russischen und der postsowjetischen akademischen Welt jedoch überaus verbreitete und verwurzelte Wissenschaftsorientierung, die sog. Linguokulturologie (im russischen Original: лингвокультурология), vorgestellt und kritisch diskutiert. Die Linguokulturologie ist ein im letzten Jahrzehnt des 20. Jahr­hunderts entstandenes interdisziplinäres Fachgebiet, das sich grundlagentheoretisch mit den Wechselbeziehungen von Sprache und Kultur beschäftigt und mit dem Anspruch auftritt, die Erforschung der Interdependenz von Sprache und Kultur auf ein neues paradigmatisches Fundament zu stellen. Das Hauptanliegen des Beitrags besteht darin, ihre Historie zu eruieren und ihr Inhaltsspektrum sowie ihre Strukturkomponenten herauszuarbeiten, um damit letztendlich ihr Leistungspotenzial zu erschließen.

The aim of this study is to analyze in detail the realization of requestive speech acts in Italian and in German. In particular, the theoretic frame of the CCSARP (Cross cultural speech acts realization project), which suggested a strict classification of directness across different languages, and adopted in the previous study “A comparison of the realization of requestive speech acts in Italian and in German” is put into question. A new model is then developed, which allows a more reliable analysis of requests in Italian and German. Secondly, the study investigates the role of positive and negative politeness, the thematic structure of discourse and the role given to interruptions in Italian and German. The result is a picture of the conversational behaviour in the two language communities at issue, which enables a more truthful interpretation of the directness of the illocutionary force in requests. At the same time, light is shed on the importance given by respondents to politeness, with respect to efficacy. This dimension is further investigated whereby looking at the supportive moves, which can act in combination or in compensation with the requestive move and which can aim at persuading or convincing the interlocutor. In conclusion, some possible pedagogical implications of the findings are considered.

Eine immer dringlicher geforderte kultur- und medienwissenschaftliche Orientierung der interkulturellen
Germanistik erfordert zugleich auch eine Auseinandersetzung mit neueren Konzepten, die
differenzierende, dynamische und multiperspektivische Ansätze anbieten. So bemühen sich neuere kulturphilosophische Konzepte wie die Hyperkulturalität und Transdifferenz über rigide binäre Unterscheidungen zwischen „Eigenem“ und „Fremden“ hinauszugehen und der Durchlässigkeit der
Grenzen und der internen Heterogenität von Gesellschaften im Zeitalter der Globalisierung in angemessener Weise gerecht zu werden. Vor diesem Hintergrund untersuche ich in meinem Beitrag den
Film Almanya – Willkommen in Deutschland (Samdereli 2011) im Rahmen einer diskursiven Auseinandersetzung mit diesen Begrifflichkeiten. Entgegen bisheriger Darstellungen im so genannten türkisch-deutschen Migrantenkino fokussiert dieses Filmbeispiel verstärkt eine (postmigrantische) Perspektive, die mit tradierten Sichtweisen und Klischees bricht. Grundsätzlich soll herausgestellt werden, wie kollektive und individuelle Phänomene von Zugehörigkeit und Identitiätskonstruktion mit
filmischen Mitteln dargestellt werden. Zur Diskussion gestellt soll dabei die Frage, inwiefern neuere kulturtheoretische Konzepte dabei greifen.

Metonymy and metaphor are fundamental and ubiquitous meaning-generating tropes that operate on a conceptual, not just a verbal, level. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate to scholars outside of the Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Conceptual Metonymy paradigm how these two tropes cue meaning verbally, visually, musically, sonically, and multimodally in five Chinese clips promoting Chinese cities and Chinese trade fairs, all produced after, and in the spirit of, president Xi Jinping's "Belt and Road" initiative (2013). We also pay attention to how interpretations are to some extent bound to differ depending on whether the audience does or does not have detailed knowledge of Chinese culture. We end by briefly arguing that a full analysis of the clips-as indeed of most discourses-requires awareness of yet other tropes as well as expertise in other humanities disciplines.

As the United States becomes increasingly diverse, organizations have recognized the need to hire individuals with the ability to communicate across culture lines. Based on a review of the cultural iceberg at http://www.hsp.org/files/culturaliceberg2.pdf, this paper considers the multiple layers of cultural identity (surface, folk, and deep culture) and addresses the following questions: (1) How does culture impact communication? and (2) Why might it be a good idea for all organizations to have diversity training to assist employees in this area?

An English teacher uses Skype to connect his high school students in an Indian village with international teachers to help them interact and converse with them in English. Each international teacher interacts with the students in English once for 40 minutes. The teacher does that daily, and each day an international guest teacher is from a different country. The aims of this study are to report the effects of this kind of intercultural exchange on students' English language skill development and cultural and global awareness. Results showed many benefits for the students: Listening and speaking skill enhancement, getting used to different native and non-native accents, improved pronunciation, and learning new vocabulary and grammatical structures. The students also learn names of countries, their location, flags, currency, cities, people, and exchange information and pictures about the local and target cultures. They learn about the foreign country's educational system, history, antiquities, food, art, traditions, and costumes. They are taken on virtual field trips to some historical places and museums. They learn about natural phenomena such as the northern lights. Sometimes they receive books, T-shirts and pens as gifts from foreign teachers. Shortcomings of such intercultural exchange and suggestions for improvement are given. Bio Al-Jarf has 700 publications and conference presentations in 70 countries. She is an international journal reviewer including some ISI and Scopus journals. She won three excellence in Teaching Awards at her university. Her areas of interest are ELT, applied linguistics, technology integration in teaching and learning and translation studies.

The present study is an attempt to describe how Arab learners of English produce culture-specific expressions that create potential miscommunication across cultures. Three related approaches-ethnography of communication, pragmatic failure and conversational Analysis-were reviewed so as to get insights into understanding such a phenomenon. The subjects of the study consist of 120 male Saudi and Yemeni learners of English. In order to elicit data for the study, the subjects were given a Multiple-choice Discourse Completion Test (MDCT) which consists of six situations wherein they picture themselves to be in the real situation and choose a response from the ones provided. The findings of the study showed that the hypothesized responses, which are Arab culture –specific communicative patterns, received high number of frequency compared to the other responses. Such communicative patterns are likely to cause miscommunication in situations like the ones described in the study. The study concluded that Arab speakers of English should be made aware of the misuse of such communicative patterns in order to minimize miscommunication in their communicative interaction across cultures.

To date, research in advertising has focussed almost exclusively on metaphor, with linguists and marketing scholars paying very little attention to alternative types of figurative expression. Beyond the finding that metaphor leads to an increased appreciation of advertisements, there has been surprisingly little research into how consumer response is affected by metonymy, or by metaphor–metonymy interactions. In this article, we present findings from a study that investigated the depth to which participants (n = 90) from a range of cultural and linguistic backgrounds (the UK, Spain, and China) were found to process 30 real-world adverts featuring creative metaphor and metonymy in multimodal format. We focus on the cross-cultural variation in terms of time taken to process, appreciation and perceived effectiveness of adverts, and on individual differences explained by different levels of need for cognition. We found significant variation in the understanding of advertisements containing metaphor, metonymy, and combinations of the two, between subjects and across nationalities in terms of (i) processing time, (ii) overall appeal, and (iii) the way in which participants interpreted the advertisements.

The article provides an overview of some of the traditional practices of the Middle East and North Africa (Morocco, Tunic, Egypt, Sudan, Lebanon, Iraq) related to pregnancy and childbirth. The sphere of motherhood and childhood is one of the most important elements of traditional culture.

Popular books in the 21st century are literally "born translated" into other languages, some of them are published in different languages at the same time, sometimes a foreign language edition goes to print even earlier than the original language. Many authors, knowing that their creations in the near future may be translated into other languages, and even willing it, aim to create "digestible by other cultures" product and adapt it to the taste of the "world reader". Globalization characterizes not only the processes in economy but also in culture. Chinese culture is no longer isolated from the rest of the world, it is increasingly integrated into the global culture through intercultural communication. Communication (latin communicatio, communico - to make common, connecting, socializing) is socializing, exchange of ideas, information, thoughts etc. This is a specific form of human interaction in the process of cognitive work. Semiotics describes literature as one of the tools of communication systems. In my research, I would like to study how the "cultural dialogue" between Russia and China through literature is going on. Specifically, what is the situation of contemporary Chinese literature in the Russian book market, what is the emotional, intellectual and physical response of the Russian readers to the works of Chinese writers, and how it differs from the response of Chinese readers, with the example of Mo Yan's novel "Life and death are wearing me out".

Der Aufsatz leistet einen Beitrag zur Erforschung auslandsdeutscher Pressesprache, indem er am exemplarischen Beispiel des „Sonntagsblattes“, einer ungarndeutschen Vereinszeitung, speziell figurativitäts- und formelhaftigkeitsbezogene Befunde aus einem aktuellen Forschungsprojekt zur Diskussion stellt. Primäres Ziel ist mithin eine fokussierte evidenzbasierte Erschließung von Besonderheiten des Sprachgebrauchs in diesem spezifischen Segment des Mediendiskurses. Es zeichnet sich ab, dass aufgrund der Mehrsprachigkeitssettings besondere textuelle Mechanismen vorherrschen, bei denen die Textproduzenten Musterhaftigkeiten aus der Kontaktsprache übernehmen: Es wird zwar grundsätzlich eine deutschbasierte figurative Sprache verwendet, die aber mit der der Kontaktsprache Ungarisch kongruiert, einschließlich ungarisch orientierter Frames. Das dominante Merkmal konstituieren in diesem Rahmen (virulente oder latente) sprachkontaktbedingte Erscheinungen mit eigener Dynamik: vorrangig Transferenz-Bildungen verschiedener Art.

This paper is more complete version of paper titeled "About unknown translation of one religious text by A. Agafonov". Paper contain more detalised analysis of manuscript "The true beggining  if all things"(萬物真原), kept in Department of manuscripts research in Library if Russian Academy of sciences

Dear all,

I am doing a PhD at Birkbeck University under Prof. Jean-Marc Dewaele's and Prof. Li Wei's supervision. I am investigation cross-linguistic and cross-cultural emotion perception.
I would be very grateful if you could take 15 minutes to take part in this study and/or share this call for participants with your colleagues, students, friends, family members, ...

You can complete the survey either in English or in Chinese. Link to the survey:

English version: http://survey.sl-services.be/index.php/321522?lang=en

Simplified Chinese version: http://survey.sl-services.be/index.php/321522?lang=zh-Hans

Traditional Chinese version: http://survey.sl-services.be/index.php/321522?lang=zh-Hant-HK

Many thanks in advance for your help!

Kind regards,

Pernelle Lorette

Studying abroad is an increasingly prevalent form of transient migration. How do international students understand their relationship with the host society and host nationals? Based on in-depth interview data, this article investigates the ways in which international students from China at a Singaporean university understand the idea of 'integration' (or rongru in Chinese). It is found that these Chinese students tend to define 'integration' in terms of friendly and everyday social interactions, but their understanding has a more or less assimilationist underlying assumption. This explains their generally modest self-evaluations of their success at 'integration'. This article argues that this social and somewhat assimilationist understanding of integration might be explained in terms of the Chinese students' cultural-linguistic ideologies about rongru, and the characteristics of their social space, position and circumstances in Singapore as academically capable 'foreign talent' students on Singaporean government scholarships.

We warmly invite proposals for papers for the conference Ambiguities of Hospitality in the Middle Ages, 1000-1350 to be held at Stockholm University on the 8-9 th September 2022. The conference is open to established and early career researchers as well as graduate students, and to scholars of the Middle Ages of all disciplinary backgrounds, including but not limited to historians, archaeologists as well as scholars of literature and art.

This first lecture is dedicated to three topics:

1) A general and short presentation of the reciprocal relationship between a social actor and his/her culture.
2) A very short and general discussion of some specific cultural forms.
3) A presentation of a general methodological framework for the description of the  world, the life world (« Lebenswelt ») that inhabits a social actor.

Die Beiträge dieses Bandes widmen sich typischen Textsorten und Kommunikationsformen, die für die Sprach- und Kulturmittlung im Kommunikationsbereich Tourismus relevant sind. Ausgangspunkt ist dabei der Reiseführer in seiner doppelten Bedeutung als 'Person' und 'Buch' als Prototyp touristischer Interaktion. Neben Untersuchungen zur Textsorte Reiseführer beschäftigen sich die Beiträge mit affinen Textsorten wie Destinationswerbung und reisejournalistischem Zeitungsartikel, sowie mit Stadtführungen als Form typischer mündlicher Interaktion aus textlinguistischer, diskursanalytischer sowie übersetzungsvergleichender Sicht. Die Vielfalt der methodologischen Ansätze (Text- und Diskurslinguistik, Pragmatik, Konversationsanalyse, Korpuslinguistik, Übersetzungsvergleich) bietet einige innovative und interessante Einblicke in die Mechanismen touristischer Kommunikation.
Der Band richtet sich an alle, die aus sprach- und kulturwissenschaftlicher Perspektive an interkulturellen touristischen Kommunikationsstrategien interessiert sind und möchte Anregungen sowohl zur weiteren theoretischen Reflexion als auch zur berufspraktischen Anwendung geben.

INHALT / INDICE

Einführung – Introduzione

I. Reiseführer – Textsorte, Diskurs, Übersetzung    –      Guide turistiche – Genere testuale, discorso, traduzione

1. Maria Thurmair (Regensburg): Reiseführer: Variationen einer Textsorte

2. Tania Baumann (Sassari): Bewertungs- und Emotionalisierungsstrategien in deutschen und italienischen Reiseführern

3. Lorenzo Devilla (Sassari): Analisi del discorso turistico: le guide turistiche contemporanee francesi sulla Sardegna

4. Elena Errico (Genova), Sara Chessa (Sassari): Comunicazione interculturale nel discorso del turismo: il caso di alcune guide sulla Spagna e sull'Andalusia

5. Francesca Boarini (Cagliari): Le guide De Agostini Baedeker fra traduzione e “riscrittura”


II. Im touristischen Textsortennetz – Nella rete dei generi testuali turistici

6. Gudrun Held (Salzburg): Qui l’ospitalità non tramonta mai. L’ancoraggio deittico in funzione ‘guida’ nella pubblicità turistica.

7. Antonio Pinna (Sassari): Affect in the Language of Travel Journalism

8. David Brett (Sassari): Social Network Analysis and the Analysis of Collocations in the Language of Travel Journalism


III. Sprache/n und touristische Kommunikation      –    Lingua/e e comunicazione turistica

9. Miriam Ravetto (Piemonte Orientale): «Wie heißt das?» / «Come si dice?». Wortsuchsaktivitäten in Touristenführungen mit Deutsch und Italienisch als Fremdsprachen

10. Stefania Gandin (Sassari): La formazione di guide turistiche dalla teoria alla pratica: il progetto "Monumenti Aperti/DUMAS"

11. Firenzo Toso (Sassari): Lingue minori e turismo

The basis for the theoretical approach is that the relationality of students and their communication both in a learning context and with each other will vary according to values that are culturally steeped. The paper builds on the notion of a ‘cosmopolitan’ academic identity (Sanderson, 2008). This notion we call cosmopolitan learning orientation which we define as “a different perspective on knowing and interacting with others” (Rizvi 2008, p.111) and is driven by both instrumental and humanistic perspectives. As Tran (2013) notes, instrumental issues include: neo-liberal globalisation, commercialisation and the market economy, and humanistic issues such as mutual understanding, ethno-relative outlook, respect, recognition, empathy and openness towards different values, worldviews and practices. This is in line with Rizvi (2011, 2008 p 111) who sees cosmopolitan learning as the development of “a different perspective on knowing and interacting with others, within the changing conte...

Diese Studie verfolgt eine doppelte Zielsetzung. Einerseits möchte sie im Denkrahmen der interkulturellen Linguistik – mittels qualitativer hermeneutisch-analytischer Verfahren – zentrale Profilmerkmale der „Deutschen Allgemeinen Zeitung“ (DAZ) als auslandsdeutsche Zeitung in Kasachstan herausarbeiten. Andererseits strebt sie einen Beitrag zur Erschließung von Manifestationen der Kulturalität im analysierten interkulturellen Mediendiskurs durch Beleuchtung kulturinduzierter, in erster Linie lexikalischer, Charakterzüge an.

Empirical research has shown that not all deviations from norms occurring in contact situations are noted and that, in fact, many remain unnoted (Fairbrother, 2004; Kon, 2002). Indeed, Neustupný (1985) has proposed that there are “special circumstances” under which native speakers note deviations, such as when the speakers’ metalinguistic attention is drawn to the deviation or when the interlocutor is unfamiliar. Based on our analysis of natural data from a variety of Japanese contact situations, we will examine the factors that determine whether a deviation will be noted or not. In addition to finding evidence of “Neustupný’s “special circumstances”, we will show how the type of deviation, where the deviation occurs within the interaction, the situational context of the interaction, the relationship between the noted deviation and other previously noted deviations, the ethnicity of the interlocutor, and the psychological characteristics of the noter may each influence the noting pr...

Este artículo investiga la comunicación intercultural en español entre estudiantes locales e internacionales mediante el aprendizaje cooperativo
en un entorno virtual y describe los resultados de la interacción entre hablantes de distintos idiomas.