Papers and Panels For The IAICS Conference

Friday
SESSION ONE 10:30-12:00
1A Business Communication
A Comparison Between Japanese and US Business Communication Strategies: 
Focusing on Dependence vs. Independence
Fuyuko Takita Ruetenik, Hiroshima City University, Japan
Cross-cultural negotiation involves the interaction of communicators from different societies with different rules. This presentation provides insights into how to understand and manage two vastly different and competing systems of business communication: Japanese and American. It provides a contrastive definition of a listener-based Japanese strategy and a speaker-based American strategy from a multidisciplinary point of view. In American business discourse, the ideal communicative goal is for each individual to speak up for him or herself, and to express messages logically in as explicit a manner as possible. In contrast, in Japanese business discourse, the goal of communication is for members of a group to depend on each other and express messages indirectly in as implicit a style as possible. We learn the rules of one communication system, and judge the world of communicators outside the system as illogical because we don’t understand their rules for interpretation. With an enhanced understanding and acceptance of cross-cultural differences　between the two systems, Japanese and Americans can avoid communication breakdowns and challenge each other to achieve higher levels of business competition and communication. The presenter will suggest how sociolinguistic research in business negotiation settings may provide insights for educators in cross-cultural business courses as well as second language studies.

Empowering Japanese and American Coworkers: 
Testing the Interactive Acculturation Model in Japan
Adam Komisarof, Reitaku University, Japan
The goal of this paper is to examine which factors have contributed to creating a smooth acculturation process for American workers in Japan by assessing how and to what extent the compatibility of acculturation strategies between Japanese and American coworkers affected their quality of intercultural relations. Bourhis and colleagues’ Interactive Acculturation Model (“IAM”) was used to predict which acculturation strategy combinations were most likely to produce positive intercultural relationships between Japanese and American coworkers. With the independent variable of acculturation strategy alignment (i.e., Consensual, Problematic, and Conflictual acculturation strategy combinations, or “IAM types”), five measures of quality of intergroup relations were employed as dependent variables. The sample consisted of 97 Japanese and 97 Americans in 72 organizations. Statistical analyses revealed that Consensual IAM types did not score significantly higher than Problematic ones on any of the dependent variables, which contradicted one of the IAM’s fundamental premises. The IAM was expanded from the original three types into six subtypes to better explain this and other observed data patterns. Based on these findings, recommendations were made for how group boundaries can be redrawn to more thoroughly integrate disenfranchised Americans and Japanese into their organizations and to better utilize their professional skills.

Effective Teaching Strategies for Diverse Learners of Business Communication: 
A Case Study from INTI University College, Malaysia
Arezou Zalipour, INTI University College, Malaysia
Dilani Sampath, INTI University College, Malaysia
Business discourse views language as contextually situated social action constructed by its social actors and aims to understand how people communicate strategically in an organizational context. This paper presents insights and experiences of teaching business communication to undergraduates in a well-known International University College in Malaysia. It aims to share scholarly views, effective strategies and practical methods that can be incorporated in any business English classroom. In this paper, the methodology of teaching ESP for Business is reviewed with special emphasis on authentic materials, computer/internet assisted learning strategies, cooperative learning, continuous assessment, intercultural elements, creative and critical thinking, analytical skills and hands-on learning approaches in classrooms. These techniques and activities in which the learners are actively involved enhance their abilities to communicate effectively in the business world.

1B Collaboration Across Cultures

Internationalization as an Approach to Social Transition and Globalization 
through Educational Communication across Cultures
Xin-Ping Guan, Shenzhen Polytechnic, China
This paper reports on findings obtained from measures taken by Shenzhen Polytechnic, a model polytechnic in the P.R. China for intercultural communication over the past 15 years. The generalization aims to prove the societal valuation of intercultural communication by means of educational exchange and collaboration for the construction of a harmonious world. The study will also deal with effective ways to cope with cultural conflicts in the process of collaboration. The paper includes four parts: (1) the challenge to China’s higher vocational and technical education in the social transition of globalization; (2) the approaches to meet the challenge by means of a holistic reform from school-run paradigm to the reconstruction of the power structure; (3) the analysis on the success and failure in intercultural communication; and (4) the conclusion: that educational collaboration builds up mutual understanding across cultures.

SME Representatives’ and Intermediaries’ Perceptions of Collaborative Relationships 
in SME Internationalization
Pipsa Purhonen, University of Jyväskylä, Finland
Internationalization of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is typically realized within national and international networks of governmental organizations, financing companies, innovation and technology centers and other intermediary organizations. The present study examines collaborative relationships between representatives of Finnish SMEs and the Finnish and international intermediary organizations in the context of internationalization of Finnish SMEs into China. The paper describes and analyses how the SME representatives and intermediaries perceive their collaborative relationships in SME internationalization. The qualitative and quantitative research data (N=110) consist of evaluations of SME and intermediary representatives’ relationships as well as their perceptions of collaborative relationships in general. The results show that mutual goals and objectives, trust, achievement of results and goals, and mutual commitment to collaborating are, in particular, prioritized in the collaborative relationships. However, a wide variety of characteristics are expected from collaboration and the collaboration partner in the maintenance of collaborative relationships.

Engaging a Diverse Community by the Kumiai Way
Carolyn Kyyhkynen Lee, Rollins College, USA
Kumiai is a concept that expresses a form of community-building and community sustainability. Kumiai, literally translated from Japanese, means group-join. Similar to “co-operatives,” the group’s shared mission is driven by the constituents’ deeds and by neighbors’ needs. The traditional function of the kumiai is to support its constituents socially, emotionally, and financially during death of a family member and after man-made or natural disasters. Constituents are considered responsible for the welfare of other members and their duty is to help themselves and others. As an autonomous community, diverse constituents unite voluntarily to satisfy their interdependent social, economic, and cultural needs and aspirations through a collectively-vested and democratically-controlled political system. Leaders and senior managers of the kumiai are expected to be professionally skilled, ethical and humble, and enact a “cooperative heart” (Takamura, 1992). During times of community and global crises, the kumiai way may be a useful model for community-rebuilding for community sustainability.

1C Communication Skills and Strategies

Communication Strategies Across Religious Culture: 
Taking Christianity and Buddhism in Taiwan as an Example
Wei-wei Vivian Huang, National Chengchi University, Taiwan
In the latter half of the year 1996, many religious events began to occur in the Taiwan region, causing a rise of public doubt regarding religious communions. In addition, with the emergence of so many new religions, both traditional and new religions were faced with individual challenges and impacts of their own. Religions and the media came closer together. Not only did religious gospel spread through standard means of religious activities and communions, but religious meaning was also disseminated through channels of mass communication. This research focuses on observations of the broadcasting strategies of Christianity and Buddhism through the theory of uncertainty reduction. It was found that Buddhism has a distinctive characteristic of Eastern religions, while Christianity has the feature of Western religions. The research discusses the dissemination strategies of Christianity and Buddhism in the recent 50 years through document analyses and in-depth interviews. It also compares the similarities and differences of communication strategies between Christianity and Buddhism.

Presenting Across the Cultural Divide
Jane Harland, Fukuoka University, Japan
The presenter will use her several years' experience of training Japanese professionals to deliver presentations in English to highlight cultural differences that emerge in the process of preparing and delivering talks using Power Point slides. Perhaps you have seen academic presentations where researchers have simply read from a script when giving presentations in English, or Power Point slides that are overloaded with information. Kramsch (1993) states that "culture in language teaching is not an expendable fifth skill" and this certainly applies to the field of presentations. The main purpose of a presentation is to inform the audience as clearly and effectively as possible of your message. However, combining language and visuals in order to communicate effectively on the presentation stage is not easy, and the non-native speaker's intended message may not be accurately reflected in the spoken and visual message received by a native speaker. Japanese researchers need to improve their English presentation skills in order to present their research to a wider audience and this presentation will suggest ideas to help them bridge cultural differences and present their research to an international audience.

1D Conflict Education, Communication and Management

Do the Strategies Really Work? : A meta-analysis of the applicability of pattern-matching of “situation-strategy-effort” in Taiwan’s crisis rhetorical studies 
Yi-Chen Debbie Wu, Fu-Jen Catholic University, Taiwan
Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) offers a framework for suggesting how crisis communication strategies can be used to protect reputational assets during a crisis. SCCT provides a pattern-matching mechanism between the crisis situation and its corresponding response strategies. Until now, however, little research has been done to examine to what extent the pattern fits the practice in the real crisis situation, especially in the oriental environment. Accordingly, this study attempts to examine the applicability of the patterns for Crisis Cases in Taiwan. Meta-analysis was selected as the research method to analyze the empirical studies using a rhetorical approach. Thirty-three journal articles and master theses including 92 crisis cases were collected for analysis. The findings were consistent with SCCT in rumor situation and accident situation, while inconsistent in disaster and preventable crises. The study also expands the SCCT by adding “moral crisis” to the category of situation and “silent/no response” to that of crisis response. Suggestions for future studies are also included in the study.
Dialogicality in the Cultural Conflict: An Analysis of the Dispute over Homosexuals in Contemporary China
Jiu-quan Han, Hebei Agricultural University, China
Ning Sun, Hebei University, China
This paper studies the dialogicality of dispute over homosexuals in contemporary China based on discourse theories of dialogicality (Bakhtin198, 1986a, 1986b, Fairclough 1992, Holquist 1981, Gardiner 1992) and contradictions (Foucault1972:151) in discursive practice. First, we introduce the methodology of the research, including data selection (news reports in the form of text and photos, further readings attached to the news reports and netizens’ comments) and classification of interlocutors in accordance with their respective stands (proponents, opponents and mediators). Second, we point out that the different voices accentuated in this discursive activity indeed are struggling for their own cultural survival. Third, the authors measure various scales of dialogicality, consciously or unconsciously possessed by each party in terms of openness to, acceptance of, recognition of and exploration of differences. Fourth, we find that such dialogicalities are heavily influenced by different parties’ scientific, sociological, historical, psychological, ethnical, and philosophical assumptions with or without necessary and sufficient evidentialities. Finally, we conclude that the dynamic dialogicality in this dispute seems to betoken contemporary China’s initial steps from the Age of Essentialism/Objectivism to the Age of Non-Essentialism/Constructivism.

Friendships after Break-Ups: 
Relational Maintenance Strategies in Cross-Gender Post-Dating Relationships in Taiwan
Pei-Wen Lee, Shih Hsin University, Taiwan
News reports of tragic endings (e.g., assaulting former romantic partners due to unpleasant break-ups) of heterosexual romantic relationships are often seen in Taiwan. Unfortunately, research studying relational communication between men and women has received little attention from Taiwanese/Chinese communication scholars. The goal of this research is to examine the communication process of relational maintenance in cross-gender, post-dating friendships in Taiwan. Specifically, this study intends to understand how members in post-dating relationships transit from being romantic partners to cross-gender friends, and to identify the communicative strategies they employ to maintain such friendships. The review of literature discusses existing research on cross-gender friendship, maintenance in different relationship types, and communication management in cross-gender friendship maintenance. The Grounded theory is selected to be the fundamental methodology. In-depth, semi-structured interviews of members in cross-gender, post-dating friendships have been conducted to collect data for this study. The result of this research attempts (1) to help us gain a better understanding of cross-gender friendship maintenance in a non-western context; (2) to help individuals prevent a harmful dissolution of their romantic relationships by engaging in constructive communication and conflict management; and (3) to promote harmonious, healthy, cross-gender friendships in our society.
*This research project is sponsored by the National Science Council in Taiwan.

Analysis on Chinese Students’ Failure in Applying Politeness Maxims 
in an International Sports Fair
Zhou Jie, Harbin Institute of Technology, China
As China has been holding more and more international sports fairs, students working as attachés or assistants of different nations often find themselves troubled in expressing politeness to foreigners. The differences in applying and extending politeness maxims between Chinese and western society originate from their diverse culture orientation and different perspectives on life. This paper, based on the author’s working experience in the Harbin 2009 Winter Universiade, lists Chinese students’ (working as attachés of a certain delegation) failure in expressing politeness maxims in different competition venues, accommodation villages, as well as the transportation vehicles. The paper systematically analyzes these failures in the followiFng aspects: (1) increasing the athletes’ benefit by sacrificing their own; (2) offering any possible help by violating the minimum maxim in communication; (3) praising the performance of the athletes and depreciating their own to cause doubt on their competence; (4) applying too much Chinese pattern in directing, committing, or expressing illocution. Finally, the paper identifies some directions and suggestions which are likely to shed some light on students’ understanding of politeness in intercultural communication circumstances.

1E Culture and Language

A Study of the Similarities of Idiomatic Expressions in Both Chinese and English Languages
Qiao Mengduo, Harbin Institute of Technology, China
This paper describes the similarities of idiomatic expressions in both Chinese and English languages. First of all, the importance of the study is discussed. Since those metaphorical expressions can usually not be understood by looking up the individual words in an ordinary dictionary and are very hard to understand for people who don't speak that language, they ought to be studied. Then, a detailed analysis of the idiomatic expressions is made from the viewpoint of two aspects: Idiomatic Themes and Grammatical Functions. Finally, it concludes that studying idioms in both Chinese and English can lead to a greater understanding of both languages and cultures. As Eugene A. Nida states in Translating Meaning “One important reason for the possibility of interlingual communications is the fact that human experience is so much alike throughout the world, in fact, that what people of various cultures have in common is far greater than what separates them from each other.”

Such a Unique Relationship… It Must be Yuan Fen: 
Chinese cultural meanings of relations and actions in daily social settings
Sunny Lie, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA
The following study reveals the usage of a special Chinese term Yuan Fen, a Buddhist-based term which could roughly be translated as a positive, pre-destined relationship that one has with other persons and non-living objects, and how members of the Mainland Chinese speech community report their daily usage of the term. Focus group and individual interview data were processed using theories of ethnography of speaking (Hymes, 1962) and cultural discourse analysis (Carbaugh, 2007), through which meanings of action, relationships, and dwelling were extracted and interpreted. Through the analysis of this special term, we observe how deeply embedded cultural premises are expressed through various modes of cultural communication that are distinctively Chinese. Examples are the belief that there are certain aspects of one’s relationship beyond one’s control and ability to explain, and that one is connected to all objects in one’s surroundings. Future trajectories such as a cross-cultural comparison of how Yuan Fen is used by the Mainland and Overseas Chinese communities, and gender differences of the term usage within the Mainland Chinese community were also discussed as potential expansions of the study.

Understanding Culture Through Language: The Japanese Concept of ‘Self’
Nerida Jarkey, University of Sydney, Australia
A familiar claim about Japanese culture is that a Japanese person has no concept of the ‘self’ as an autonomous being. Rather, the ‘self’ is understood in relational terms, inextricably linked to the notion of ‘in group’. Certain language features are frequently given as evidence for this cultural stereotype. Some linguists propose a very different notion of the Japanese ‘self’, the ‘absolute self’, which they see as a fixed, non-contingent concept (Hasegawa & Hirose, 2005). They regard the ‘absolute self’ as the centre of the epistemological perspective of a Japanese person, and consider it more essential to Japanese culture than the ‘relational self’. This paper presents evidence of yet another concept in Japanese, the ‘empathetic self’, which allows a speaker to portray an event from someone else’s perspective, even someone who is not an ‘in group’ member. It argues the importance of recognising a variety of concepts of ‘self’, none more essential than any other, but each related to different speech purposes and modes of interaction.

1F Culture in Education 1

A Critical and Comparative Study of the Curriculum Development of CFL Offered by Overseas Confucius Institute and EFL Curriculum in China
Hongqin Zhao, Zhejiang University, China
Jianbin Huang, Zhejiang University, China
Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) has become a global phenomenon. Three hundred and seven Confucius Institutes have been established around the world to provide Chinese language and cultural teaching and learning. For the first time in history, the Confucius Institute has invested in, and opened the opportunity for people around the world to learn about the Chinese language and culture. This work presents a critical study of the CFL curriculum offered by 10 Confucius Institutes. It examined the provision of Chinese language classes, culture courses and Chinese for business purposes, including extra-curriculum activities and events. The result shows that all the Confucius Institutes in study adopted a rather humanistic and learner-centered approach to curriculum design tailored to the real world, for example, one institute offered a course introducing Chinese people and their everyday life. The most significant aspect is that none of the Confucius Institutes have made the curriculum into a formal degree program, which sounds different from English as a Foreign Language curriculum (EFL) in China. The presentation will look at the implications of this study for EFL Curriculum in China and examine whether and why there are differences in approaches to CFL curriculum by Confucius Institutes and EFL curriculum in China.

A Survey of the Deficiency in Conveying Chinese Culture 
in College English Teaching and Learning
Shi Bingyan, Harbin Institute of Technology, China
Wang Xuesong, Harbin Institute of Technology, China
Nowadays, many language teachers have regarded it as one of their main teaching objectives to incorporate cultural teaching, especially the target culture, into their English teaching. There is no doubt that college students have a good understanding of the target culture. Although Chinese culture is beginning to capture the attention of the world, there is a deficiency in conveying Chinese culture in college English teaching and learning. A survey in the form of a test on festivals, social customs, places of interest, Chinese art and so on, was conducted in Harbin Institute of Technology. On the basis of an analysis, it was found that the majority of students are able to express the target culture much better than Chinese culture. It is evident that language teachers have attached great importance on the target culture but paid little attention to the native culture. The deficiency in expressing Chinese culture is not only a problem in language teaching and learning but also an obstacle in cross-cultural communication. It is necessary that we permeate Chinese culture into college English teaching and learning.

Introduction of the Intercultural Development Inventory to a Long-term Study of Student Journals in an Undergraduate Intercultural Communication Course
Sherry Jett Barnes, Trinity Christian College, USA
This study contrasted the student narratives in journals and class writings of two undergraduate classes that included the use of the Intercultural Development Inventory early in the term, with multiple classes taught over the past five years without the use of the Intercultural Development Inventory. Topics explored include reaction to and reference to level of development indicated by the IDI results, and the way students related that to their in-depth conversations with intercultural partners, a field experience at the Albany Park Theatre Project, and the course content. In addition, the study includes instructor reaction to the use of the instrument in the course. The study revealed distinct differences in student and instructor responses to the course material and the field experience with the use of the IDI. The strength of the study is in the first-person accounts of the respondents. This in-depth look at a large number of undergraduate students provides valuable insight into the way students develop intercultural sensitivity over the course of a term.

1G Health Communication

Communicating Reiki Communication in Singapore: An innovation-decision process
Trisha Tsui-Chuan Lin, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Chiann Huey Ow, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Shu Jing Mok, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Shu Wan Wong, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Reiki healing is an alternative medical therapy whereby Reiki masters channel “life energy” to heal patients by removing illnesses or mental/emotional aliments (Baldwin, 2008; Borang, 1997; Bauer, et al., 2007). In Singapore, Reiki healing has not yet been used as a complementary medical therapy in mainstream medical practices (Koh, Ng, & Teo, 2004), but it is gaining popularity. Using the innovation-decision process model (Rogers, 2003), the study examines how Reiki centers or masters present this health concept and disseminate it through which channels and with what strategies to reach and convince potential users. This video ethnographic study collected data by interviewing Singapore’s Reiki masters, practitioners, and patients, and overtly observing local healing practices. This study finds Reiki masters and practitioners use metaphoric language to associate Reiki energy and healing power with natural forces to make the abstract concept understandable and believable. Mass media are found useful to broadcast the concept of reiki healing to arouse the receivers’ awareness and knowledge; however, interpersonal communication is more influential in persuasion and decision stages to overcome disbeliefs or biases. In addition to launching websites, face-to-face trials and peer influence are found effective for convincing potential users to adopt the healing method.

Assessing the Relationship between Patients’ Ethnocentric Views and Patients’ Perceptions
 of Physicians’ Cultural Competence in Health Care Interactions
Rukhsana Ahmed, University of Ottawa, Canada
Benjamin R. Bates, Ohio University, USA
Many studies have documented disparities in health status and disparities in access to and satisfaction with medical care by race and ethnicity. Studies, however, have yet to document the association between patients’ ethnocentric views and their perceptions of physicians’ cultural competence in health care interactions as part of the explanation for these outcomes. In this paper we seek to assess the relationship between patients’ ethnocentric views and their perceptions of physicians’ cultural competence in health care interactions. We surveyed 306 participants in Appalachian Ohio using newly developed measures of patients’ perceptions of physicians’ cultural competence in health care interactions and an existing measure of ethnocentrism. We found some associations between higher levels of patients’ ethnocentric views and greater perceptions that physicians do not accommodate macro-cultural and linguistic differences. Higher levels of ethnocentric views, however, were also found to be associated with greater perceptions that physicians provide patient-centered care in health care interactions. The findings indicate that, among patients with different levels of ethnocentric views, individual-level accommodations are seen as being in competition with group-level accommodations. Implications for physician training and patient education are offered.

Basic Medical English Communication
Suzy Connor, Kyushu Sangyo University, Japan
As more foreigners come to Japan as tourists or workers, it is likely that, at some point, medical staff will encounter an English-speaking patient. In order to effectively treat patients, some basic medical English knowledge is becoming more essential. This is not just for the convenience of tourists; good communication also facilitates good care and reduces costs. Many nursing and medical schools offer medical English, but some programs are cutting back as more medical content is being taught. The level of many medical English texts is too high for low-level learners. While most medical and nursing students pass difficult entrance exams, it cannot be assumed that their English level is high. In the presenter's experience, many nursing students have low English ability. Another more serious issue is that textbooks include unnecessary words (ex., sphygmomanometer), while omitting important words (ex., side effects). As an English teacher in Japan with American nursing experience, the presenter can offer practical advice on what to teach, and more importantly, what not to teach.

News Representation of HIV/AIDS and Drugs in Taiwan: 
How the Harm Reduction Program Changed the IDU Profile
Mei-Ling Hsu, National Chengchi University, Taiwan
Pei-Ling Hsiung, National Chengchi University, Taiwan
Jo-Han Lai, National Chengchi University, Taiwan
Tzu-Hsien Wu, National Chengchi University, Taiwan
Sin-Yao Shih, National Chengchi University, Taiwan
Taiwan has been long noted for its anti-drug efforts in which most injecting drug users (IDU) were perceived as victimizers and deviants. IDUs were once thought of as being the least related to HIV/AIDS, for sexual contact had been the main transmission route until 2003. When IDU mushroomed as the highest HIV infected group in 2004, a pragmatic harm reduction plan, including drug substitution treatment and needle-syringe programming, was implemented in August of 2005. It becomes intriguing to know how IDUs were represented in the popular discourse such as the mainstream news media. A content analysis of 742 relevant stories from China Times, United Daily News, and Apple Daily (January 2004-December 2007), were performed. Results: the majority of stories were published in the sensation-seeking local pages (64.8%). IDUs were inevitably framed as negative (77%), such as victimizers/deviants and incurable losers. After harm reduction implementation, stories framed negatively decreased, whereas those with IDU-as-curable patient frame increased drastically (from 9.4% to 44.6%). Nevertheless, the curable patient frame was represented ironically by heroic portrayals of medical and social workers. Frame differences in terms of media, topic, and quoted source were also found. Journalistic and policy implications of the study are discussed as well.

1H East-West Communication
Bringing Cultural Background Knowledge to the Surface to Better Understand Cross-Cultural Conflict in Specific Contexts
Stephen B. Ryan, Yamagata University, Japan
This paper will present results and analysis of cross-cultural questionnaire data collected from Japanese and Americans for the purpose of illustrating how our background knowledge or cultural schema can result in cultural based misunderstandings and ethnocentric interpretations. The thesis of this cross-cultural research is that much of the information we use to communicate exists as schema that, when activated, gives the communicator a cultural template or mental map of how best to communicate. Cross-cultural participants were given stimulus words and were asked to associate words they felt were most salient. Answers were then rank ordered and Associative Group Analysis (AGA) methodology was used to synthesize cultural data into salient category themes for cross-cultural comparison. Subsequent analysis provides a mental map of each participant’s dominant cultural norms and values which can be used to aid in interpreting culturally sensitive communicative behavior. The paper’s research methodology can be customized to specific cross-cultural contexts (e.g., business) so that each participant’s culture bound assumptions can be brought to the surface for enhanced meaning negotiation.

How English Idioms Stumble Chinese University Learners
Li Huijie, Harbin Institute of Technology, China
English idioms are frequently used in daily conversations, books, magazines, newspapers, television programs, etc. They are a unique group of vocabulary that may sometimes confuse L2 learners by the tricky literal meanings. The present study aims to explore what kind of English idioms may affect L2 learners’ interpretations and how they do so. Forty-six Chinese university learners participated in the study by taking a 55-item idiom test. The tested idioms fall into 4 figures of speech: simile, metaphor, metonymy, and synecdoche. They were embedded in sentences, a short story, short dialogs, and a long conversation. The items were tested by way of matching, multiple choice and writing out meanings. The data analysis indicates that metonymies usually cause the biggest misunderstanding and that similes that are quite different from L1 common sense may lead to complete wrong guessing. This study also implies that context helps learners to come close to correct assumptions but the density of idiom distribution in a text might be a key factor that limits L2 learners’ understanding.

Intercultural and Interracial Communication of the East and the West: 
From Kipling’s “Ballad of the East and West” to Friedman’s “The World Is Flat”
Guiyou Huang, St. Thomas University, USA
The urgency of intercultural and interracial communication has long been articulated by voices from humanists, poets, novelists, and scientists. In 1871, the American poet Whitman writes in “Passage to India,” “The earth to be spann’d, connected by network, / The races, neighbors, to marry and be given in marriage, / The oceans to be cross’d, the distant brought near, / The lands to be welded together.” The British poet Rudyard Kipling’s 1889 “Ballad of the East and West” on the other hand shows a bifurcated understanding of interracial communication or lack thereof between the East and the West. The British novelist E.M. Foster then appropriated Whitman’s idea in a novel called Passage to India. In Howards End, Foster again asserts, “Live in fragments no longer. Only connect...” By 2005 the American journalist Thomas Friedman in The World Is Flat declares the world to be flat: the globule earth suddenly became flattened by the fast speed communication that happens 24/7 on the wide, flat TV screen used across the world. This paper focally analyzes Kipling’s and Friedman’s works—separated by a century—that nonetheless demonstrate the vital urgency of international and interracial connection and communication.

SESSION TWO 14:30-16:00

2A English Language Teaching and Culture

Effects of Oral Communication Courses on Thinking and Listening Skills of Japanese Learners:
 A case study of university students in debate and presentation classes
Hirofumi Kamada, Kyushu University, Japan
The purpose of this research is to investigate the effects of oral communication courses such as educational debate and presentation training classes on Japanese learners. However, very little empirical research has been conducted to measure the effects of oral communication skills on the participants in both Japanese and English-language debate classes. The present study shows some perceived effects of Japanese debating classes on critical thinking and listening skills of Japanese university students and business people. In this research project, two of the most perceived effects, critical thinking and listening ability, are further examined on Japanese university students in both English and Japanese debate classes using a questionnaire, interview and a written test developed by the author. In addition to the assessments of educational debate class, the effects of presentation classes on listening skills of university students are shown mainly in order to examine the links of the educational effects on skills between speaking and listening using a questionnaire, interview and a question of TOEIC test. Some potential limitations of the current research were discussed as well.

The Role of the Mother Language in English Language Teaching: 
Talked by the Parties of Ethnic Minority Schools in Inner Mongolia
Gaoyouhan, Ochanomizu University, Japan
Since the spread of globalization, the importance of English has increased tremendously. With the rising global trend of ELT, the mother language education of ethnic minorities has been more adversely affected than ever in multiethnic countries. It not only causes the reduction in hours spent in the mother language, but also causes changes in the problem of instruction medium and the learner’s language choice. The English language in Inner Mongolia was introduced to the school curriculum without ethnic Mongolian schools having the opportunity to make the necessary preparations, and they are finding themselves unable to teach it properly. One of the controversies concerning trilingual education in recent years is how to set up the instruction medium within ELT. There is, therefore, an ever greater need to consider the voices of young ethnic Mongolians on how they realize the mother language within their English learning. The author conducted original primary research with students and graduates from Mongolian schools through face-to-face interviews. This presentation analyses responses to the interviews and identifies problems concerning current ELT practices within the trilingual education system in Inner Mongolia.

English Education in Finland: Their successful strategies and methods
Satoshi Yamamoto, Kumamoto Gakuen University, Japan
This is a comparative study of English education between Japan and Finland. For a long time, insufficient English proficiency has been discussed in Japan but there has been no sign of improvement. One of the supposed reasons is that Japanese is classified in a different language family from English. Therefore, English is considered a difficult language for Japanese individuals to learn. However, Finns show high English proficiency even though their language family is also different from that of English. The present research assumes that different teaching strategies used by teachers are a reason for their success. Observation and surveys were carried out at elementary and lower secondary schools in Finland to gather data on strategies that teachers use to teach English and to encourage their students. This research intends to show the diversities between strategies implemented by teachers in Japan and Finland, and will suggest methods that can be applied to English education in Japan, including CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) and Teaching English Through English, which are features of English education in Finland.

2B New Ways in English Language Education

Video and the Collaborative ESL Classroom
Patrick Rates, Ritsumeikan University, Japan
Students enjoy watching video in the classroom for a variety of reasons. Video can provide students with natural language in a non-threatening classroom atmosphere. Video also has the advantage of providing a common ground to students of any international background. For many reasons, video can also be a powerful educational resource for teachers. Incorporating effective collaborative classroom techniques can be very beneficial to the ESL classroom for both students and teachers. Videos may also have the potential of having obstacles and drawbacks in a collaborative classroom. Knowing these potential obstacles and drawbacks can be advantageous when preparing a class incorporating video that includes all of the language skills in collaborative groups. In this presentation I would like to discuss how using videos in an ESL classroom can be used to benefit and enhance teaching, and to motivate students. More specifically, this presentation will discuss producing video classroom materials for a collaborative ESL classroom, setting up collaborative groups, and assigning group member roles in their collaborative groups. Finally, the presentation will examine potential drawbacks or problems encountered using video in a collaborative ESL classroom.

Computer-and-classroom Based Multimedia College English Teaching Model
Wang Lixin, Harbin Institute of Technology, China
Qiao Mengduo, Harbin Institute of Technology, China
After more than a decade of efforts, English teaching in Chinese colleges has achieved quite great progress in terms of facilities, curriculum modifications, teaching methods, teaching skills, and learning materials as well as teachers’ training, etc. However, there are still some defects existing in current practices of college English teaching. In this paper, the new College English teaching model, based on the computer and the classroom, is designed to help Chinese students achieve the objectives set by the Requirements. The model places a premium on individualized teaching and independent learning and makes full use of the special functions of computers in assisting learners with individualized and repeated language practice, especially with the training of listening and speaking abilities. While taking advantage of the teachers’ lectures and coaching, students can be assisted by the computers in choosing the appropriate content of learning according to their specific needs, proficiency and schedule under the guidance of teachers, so that their all around ability to use English can be improved and the best effects of learning achieved.

2C Writing in ELT

A Study of Contrastive Rhetoric between English and Farsi as Demonstrated Through EFL Students’ Essays with Regard to Writing Ability and L2 Proficiency
in the Comparison and Contrast Mode of Writing 
Habib Soleimani, Islamic Azad University, Iran
Abbass Eslami Rasekh, University of Isfahan, Iran
In this study the English and Farsi written essays of 100 EFL subjects were analyzed in order to see whether the literacy skill of writing is transferable from L1 to L2. The participants were 100 EFL junior students of Kurdistan University of Sanandaj and Razi University of Kermanshah in Iran. The subjects, mainly native speakers of the Kurdish language, were asked to work on two written tasks, one in English and the other in the Persian language, the formal language of education in Iran. A standard test of TOEFL was also administered to the subjects. The written tasks were scored according to a criterion (Jacob et al., 1981). After some correlational analyses, some independent sample t-tests and analyses of variance were utilized. Results indicated that L2 proficiency is a determining factor for the transfer of literacy skills.

A Contrastive Study of Textual Cohesion and Coherence Problems 
in Chinese EFL Abstract Writing in Engineering Discourse
Liu Li-da, Harbin Institute of Technology, China
This paper examines problems concerning textual cohesion and coherence regarded as a process helped along by interacting factors especially in rhetorical study, pragmatics, and intercultural communication. Special attention was given to cohesion and coherence problems shown in EFL scientific English discourse which have received little attention. The present paper studies coherence disorder reflected in Chinese EFL abstracts of engineering discourse with the help of functional grammatical theory，textual analysis (TA) and Contrastive Analysis (CA) approaches. A case study is made to illustrate the problems existed, with the data obtained from the 60 subjects (advanced EFL non-English major PhD candidates) with 30 abstracts written by English native speakers as parameters. This research explores the cultural interferences to the learners in terms of ESPEFL abstract writing due to cognitive, pragmatic, and cultural impact on the writing process, hoping to provide a meaningful insight into the Chinese EFL problems in terms of English cohesion and coherence in engineering discourse.

Theory of Textual Patterns and Discourse Coherence in EFL Learners’ Writing
Xiukun Qi, Harbin Institute of Technology, China
Hoey (2001) and McCarthy (2005) have raised the theory of “Textual Patterns” which are composed of macro structures and word organizers. The present study uses “Textual Patterns” like “general-specific”, “problem-solution”, “question-answer”, “claim-counterclaim”, and “comparison- contrast” to explore the problem with discourse coherence in Chinese EFL learners’ writing. The Textual Patterns are recognized and illustrated at the level of a single paragraph along the line of the two language researchers’ understanding. However, the study discloses the existence of the Textual Patterns in the Chinese EFL learners’ writing at the level of larger discourse like two thirds of a writing and an entire writing, and confirms their functions as macro structures in the angle of discourse interpretation. By analyzing the macro structures and the discourse organizing words, the study reveals the problems with discourse coherence in the Chinese EFL learners’ writing, and demonstrates that the Textual Patterns can serve as effective tools as well in solving the problems with discourse coherence from the perspective of discourse production.

2D Englishes, Linguistics and Language Choice

“Japanese English”: A Descriptive Grammar of the Educated Written English in Japan
Kola Olagboyega, Akita International University, Japan
As an attempt to conflate the existing pedagogical concept of “Standard English” and the emerging theoretical notion of “standard non-native varieties of English”, this study provides a descriptive grammar of English written by “educated Japanese”. It looks at the stability of the claimed  “characteristic” forms of “Japanese English”, examines their incidence in a corpus of “educated Japanese” English and shows the statistical likelihood of their occurrence in particular syntactic and semantic environments. The realization of grammatical categories that are typically associated with the constituents of noun phrases (NP), verb phrases (VP) etc., are examined in the “educated Japanese” English. The environments where persistent patterns and tendencies emerge are described and tabulated with a view to determining the extent to which the patterns may be said to represent stabilized usage based on a specifically Japanese syntax and semantics as opposed to (American) Standard English practice. The study is intended to demonstrate to those concerned with teaching English in Japan, particularly at Universities, Colleges, High Schools and Junior High Schools the linguistic circumstances in which “Japanese” forms are typically produced, and to give some account of the reasons for this variation and how to set about correcting it whenever it occurs in the classroom. 

Language Attitudes of East Asian English Speakers towards Each Others’ English
Mariko Kitazawa, University of Southampton, UK
Given that English is increasingly used as a lingua franca in East Asia (North and South East Asia), it has been repeatedly argued that East Asian English varieties should be accepted in their own right (e.g., Shim. 1999; Honna, 2008; Kirkpatrick, 2008). However, such a shift in the conception of English in education and language policies is not likely to occur without a change in people’s attitudes. To explore the possibility of English education which reflects the role of English as a lingua franca today, this study investigates language attitudes of East Asian English speakers. The data was collected from questionnaires and interviews conducted in the UK with international students from China, Japan, South Korea, and Thailand. Based on my findings, I will discuss the following points: the participants’ attitudes towards each others’ and their own English, possible factors affecting their attitudes, and the implications of their attitudes for English education in East Asia

A Preliminary Observation of Semantic Duplets in Thai: 
Their Relation to the Northern Thai Dialect
Sorabud Rungrojsuwan, Mae Fah Luang University, Thailand
Lanna is claimed to be the first kingdom of Thailand dated back nearly 750 years ago. It is located in the northern part of the country covering eight provinces. The language used in the area is called ‘Kham Muang’ or, linguistically, the Northern Thai Dialect. With their linguistic and historical relationship, it is a fact that the majority of lexical items in Standard Thai and ‘Kham Muang’ are the same. However, a set of lexical items known as ‘semantic douplets’—a word containing two semantically similar components such as /sµ™ùa sa™ùt/ (‘mat’ + ‘mat’) means ‘a mat’—is highly significant in the lexicon of Standard Thai. In terms of usage, native speakers of the Standard Thai are likely to use the short form of the word such as /sµ™ùa/ instead of /sµ™ùa sa™ùt/, while native speakers of ‘Kham Muang’ have only one lexical choice using another component of the word such as /sa™ùt/. It might be possible that semantic duplets are developed to serve a communicative purpose between people of the two dialects—by integrating lexical items from the two dialects into newly invented lexical items. It should be noted that a phenomenon like this was also found in L-Thongkum (2002) between Standard Thai and Tai Dam (Black Thai).

2E Media: Speech and Humor

Cultural Values Reflected in Leaders’ Speeches: A comparative analysis of 
Hu Jintao’s speech after Sichuan earthquake and Bush’s speech after Hurricane Katrina
Cai Yi, Harbin Institute of Technology, China
Zhao Yuqin, Harbin Institute of Technology, China
Political discourse, which includes presidential speeches, public debate, press conferences, government reports, etc., is the embodiment of that nation’s policy, ideology and political stance. Presidential speeches can reflect cultural values and ideologies held by the presidents and their nations. In this paper, a comparative discourse analysis was made between the speech by Chinese president Hu Jintao after the terrible earthquake in Sichuan province and the speech by U.S. President George W. Bush after Hurricane Katrina. First, linguistic features of the two speeches were analyzed from the perspectives of sentence structure, sentence weight, tenor and mood respectively. By analyzing the linguistic features, the underlying cultural values and ideologies of the two nations are discussed: China places emphasis on hierarchy while the U.S. attaches great importance to equality; China is a collectivistic country while the U.S. emphasizes individualism. In addition, some contents of the speeches also reflect the values and ideologies of the two countries.

Culture, Creativity, Censorship: Social Construction of Singapore’s Humor Industry
Trisha Tsui-Chuan Lin, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Phoebe Shu Wei Tan, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
This qualitative study views Singapore’s humor industry through the theoretic lenses of social construction (Brown, 2006) and examines how social actors shape its trajectory. Data are collected through in-depth interviews with TV comedy producers and actors, stand up comedians and theater practitioners as well as observation of local comedy scenes. The thematic data analysis (Miles & Huberman, 1994) is used to analyze transcribed interviews, observational field notes, and second-hand documents. The findings show Singapore humor is characterized as over-the-top visuals, frequent use of ‘Singlish’, current affair-related topics, and influences from the west and the east. The fear of failure, ‘mianzi’, (Hwang, Francesco, & Kessler, 2003) is a Singaporean cultural trait that hinders the development of Singapore’s humor industry, as its content creation relies on a formulaic approach and repeated humor subjects to cater for mass audience. Moreover, the government’s content censorship limits the creativity of artists and content producers.

Speaker-responsibility and Hearer-responsibility: A comparison of the speaker’s contribution to understanding in a conversation in Japanese and Korean
Sumi Yoon, Kanazawa University, Japan
The present paper aims to show the difference in the grade of speaker-responsibility for contribution to interpretation of the speaker’s intention in a conversation in Japanese and Korean. Based on her analysis of actual conversations between married couples in Korean and Japanese, Yoon (2008) pointed out that the speaker is mainly responsible for the interpretation of the speaker’s intention in a Korean conversation and he/she leads the communication actively, while in a Japanese conversation the hearer is expected to interpret the speaker’s intention actively. In order to demonstrate the claim of Yoon (2008) more exactly, a questionnaire survey was conducted to compare quantity and sentence-types of utterances in a Japanese and a Korean conversation and furthermore to find out how their differences can be relevant in terms of contribution to the conversation and to the interpretation of the speaker’s intention. The results will illustrate: (1) Korean speakers utter more sentences than Japanese ones in a conversation of the same situation; (2) the former express their intention more actively and clearly than the latter.

2F Gender Issues in Intercultural Communication

Marriage Practices and Intercultural Communication: The Case in African Languages
Munzhedzi James Mafela, University of South Africa, South Africa
Marriage practices differ from one culture to another. In some African communities, South African indigenous communities in particular, marriage is not an individual affair to legalise the relationship between a man and a woman. It is a group concern because it is not a union only between husband and wife, but a union between the two families as well. Marriage among the African communities is not reciprocal, i.e., a man and a woman do not marry each other; a man marries a woman. Marriage bride-price towards a woman is not payment, but a gesture towards establishing an alliance between the two families. In a multicultural country like South Africa these practices often create communication problems, especially where intercultural marriages are involved. The paper seeks to highlight competencies in interacting successfully in a multicultural society. The competencies will assist an individual to interact across cultures with knowledge and respect.

An Investigation of Females’ Reading on Homosexual Manga and Novels: 
A Yaoi Phenomenon in Taiwan
Dienfang Chou, Tzu Chi University, Taiwan
The purpose of this study is to explore the ‘Yaoi’ in Taiwan. Yaoi is a phenomenon in which a group of females enjoy reading the male homosexual romantic comic books or novels. From the perspective of gender, this study uses an intensive interview method to examine the reasons behind the females’ enjoyment of reading male homosexual texts. The results of this study show that the relationship between two male individuals implying “equality”, “diversity”, “prohibition” and “reality” is the main reason why the female readers prefer Yaoi rather than normal love stories between heroes and heroines. In addition, the female readers also sense that that the sexual display in Yaoi is more “reversal”, “considerate” and “human”. Limitations and suggestions for the direction of future research are discussed as well.

Marital Conflict and Cultural Adaption of Immigrant Women in Korea
Khisu Beom, Sungkyunkwan University, Korea
Hye-Jin Jung, Sungkyunkwan University, Korea
Eun-Jung Kim, Sungkyunkwan University, Korea
The purpose of this study is to uncover how cultural adaptation problems of immigrant women in Korea who married with Korean males are related to their marital conflict and stress. In addition, the present study examines how conflict resolution styles used by immigrant women affect their cultural adaption and stress in marital life with their Korean husbands. This study conducted a survey with a sample of immigrant women living in Korea. Participants responded to a questionnaire to measure the level of marital conflict, conflict management styles, and cultural adaptation stress. The theoretical and practical explanation of the results will be provided.

2G Issues on Intercultural Communication

The Development and Validation of the Intercultural Effectiveness Scale
Tamra Portalla, University of Rhode Island, USA
Guo-Ming Chen, South China University of Technology, China/University of Rhode Island, USA
This study develops and validates an instrument for the measurement of intercultural effectiveness. The reliability and validity of the new instrument, the Intercultural Effectiveness Scale (IES), are tested. Based on the literature review, 76 items considered to be important for intercultural effectiveness are generated. In the first stage of the study, 204 college students are used to reduce the 76 items to 42. In the second stage, 449 students are used to generate 20 from the 42 items as the final version of the Intercultural Effectiveness Scale. In the final stage, 246 participants are used to test the validity of the IES, which is significantly correlated with other related scales, including intercultural sensitivity, intercultural effectiveness, intercultural willingness to communicate, and intercultural communication apprehension. Limitations and implications of the study are also discussed.

Intersubjectivity and Interculturality
Xiaodong Dai, Shanghai Normal University, China
Human beings are social beings. Intersubjectivity reflects the condition of all human existence and constitutes the basis of social communication. When people from different cultures encounter, intercultural communication will take place. Intercultural communication fosters interculturality, and the development of intercultrality enhances intercultural understanding. This paper attempts to define intersubjectivity and interculturality, interpret their implications and analyze how they interact upon each other. Intersubjectivity refers to the interpersonal connection between individuals who are attuned to one another and construct social relations. The polysemic nature of intersubjectivity suggests that it not only embodies consensuses but also disagreements and tensions. In a like manner, interculturality refers to the complex connection between cultures whose members negotiate to reach agreements and achieve reciprocal interactions. It expresses commonalities, similarities as well as differences, contrasts and conflicts. Intersubjective communication is the basic form of social communication and makes it possible for individuals to engage in the world of others, share their experiences and co-construct the meaning of life. There is a gap between the cultural self and the cultural other, which produces barriers to intercultural communication. Nevertheless, with more exposure to other culture/cultures, communicators can broaden their horizons, reduce cultural distance and further transform intersubjectivity into interculturality. In establishing interculturality, they need to be open to cultural others and transcend the monocultural way of thinking.

SESSION THREE 16:15-17:45

3A New Media and Communication

Communicating Health in Intercultural, Cross-Cultural, and Multicultural Contexts:
A Contextual Understanding of Cultural Competence in Provider-Patient Communication
Rukhsana Ahmed, University of Ottawa, Canada
Benjamin R. Bates, Ohio University, USA
Culture is not just an “add-on,” but an integral component of research in health communication. Although the growing literature on cultural competence in health care focuses on health communication in different cultural contexts, it lacks a theoretical basis to begin with. What exactly is understood by intercultural, cross-cultural, and multicultural communication in the context of health has not been fully recognized and explored. This paper provides conceptual understanding of these different cultural contexts in relation to health communication by reviewing relevant literature on intercultural, cross-cultural, and multicultural health communication perspectives, examining the similarities and/or differences between and among these three cultural contexts with regard to health communication, and illustrating the implications for health communication that may result from misconstruction of intercultural, cross-cultural, and multicultural contexts. Finally, this paper argues that contextual understanding of cultural competence in health care will facilitate effective provider-patient communication, thus ensuring culturally appropriate care.

Adopt or Not? Differences among Users and Nonusers of Social Network Sites
Trisha Tsui-Chuan Lin, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Wendy Lim, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Vicki Chihsuan Chiu, Queensland University of Technology, Australia
What are the factors that affect the adoption of social network sites (SNS)? Are there systematic differences among SNS users and non-users? This study adapts Chang et al.’s (2006) model to examine how adopters’ characteristics, innovation characteristics, technology cluster and perceived popularity affect adoption of SNSs in adopters (Continuers, Discontinuers) and non-adopters (Potentials, Resistors). The survey results on working adults in Singapore suggested characteristics of innovation (relative advantage, compatibility, complexity) are critical in making decisions to adopt across adopter categories. Perceived popularity affected the adoption of SNS among Continuers, Discontinuers, and Potentials. Adopters were found to use more social media technology cluster than non-adopters. The study found that age was a significant factor for SNS Continuers and Discontinuers to make adoption decisions, while gender and innovativeness influenced Continuers and Potentials respectively. From the results of regression analysis, age and compatibility could forecast better on the adoption level of SNSs than technology cluster, trialability, and perceived popularity of innovation. A regression equation is generated here to predict the adoption level of SNSs.
Level of adoption =-1.042 + 0.523 age + 0.464 compatibility + 0.267 technology cluster + (-0.217) trialability+ 0.204 perceived popularity of innovation

Attitude and Social Influence Predicting Bloggers’ Behaviors in Thailand
Vikanda Pornsakulvanich, Assumption University, Thailand
Nuchada Dumrongsiri, Assumption University, Thailand
In Thailand, the evidence of the use of new media technologies such as the Internet and blogs is in a preliminary stage. Particularly, research on blog acceptance and usage behaviors has not yet been published. Thus, this study attempted to apply a theory of reasoned action and a technology acceptance model to understand the acceptance and use of blogs among Thai people. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived enjoyment, social influence, and attitude toward blogging on intention to blog. This study employed a cross-sectional design to collect the data from college students in Thailand. There were 268 participants in this study. The findings showed that all predictors contributed to intention to blog. The more people perceived that blogs were useful, easy to use, and enjoyable when using them, the more likely that they would use it more often. Moreover, when people’s attitudes toward blogging were favorable and positive, and when their friends and loved ones encouraged them to blog, the likelihood was high that they would use or return to use it more often in the future.

3B Culture and Identity

Cultural Identity and Bilingualism: A Mistaken Paradigm
Cecilia Ikeguchi, Tsukuba Gakuin University, Japan
This paper discusses issues faced by families in raising a bilingual child in Japan. It discusses general patterns of concerns like “how to develop the child's native identity and how to keep foreign language literacy”.  Foreigners in Japan were found to have both bicultural and serious bilingual concerns. Their primary goal seems to be: “so that the child would not miss out on his (native) heritage”, as well as “how to keep the child’s Japanese language skills at par with Japanese peers”. Japanese parents, however, focus more on “how to develop and maintain sequential bilingualism” (Doornyei, 2003). The paper also discusses issues on how bicultural children can have a full range of social interactions that contribute to making a bilingual and bicultural child in Japan a “Japanese” (Kanno, 2007). The writer concludes that bicultural necessarily implies bilingualism, but not the reverse. The writer hopes to shed light on how the home and the school can work together to “surmount barriers imposed by geographic isolation and lack of obvious choices”.

Harmonious and Syncretic Culture and the Building and Communication 
of China’s State Image
Er-Chun Chen, Jiangxi University of Science and Technology, China
Harmonious and syncretic culture，which values harmonious a relationship between human beings and nature and among peoples, is a quintessentially important value of Chinese culture. Harmonious and syncretic thoughts have run through the whole development process of Chinese thoughts and culture for thousands of years. The significance of a sound state image has aroused great concern among experts and authorities around the world. It is generally believed that the state image of a country embodies its power and influence. A sound state image can engender a strong and continuous flow of cohesion and fascination thus promoting international communication and cooperation. Building a sound state image is of special significance for China today as it steps on the world stage. The defining characteristics of China’s state image at present are: development, openness, responsibility, stability, peace, and harmony. It is urgent and practical to build and communicate China’s state image by making a reasonable and full illustration of China’s history of harmonious and syncretic thoughts and culture.

Thirty Years of the Study of Chinese Values in China: A Preliminary Review
Han Guang, Harbin Institute of Technology, China
The past 30 years have witnessed a transitional society in which China has, along with the evolution of domestic economy from the planned to the market-based one integrated with the globalization, undergone the dramatic transformation of social values. This is drawing great attention of scholars of sociology, politics and cultural studies, etc. Faced with the change or development of Chinese values, they reviewed the traditional values of Chinese people, reexamined the western values that have influenced China, and reevaluated the potentiality of reconstruction of Chinese values. This paper attempts to survey a number of major papers focusing on the transformation of social values and the potential development of Chinese values that are adaptive and promotive to social development. The paper tries to draw out some of the recurrent themes of the studies of Chinese values and also highlights the methods of study, sources of data, literature of theories, importance of publications and the academic background of authors, so that an overview of the present study of Chinese values may be presented in terms of the mainstream values, dominant values, and core values, etc.

3C Communication and International Students

Critiquing Communication Challenges: 
A case of intercultural communication barriers between Zulu and Chinese students 
at selected higher education institutions in Durban, South Africa
Renitha Rampersad, Durban University of Technology, South Africa
Prenitha Singh, Durban University of Technology, South Africa
Mia Zheng, Durban University of Technology, South Africa
The need for enhanced communication skills between students of different cultural, ethnic and national backgrounds poses an ever increasing challenge at higher education institutions in South Africa. As there is a growing number of Chinese international students in South Africa, communication problems between them and local students are on the increase. The present study was conducted within a qualitative and a quantitative paradigm to investigate the intercultural communication barriers between Zulu and Chinese students and to identify the possible sources of misunderstanding that exist amongst students at higher education institutions. This paper reports on the findings of this study. In addition the paper highlights cultural issues which are evident to contemporary life in South Africa.

Cross-cultural Adaptation among International Students: Differences and Similarities
Wenli Yuan, Kean University, USA
This study examined differences as well as similarities among international students during cross-cultural adaptation. Specifically, Q methodology and subsequent interviews were utilized to explore factors that have helped and hindered cross-cultural adaptation of international students during their first year in the United States. Thirty international students from 22 countries participated in this study. Q factor analysis identified three types of adaptation patterns among participants. The first type of participants identified their ability to communicate with Americans as the most helpful factor, and were more likely to report homesickness. The second group of students tended to seek help from their own countrymen when in difficulty, and considered insufficient English as their biggest problem. Students in the third type thought that their commitment to study and immediate family played the most important roles, and they had the biggest financial difficulty. In addition to these differences, the three types of international students also encountered some similar problems or barriers, such as cultural differences, stereotypes, financial situation and unrealistic expectations. Study limitations and future research directions were discussed at the end.

Analysis of Intercultural Sensitivity Between Chinese and International Students
An Ran, South China University of Technology, China
Based on questionnaire-centered research, this paper examines the differences in intercultural sensitivity between Chinese and international students. The results show that there are significant differences in seven distinct areas, including: interaction engagement items, respect for cultural differences items, interaction confidence items, interaction enjoyment items, interaction attentiveness items, ethnocentrism items, and willingness to communicate items. Observational records and interviewing data reveal the differences within and between these two groups. Inspired by these results, a model of intercultural adaptation by international students is developed, and also a concept of “culture with double layers” is theorized as the final stage of intercultural adaptation. This stage, however, does not represent complete cultural assimilation or integration, but rather, is an ongoing process of hybrid adaptation.

3D Literature and Culture

Developing the Malay Children's Literary Resources
Chew Fong Peng, University of Malaya, Malaysia
Mahzan Arshad, University of Malaya, Malaysia
Zahari Ishak, University of Malaya, Malaysia
Loh Sau Cheong, University of Malaya, Malaysia
Teh Ying Wah, University of Malaya, Malaysia
The materials or resources for Malay literature for early childhood in Malaysia are still in the infant stage and have not expanded to become the main references or developed into big book form. The children’s literature in our market is not published based on the education philosophy and research, but is produced based on profit, without taking into account the psychological development of the children. According to Mahzan Arshad (2006), the children’s literature published in Malaysia is categorized into the minimum level of consideration of the psychology development of the children. Children’s literature may cultivate the interest of the children to start reading at the early stage. When we evaluate the quality of the children’s literature, we need to take into account the interest of the children, their visual ability, messages of the story, and the effect of the story on the children. Hence, this survey was carried out among 941 respondents including university students, preschool teachers, and parents who were selected randomly in Malaysia. Learning outcomes identified the main features which attract the children to read. Malaysian children were found to be interested in the stories with the themes of love, friendship and family, imaginative animals and funny characters, simple plots, colourful illustrations, big size story books, a lot of dialog, and published in video form (DVD/VCD). The main factors that are considered by parents when buying children literature materials are the moral values, quality, and activities in the stories books. They also require CALL in the building activities (such as ICT games) and exercises to make teaching and learning more effective.

Erotic Writing as Political Consciousness: A Taiwan Case Study
Hsiao-Yung Wang, National Chengchi University, Taiwan
This paper aims to elaborate on the political consciousness of erotic writing by proposing a Bakhtinian formal analysis of Li Ang’s rhetoric in one of her political novels: Autobiography: A novel (1999). The purpose of this paper is threefold: first, it reviews Bakhtin’s research on “carnivalization,” deducing how the Bakhtinian perspective inspires the studies of struggle over meaning. Second, based on literature review and theoretical rethinking, it tries to propose the methodology of ideological criticism; that is “form-ideological approach,” and argues why it could tackle the very heart of the political consciousness of “carnivalization.” Third, by seeing erotic writing as a case of “carnivalization,” it provides a preliminary analysis of the “genre” and “syntax” of Li Ang’s rhetoric in Autobiography: A novel, and reformulates the political consciousness of erotic writing. This paper finds that by deploying the blurred genre and grotesque syntax, Li Ang attempts to mobilize a kind of “textual revolution” to dismantle canons of male historiography thereby reconstructing the form of writing for “women stories/her-stories.” Besides, Li’s erotic writing could be regarded as the “democratization” mobilized by the functions of language so as to deconstruct the logic of patriarchic ideologies. It may also supply the domain of gender politics with some formal feminist tactics.

A Postcolonial Interpretation of Cultural Identity in Half a Life by V. S. Naipaul
Li Xue, Harbin Institute of Technology, China
Zhang Yang, Harbin Institute of Technology, China
This paper seeks to analyze Half a Life by V.S. Naipaul, a Nobel Laureate in literature in 2001, from the perspective of cultural identity. Cultural identity, influenced by social and cultural factors, is to be redefined and reoriented. How to define and orient the self, how to distinguish the self from the other, are not only problems which the postcolonial subject faces, but also the focus of postcolonial study. Born in Trinidad of Indian ancestry, Naipaul is a prestigious British writer of postcolonial literature. Influenced by two cultures of the East and the West, he has access to both metropolitan and colonial cultures, yet is alienated from both. The theme of dislocation, hybridity of identities, and consequent alienation in Half a Life has been a recurring one in Naipaul’s works. In this novel, Naipaul takes readers to see how Willie and his father in limbo search for a house, a sense of belonging and their identities. Their cultural identity crisis reveals that colonialism imposes a mentality of homelessness and a sense of non-belonging on the colonized. The search of a “rootless person” for a house is actually the constant, consistent pursuit, and consideration of cultural attribution.

3E Advertising and Visual Media

Cross-Cultural Communication in Cosmopolitan City: 
Focusing on the Print Advertisements of Shanghai Telephone Company in 1930s
Tao Yang, Nagoya University, Japan
By 1930, Shanghai had become a cosmopolitan city called as “Paris in the east”. Modern Shanghai was the fifth largest city in the world and also the largest city in China. There were more than 60,000 foreigners living in Shanghai by 1931, and the media industry had been greatly improved from that of the 1910s. Shanghai was a melting pot of races and cultures. Therefore, early modern Shanghai is a suitable object for cross-cultural communication study. This paper explores the print advertisements of the Shanghai Telephone Company from two print media. One is The North China Daily News, which was the longest-lasting and the most famous English newspaper in modern China. Another is Liangyou huabao (The Young Companion), which was the longest-lasting large-format pictorial magazine in modern China. We can find advertisements of the Shanghai Telephone Company both in The North China Daily News and Liangyou huabao. Although they use the same illustrations, they have different advertising copies in English and Chinese. After analyzing these advertisements, we know that the image of the telephone (a new media at that time) was created by appealing to human feelings in everyday urban life.

Purchase Intentions as a Function of Culture:
Examining the Effects of Visual Information on Young Chinese Consumers
Angela W. Y. Chang, University of Macau, China
Prior study shows substantial differences between societies with respect to product attributes, usage, ownership, and prices. The researcher estimates that approximately 70% of these can be explained by culture. With the emergence of culture as a main conceptual force, debates arise as to how culture should be treated or how to use or derive culturally oriented concepts in consumer study. This project investigates how different product presentation formats (e.g., color, gender-based) influence consumer attitudes toward product and purchase intentions. Visual information for products of internet and retailers plays a relevant and important role in consumer buying intentions. It is because they influence what, when, where, and how much consumers buy. The overall results from two lab experiments for categories like apparel, stationary, cosmetics, and household appliances show that visual information has significant effects on affective attitudes. Also, young consumers living in Macau and Taiwan, respectively, have very different purchase intentions as well as decisions. The implications for future intercultural study are discussed.

Sign Values and Brand Glocalization: 
The Construction of “Something” in Taiwanese Coffee and Tea Brands Advertising
Huey-Rong Chen, Culture University, Taiwan
In his 2004 work, The Globalization of Nothing, George Ritzer examines capitalist culture in globalization directly as the most penetrating universalism in modern societies, and the capitalist global growth renders the cultural form of “nothing-ness,” while the niche and specific form of everyday local life invest in or produce consumer brands with cultural “something” (Ritzer, 2004). This paper examines further how the process of “glocalization” is constructed through the semiotic strategy of organizing and transforming the signs of the local and the global, the particular and the universal, into the value tokens of brand identities. Which cultural elements are extracted to be mass reproduced globally and become “nothing,” and which cultural elements are reinvested into the local places and cultural contexts to produce meanings within everyday lives? By applying Greimas’ (1972, 1984) semio-narrative theory and the structure of exchange, this study analyzes the TV commercials of two leading Taiwanese beverage brands, to see whether the construction of the global-local nexus is able to produce the cultural “something” that is “generally indigenously conceived, controlled, and comparatively rich in distinctive content,” (Ritzer, 2004) or whether it somehow leads to the nothing-ness of non-places, non-things, and non-people.

Media Action in Health Literacy: A Teaching Case on Energy Drinks Advertising
Cheng-yu Lin, National Chengchi University, Taiwan, Feng Chia University, Taiwan
In Taiwan, we have a lot of Energy Drinks advertised on TV every day. The book Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion (2004) defines health literacy as “an interaction between social demands and individuals’ skills”. The 2006 U.S. National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL)’s definition of the term “health literacy” and health literacy tasks, which were accepted by the U.S. Institute of Medicine and Healthy People in 2010, states health literacy is: “The degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions” (HHS, 2000; Ratzan & Parker, 2000; Institute of Medicine, 2004). Actually, health literacy has now permeated the public health lexicon. Although Taiwan’s Ministry of Education issued a white paper on media education policy in 2003, and established the Media Literacy Education Committee on May 1 in the same year, we seldom find discussions about “health literacy” in media literacy issues. By reviewing the past, this article concerns how health literacy is run, and how possible it is to move from concept to practice. The author uses action research in a class (university) between a teacher and students, to reflect upon the meaning of health literacy. Through the case study, namely “Paolyda B Energy Drink and Sanyo Whisbih Energy Drink” advertising, the author would like to examine the process of dialoguing, including from understanding media texts to access. Lastly, the article indicates the challenges and problems involved in teaching health literacy.

3F Culture in Education 2

Topic Based Syllabus for a Japanese University Cross Culture Communication Course
Susan Meiki, Hiroshima University, Japan
Universities across Japan are including courses entitled “Cross Culture Communication” for students majoring in English. This broad topic presents many challenges to the syllabus designer. Cross culture communication is an important skill, but how do we as educators teach this to our students? Content can focus on social differences, cultural history or values. Design formats can be task-based, issues-based, or a lecture series. Focus can be Japan and the target country (U.S. or U.K.) or Japan and many countries. If the students are mostly from one culture, how can ideas be exchanged to expose students to different ways of thinking? After a brief overview of definitions of Cross Cultural Communications, this presentation will describe an issues-based syllabus used for the past three years at a Christian women’s university. Texts, topics, student research, and blogs used for discussion will be presented during the first half of the session. The second half will be an open forum where educators can share ideas on Cross Culture Communication syllabus design for university level courses.

Toward an Integrated Approach to Learning A Foreign Language and Culture: 
A Literature Review
Xiaoyan Li, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Japan
Katsuhiro Umemoto, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Japan
It is often argued that the purpose of foreign language learning is to develop students’ inter-cultural competence. Also, it is often pointed out that foreign language teaching must be linked to social and cultural contexts in which foreign languages are used. Moreover, some researchers argued that students as ethnographers can and should learn a foreign language and culture at the same time. This paper examines the concept of ‘culture’ in the context of foreign language teaching. We review the theoretical and practical literature pertaining to culture learning in second language education, particularly focusing on such matters as cross-cultural awareness, culture shock, cross-cultural experience and interaction. Implications of the literature review for current problems and the future of Japanese language and culture education are discussed.

The Causes and Effects of the ‘Cultural Divide’: An Exploratory Study of the Teaching and Learning of International Postgraduate Students at an Australian University
Niranjala (Nina) Weerakkody, Deakin University, Australia
International fee-paying student revenue for Australia recorded A$13.7 billion in 2007, taking third place after coal and iron exports. Students from South Asia, China, Africa and elsewhere arrive at Australian universities seeking a qualification, as well as future permanent residency in the country. They possess varying degrees of academic ability and English proficiency. Even those fluent in English find the ‘cultural divide’ creating difficulties to understand their teachers and vice versa, leading to student attrition and loss of reputation for universities. Anecdotal evidence suggests that many academic staff find international students with low English proficiency creating challenges that frustrate them while cultural differences between staff and even students fluent in English causing anxieties about finding a ‘common ground’ when using examples to illustrate the concepts being taught in the classroom. Using data from depth interviews with: academic staff teaching courses popular with fee paying international postgraduate students; support staff and advisors teaching language skills to them; international postgraduate students of varying levels of English proficiency; and focus groups with international students, the paper will explore the issues related to intercultural communication competence, inter-subjectivity, the challenges faced by all groups, and how they are and could be better addressed at one Australian university to alleviate them.

3H PANEL:　Differences in Conversational Styles between Japanese and North American Speakers: Formal and Informal Styles, Participation Organization, and Topic Development

Chair: Sanae Tsuda, Tokai Gakuen University, Japan
The panel illustrates differences in Japanese and North American English conversation styles. Our study is based on analyses of dyad or 3-person conversations between/among Japanese male adults and North American male adults. Each group of people is asked to start and maintain a 30-minute conversation after they meet for the first time. First, Tsuda analyzes the uniqueness of Japanese rapport building strategies. Then, Shigemitsu and Iwata demonstrate how each group of people tries to construct and maintain social relationships through culture-specific strategies of rapport management. The panel stresses the importance of being aware of conversational style differences in intercultural communication.
Panelists:
Formal and Informal Styles and Uses of Sentence Final Particles in Japanese
Sanae Tsuda, Tokai Gakuen University, Japan
By analyzing Japanese conversations, Tsuda observes how the Japanese speakers choose the formal desu/masu form to show deference or use an informal form to show closeness. The conversational data show that the Japanese speakers do not shift their formal styles in their 30 minute conversations. The participants very carefully choose which styles to use by monitoring the other speakers and they feel uncomfortable when the other speakers speak in different styles. The analysis also shows how the Japanese speakers make use of various strategies to soften the formal desu/masu style by adding sentence final particles ne/yo or by stopping before desu/masu endings to avoid formality to adjust to the situations in which they are placed. She proposes that the Japanese speakers make use of sentence particles and other means to show rapport even in a seemingly formal Japanese conversational style.

Participation Organization
Yuka Shigemitsu, Tokyo Polytechnic University, Japan
Shigemitsu compares how each turn is continued in English conversations and Japanese conversations in a mono-cultural setting. English speakers tend to add information, reform what they have said, expand the previous utterances by giving more details and give their opinions and short responses more often than Japanese speakers do. They exchange opinions and have question-answer adjacency pairs. On the other hand, Japanese speakers tend to give minimal responses, repeat the previous speaker’s utterance, co-construct the previous speaker’s fragments and laugh together. Based on these findings, it is also claimed that when focusing on rapport building, native English speakers and native Japanese speakers use different devices to keep conversations going. Native English speakers use verbal devices to other participants. However, native Japanese speakers use meta-messages and meta-pragmatics to show rapport. These differences may create conversational breakdowns in intercultural communication.

Topic Development and Topic Shift in Japanese and North American English Conversation
Yuko Iwata, Tokai University, Japan
Iwata conducts a contrastive study of topic development and topic shift as rapport building strategies in English and Japanese. In her analyses, the following questions are discussed: In order to develop rapport in each language, what kinds of topics do participants prefer? How do they like to start and elaborate on topics? And how do they tend to close and switch topics? How and to what extent are they expected to show involvement? How much self-disclosure is observed? The analyses reveal that North American English speakers elaborate on topics through co-construction of asking and answering questions and make clear topic shifts, while Japanese speakers tend to give less information and their topic shifts are less clear. These differences in conversation styles could lead to failure in developing rapport and hence intercultural communication difficulties between Japanese people and North Americans, if they interact in English without being aware of the differences.

Saturday

SESSION FOUR 10:30-12:00

4A Culture and Identity

Religious Violence and Community Building in a Globalizing India
Margaret D’Silva, University of Louisville, USA
Profound changes in an increasingly global world compel us to re-examine our notions of culture and identity. Preserving one’s heritage, and understanding one’s culture attains new significance; religious identity becomes an easy anchor in a rapidly changing world. Recently in India, violence particularly against religious minorities has raised questions about asserting one’s religious identity and citizenship. In post-independence India, religious stirrings have been common, including violent conflagrations between members of Muslim and Hindu groups. However, in recent times, a new religious violence has flared up—attacks on the Catholic minority in India. Because of the long history of peaceful relations between India’s Hindu majority and Catholic minority in Karnataka, the attacks on Catholics and churches were highly unusual. This paper will examine the intersection of religious identity, globalization, and community building as evidenced in the recent violence against Christians in some parts of India. 

Relational Interdependent Self-Construal, Imagined Interactions, 
and Conversational Constraints among Vietnamese Americans
Dominique M. Gendrin, Xavier University of Louisiana, USA
Vietnamese Americans are currently the fifth largest Asian American group in the United States and are projected to become the second largest by 2030. Although much cross-cultural research reveals differences among various Asian ethnic groups, little is known about the communication dimensions of selfhood among Vietnamese Americans. Further, ethnicity constitutes an important theoretical and contextual dimension of communication. Hence, the purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of the collectivistic nature of the Vietnamese American culture in relation to the construction of self, the cognitive processing of everyday conversations known as Imagined Interactions, and conversational constraints among young Vietnamese-Americans. Regression analyses will be used to predict the influence of the relational interdependent self-construal, defining Vietnamese Americans’ concept of self, on the role of imagined interactions and conversational constraints in processing everyday encounters. Potential limitations and direction for future research will be discussed.

4B Language and the Internet

Comparing the Application of Emoticons in English, Japanese 
and Chinese Language Background in Cyber Communication
So-Jeng Hung, National University of Kaohsiung, Taiwan
Yen-Ling Chen, Chinese Culture University, Taiwan
This paper studies the characteristics of emoticons and analyzes the difference of their usage between Eastern and Western languages. The research material derives from English, Japanese, and Chinese versions of the Wikipedia website, in which is typed “emoticon” and open editors help catch the content of contributions. From the social identity perspective, this paper studies how these users express their inner emotions in simple characters and signs while typing. Through the comparison of English, Japanese, and Chinese language CMC, this paper discusses the difference of emoticon development cases. The findings discovered that the development of the emoticon has its own evolution path, from the early Western-style horizontal, handwritten, simple expression to the Eastern style emoticon that is usually encoded in double-byte character codes and results in a bigger variety of characters that can be used in emoticons. Users have developed a wide variety of unique emoticons using obscure characters. Some have taken on their own life styles and become characters in their own right. Using the plentiful and lively facial expressions outlined by typing different symbols, internet users are able to simulate a face-to-face communication to express the rich intrinsic moods and to extend their social feelings in computer- mediated-communication. 

International Communication: The Influence of Online English News on Chinese Language
Li-Zhu Jiang, Capital University of Economics and Business, China
The influence of international communication, especially from a “strong media” to a “weak media”, is obvious in power, politics, cultures, languages, etc. The online English news, though from different nations, influences the Chinese online browsers in both invisible and visible ways. The former refers to the indirect influence from the English news itself and the latter the direct influence from the Chinese translations of the news. By investigating the online English news of The Wall Street Journal in a small corpus, the influence of English news and its Chinese translations on Chinese language are specifically analyzed. As for the former invisible influence, the Chinese browsers have no ways to deal with it, but for the latter, the translators play a key role in the influence on Chinese language, which is visible, including grammar, vocabularies, structures, writing styles or even thinking patterns. The translator’s roles speed up or delay the “Eurolization” of Chinese language, somehow.

A Cultural and Linguistic Analysis of Japanese and English Online Communication: The language of weblogs
Barry Kavanagh, Tohoku University
Within Computer mediated Communication, a number of studies (Herring, 1993, 2000; Herring,  & Paolillo, 2006, Hall, 1996) have found linguistic behavioral patterns that are gender based. For example, women use more graphical accents in their web postings. Men use more challenging language than women. Men write more inflammatory messages and that women use politer language. In a sample of 80 Japanese and English personal diary weblogs that were divided into genre based on blog topic content, entries from these individual blogs were examined for gender differences and informality, specifically looking at factors of non-verbal communication such as graphical accents and emoticons. Findings showed that as well as gender the genre of the personal blog played a role in influencing the written discourse with data showing that men used more graphical accents than women in particular genres .The findings also showed that the use of non-verbal contextual cues are culturally grounded with  high context cultures such as Japanese relying heavily on these graphical accents in their blog entries regardless of sex.

Science Information and Risk Communication on the Web: 
A Content Analysis of the Global Warming Issue in Taiwan
Yie-Jing Yang, Shih Hsin University, Taiwan
Mei-Ling Hsu, National Chengchi University, Taiwan
The World Wide Web is a popular source of information on science and risk issues. The web also creates a crowded, noisy space, where discerning valid and valuable information becomes ever harder. Therefore, this study adopts the content analysis method to explore how the global warming issue has been presented on the web. A total of 139 Taiwanese global warming-related websites were sampled, with more than half being affiliated with governmental and environmental organizations. Except for one, all of the other 138 websites revealed pro-global warming position. The majority of the themes on the global warming web sites dealt with the impact of global warming, followed by governance of the problem, solutions/actions of the individuals, causes of the phenomenon, and debates and conflicts of global warming. In addition, most web sites were targeted at the general public. The findings show that the debate over global warming controversy has not been widely treated on the Taiwanese web sites. Target-specific appeals have also been overlooked. A discussion of the lack of diversity, target segmentation, and the related matters will be presented to conclude the study and to provide future suggestions in designing culturally specific web sites to communicate the issue of global warming more effectively and efficiently.

4C Media: News and Press

The Aborigine Culture of the Travel Reporters: The Representation, Imagination and Gaze
Szu-Yin Yeh, Shih Hsin University, Taiwan
The Aborigine culture has become one of the most important symbols in Taiwanese culture. More and more Aborigines ask to be renamed and return to their traditional culture, such as festivals, clothes, handicrafts and spaces. On the wave of the culture industries, the Aborigine Culture has become a selling point and “media spectacle” because of its culture difference. This paper will focus on the travel reports by the media. The two main concepts of the theory are “tourist gaze” and “the media spectacle”. We will examine the elusive and invisible characters of Foucault “gaze”, as well as the ways that the gaze functions like an object in the constitutive relationship between the subject and the Other. And we will try to explain “What is the aborigine culture?”,“Whose is the aborigine culture” through the media reports. This research also discovers creative constructions or imaginations of the aborigine culture in the media. In conclusion, this paper will discover the representation of the aborigine culture and explain why the spectacle occurs.

A Cross-cultural Study on Ideological Deviation in Media News Discourse
Wu Yanli, Shenzhen University, China
Pan Xiaohui, Shenzhen University, China
Despite the burgeoning recent literature on crucial cultural and political aspects of globalization, researchers have paid insufficient attention to the global circulation of ideas and their impact on the rapid extension of social interactions and interdependencies across time and space. Furthermore, media functions in the public sphere and mediates cultural configurations and influences ideological formations. This study conducted a media content analysis incorporating the theory of Critical Discourse Analysis on three newspapers of different sources to explore whether “ideological globalization” works on both Western and Eastern media news discourse in terms of reporting the opening ceremony of 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. The content analysis indicates significant deviations in reflecting each ideology. Therefore, this study concludes that the concept of “ideological globalization” is promoted only at an ideal level rather than realistic level. Globalization failed to marginalize ideology. Rather, the universal global culture brought about the stronger cultural-particular demands which determined its ideology value orientation.

"State of Fear" as Constructed by Media: The Discourse of H1N1 Flu News in Taiwan
Jenny Jing-Ling Lin, Fu Jen Catholic University, Taiwan
The outbreak of influenza H1N1 was first reported by Taiwan’s media on April 25, 2009. At the beginning, the flu was reported as “swine flu” which resulted in fear of consuming pork. The flu was renamed as “new flu” later. The memory of SARS was recalled through comparisons of H1N1 and SARS as shown in most media coverage. Such comparisons lead to a state of fear within three days. Related medical products were out of stock immediately. Hygienic products were on hot sale. This paper aims to examine how media coverage of H1N1 constructed a “state of fear.” Five questions will be explored in this study. What are the metaphorical implications of framing H1N1 in terms of SARS? How was prediction of pandemic potential made through linking past and future in the media? How was foreign news coverage incorporated into domestic concerns? Who were represented as sources of information authorities in the media? How were known vs. unknown facts about the flu reported by the media? H1N1 news coverage from major TV news channels and leading newspapers will be analyzed and compared.   

Human Conditions and Reality Media Construct
Aurel Papari, “Andrei Saguna” University, Romania
Andra Seceleanu, “Andrei Saguna” University, Romania
The press has become a pole around which the other sectors of the society’s existence gravitate, as a consequence of the fact that we live in a cultural world of symbols created by the media. By analyzing its specific function and the role it has in the society, the present paper tries to point out the role of the press in reshaping of the society, by imposing new principles and norms, and by constructing a new scale of values thus resulting a new set of images and social representations and subsequently a new collective mentality. As a result of exhaustive analysis of the functions of the press and the different languages used, this paper demonstrates the paradoxical nature of the press. If today we are victims of a real informatics boom, and since the press assumes a role of “reality agenda setter”, then the following questions become legitimate and we try to answer them: Does the press represents a psycho-social reality which is definitory for the human condition, does it reflect correctly the behavior and the way readers think? Does it contribute (if so, in what extent) to the amplitude of the social and individual violence?

4D Englishes, Linguistics and Language Choice

Teaching Global English to EFL Classes
Lindsay Mack, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, Japan
The author reports on the challenges faced when designing and teaching “Global English” to a multi-lingual, multi-ethnic advanced level English class. Firstly, the pedagogical foundation for the course design and learning goals for the course are highlighted. The author then details 1) Considerations when designing a course on the spread of Global English for an advanced English class, 2) Problems encountered when teaching this subject and 3) Suggestions on how the existing course might be improved. Corresponding teaching methods and class activities are also provided. Finally, the author examines student essays and online discussions to determine what connections students make between World Englishes and their own English learning. It is proposed that issues related to English as a world language can be an engaging and motivating topic for students in advanced English classes. There is great potential for connection with students’ own English learning experiences. Moreover, the acceptance of plurality so often implied in discussions on this topic, may serve to encourage students to become co-creators of their own learning, while providing teachers with an opportunity to promote student agency and empowerment.

Teaching Science and Technology in English: Language-in-Education Policy in Malaysia
Zuraidah Zaaba, Japan Advanced Institute of Science & Technology, Japan
Katsuhiro Umemoto, Japan Advanced Institute of Science & Technology, Japan
This paper examines the revival of English as a language for science and technology education in Malaysia. The policy implementation started in 1993 at the tertiary level and extended to the primary and secondary level in 2003. We review the literature dated from the colonial period to the present, thereby elucidating factors behind the revival of English. Findings so far show that both domestic and international factors had affected the policy decision. We discuss also the current state of English language in Malaysia and the global dominance of English in science and technology as well as in the global knowledge economy. 

Raising Accent Awareness: A Discourse Approach to Teaching Phonetics
Joanna Radwanska-Williams, Macao Polytechnic Institute, China
Traditional approaches towards teaching phonetics have been oriented towards pronunciation practice. However, in language acquisition often input precedes output (Krashen, 1985). Input processing (Van Patten & Cadierno, 1993; Van Patten, 1996) is vital to a speaker-listener’s comprehension of the natural stream of speech. This paper reports on a discourse-based approach to teaching phonetics which combines input processing with output practice. Students majoring in Chinese-English Translation and Interpretation are given basic training in Practical Phonetics and Phonology (Collins & Mees, 2008). This training includes sociolinguistic and phonetic information about English worldwide and different native and postcolonial accents of English, as well as voice and intonation. The students are required to produce a task-based group project on the transcription of discourse from a movie of their choice. The project includes a written component of transcription and analysis and an oral component of movie dubbing. This project develops students’ accent awareness and cross-cultural awareness of global media, World Englishes, and international communication.

Negative Markers in Northern Thai Dialect
Sorabud Rungrojsuwan, Mae Fah Luang University, Thailand
This study aims to investigate the occurrence of negative markers in Northern Thai Dialect, including their realization in natural speech and their positions in communicative contexts. Narratives of local people from 17 Northern provinces of Thailand were used as a corpus in this study. Results showed that Northern Thai dialect can be divided into two sub-dialects according to the sets of negative markers used: the northern part (/b�™/ for negating an affirmative proposition, and /ca paj/ or /b�™ù diù/ or /ca paj diù/ for negating imperative proposition) and the southern part (/maéj/ for negating an affirmative proposition, and /ja™ù/ or /haéùm/ for negating imperative proposition). In general, a negative marker is placed before the verb or the auxiliary it negates. However, for nominal negation the forms of the markers will be changed to /maéj chaéj/ and /b�™ù caéj/. It was also found that when /maéj/ and /b�™/ precede numeral question words such as /ki™ù/ or /ki�ù/ + clf. (how many + object) and /thaéw ra™j/ or /taéw daj/ (how much/how many), the sense of negation shifted from ‘none’ to ‘a lesser number of’. Moreover, when these negative markers occur in sentence-final position and change its tone (from /maéj/ to /ma�j/ and from /b�™/ to /b�ôù/), they are used for (yes/no) question and persuasive purposes.

4E Media in Culture and Education

The Embodiment of Interaction with Digital Media: The Case of WII
Wei-wen Chung, National Chengchi University, Taiwan
The present study attempts to examine the newly emergent ways of interactions with digital media, with special attention to the embodied nature of the interaction. Although interaction with media has been a longstanding issue in communication research, research has often assumed that the mind is the principal player to the party and therefore paid more attention to the psychological aspects of the interaction, to the negligence of the body. This paper, borrowing from the increasingly rich literature on embodiment, argues that the body should be considered an integral part of the interaction. Using WII as a case, this study will firstly propose an analytical framework in which to explore embodied interaction and secondly present empirical data showing how the mind and the body work together in the interaction with digital media.

A Survey on the Degree of Observing Media Ethics Principles in Iran TV News Section
Sedigheh Babran, Islamic Azad University, Iran
Ashraf Ahadzadeh, Malaysian University, Iran
Lack of observation of media ethics principles decreases credibility and validity of media. Such media have no commitment to observe their audience rights and gradually will miss their audiences. Radio as a unique medium with its specific characteristics can be considered a suitable means for observing and developing media ethics principles. This article is result of a survey which assesses the degree of observation of media ethics principles in an Iranian radio network called Radio Goftegu (Dialogue). According to the review literature, the article tries to describe and develop the media ethics theories and principles in national and international levels. For assessing the degree of observation of media ethics principles in this radio network, 30 parts of a famous program of the network, which was broadcasted during the month of February 2009, were selected for content analysis. In conclusion, according to the result of the content analysis, the weaknesses and the strengths of the radio network regarding media ethics is discussed. The article also tried to present some suggestions and strategies to develop media ethics principles in the network and other Iranian Radio networks.      

Media Literacy in Taiwan: 
A Case Study of Media Use Behavior on Taiwan’s Elementary School Students
An-kuo Chiang, Fo Guang University, Taiwan
Owing to a closer relationship between media and education, this research is written to show how media literacy education was operated to gain power to instruct children receiving media messages. Therefore, leading children to think with more competence of evaluation, analysis, distinction, and judgment is a very important task for education authorities. The purpose of this research is to explore the capability with respect to media literacy of elementary school students in Taiwan, and discover what the performances of their teachers’ knowledge and teaching skills about media literacy are. A survey research method was conducted to examine media use behavior of elementary school students in Taiwan, and a qualitative approach was also used to realize the problems of contemporary media literacy education in Taiwan and seek available means to solve those problems. 

4F Nonverbal Communication

Nonverbal Communication: Its Implications Within the New South African Context
Phalandwa A. Mulaudzi, University of South Africa, South Africa
In most cases, misunderstandings in families arise from a lack of effective communication between parents and children, and between children themselves. Indeed, ineffective communication is often a contributing factor in conflicts between groups and nations. In addition, understanding cross-cultural communication is a particularly important task when a country is still in the process of national integration and nation-building, as is the case in South Africa and other similar countries. This paper examines functions and patterns of nonverbal communication substantiated by examples from various languages in South Africa. In conclusion, this paper seeks to suggest that some of the cultural values which reinforce nonverbal communication need to be reviewed in order to align with the practice of human rights. Besides, cultural values should conform with the changing world. This will ease the brewing tension between the older and younger generations. It is also suggested that the media should embark on a campaign to promote knowledge of the cultural diversity of our country, as well as tolerance and respect for the right of people to differ socio-culturally. School syllabuses and teaching at tertiary institutions should also address this issue.

A Comparative Study on the Perceptions and Usages of Silence 
in Chinese and American Culture
Mengyu Li, Ocean University of China, China
Silence as a kind of nonverbal communication is a very important field in intercultural communication; however, in Chinese academic circles, it has not been paid much attention and even has been ignored for a long time. This article attempts to analyze the perceptions and usages of silence in Chinese culture and American culture. Silence as the muting of many forms of expression has rich connotations in Chinese culture as well as in American culture. In most cases, silence has been highly valued in Chinese culture while talking instead of silence is greatly preferred in American culture. However, the perceptions and usages of silence in the two cultures have their complexities, with the process of modernization of China, although silence is still employed as an underlying strategy of dealing with various issues, verbal communication has been given greater importance in Chinese contemporary culture, while silence is frequently observed in various specific circumstances in American daily life today.

Comparing the Application of Emoticons in English, Japanese 
and Chinese Language Background in Cyber Communication
So-Jeng Hung, National University of Kaohsiung, Taiwan
Yen-Ling Chen, Chinese Culture University, Taiwan
This paper studies the characteristics of emoticons and analyzes the difference of their usage between Eastern and Western languages. The research material derives from English, Japanese, and Chinese versions of the Wikipedia website, in which is typed “emoticon” and open editors help catch the content of contributions. From the social identity perspective, this paper studies how these users express their inner emotions in simple characters and signs while typing. Through the comparison of English, Japanese, and Chinese language CMC, this paper discusses the difference of emoticon development cases. The findings discovered that the development of the emoticon has its own evolution path, from the early Western-style horizontal, handwritten, simple expression to the Eastern style emoticon that is usually encoded in double-byte character codes and results in a bigger variety of characters that can be used in emoticons. Users have developed a wide variety of unique emoticons using obscure characters. Some have taken on their own life styles and become characters in their own right. Using the plentiful and lively facial expressions outlined by typing different symbols, internet users are able to simulate a face-to-face communication to express the rich intrinsic moods and to extend their social feelings in computer- mediated-communication. 

4G Culture in Education 3

English Mainly: Language Choice in Learner-Learner Discourse
Brian McMillan, Hiroshima Bunkyo Women's University, Japan
Damian J. Rivers, Kanda University of International Studies, Japan
This paper examines the use of the L1 (Japanese) and non-verbal communication strategies by students of mixed L2 (English) proficiency. Previous research has shown that the L1 can play a positive role in peer-peer interaction, serving a variety of functions which allow learners to achieve and maintain intersubjectivity (e.g., Swain & Lapkin, 2000); however, little attention has been paid to how collaborative talk may be affected by the instructions given to participants regarding language choice. The current study addresses this gap in the research. Furthermore, this study also recognizes the importance of non-verbal communication, building on the work of Farch and Kasper (1983) who found that L2 learners used gestures or ‘embodied completion’ (Mori & Hayashi, 2006) as one of the most basic strategies to compensate for lack of L2 proficiency. Eight pairs of Japanese university freshmen were asked to follow an “English mainly” rule as they worked on a story recall task. Episodes of L1 use and instances of non-verbal communication were coded and analyzed to determine functionality. In addition, a post-task survey was administered to assess participants’ perceptions of their use of the L1. Building on previous findings, these results provide a more complete picture of peer-peer interaction. 

Disjuncture in the Educational Mode of the New-Established Four-year College in Shanghai, China: A Case Study of the English Department in One College 
Sha Yang, Shanghai Business School, China
The transition from a junior college to a four-year college can cloud the college's educational mission.  Specifically, the transition that is the focus of this study has exposed disjuncture between the orientation of application (pragmatic daily work skills), and the orientation of academe (research and teaching).  This disjuncture has emphasized significant differences in the college's curriculum design.  Taken together, these factors diminish effective use of the schools teaching resources and the meeting of student needs.  At its core, the disjuncture is rooted in inaccurate evaluation of the college’s aim in cultivating the students it is intending to serve.  The situation in the English Department of the Shanghai Business School is discussed and an integrated, multiculturally-sensitive curriculum that co-mingles the needs of both the English majors in the school and the society is proposed. A case study that compares the curriculum in the English Department at the Shanghai Business School and that in a German technical school explores this phenomenon of application-oriented study. 

Experiencing Feedback through Peer Observation
Christopher Stillwell, Kanda University of International Studies, Japan
This presentation will demonstrate how a voluntary peer mentoring program for teachers can create opportunities for improved interpersonal communication and self-directed professional development through a system of peer observation and discussion. On the basis of an extensive literature review, the presenter will share important ground rules for setting up observations, and techniques for guiding post-observation conferences in such a way as to maximize the benefit for all parties involved, particularly when it comes to the prickly issue of giving peers feedback on their work. Techniques include ways to minimize the evaluative/judgmental aspect of observations, thereby making it easier for observers to see themselves in their peers’ teaching and for observees to feel safe candidly discussing the ups and downs of a lesson. Discussion will also focus on how a third party “mediator” can promote a deeper level of reflection on the effectiveness of various communication strategies in post-observation conferences. This presentation will be partially based on the presenter’s previously published work: Stillwell, C. (2008), “The Collaborative Development of Teacher Training Skills.” ELT Journal; doi: 10.1093/elt/ccn068

4H PANEL: Rethinking Nation and Difference

Chair: Mónica Cejas, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Xochimilco, Mexico
This panel will focus on Intercultural Communication Theory from different perspectives through the analysis of Nation and Difference. In order to understand the diverse identities, it is not enough to identify some particularities of their cultures and argue that this makes them different. The alternative proposal is to analyze the production of identities, that is, to historicize the ways in which the “names” have constituted identities and memories and produced or reproduced power asymmetries. In today’s society, when the impossibility of a single identity as the basis for a national identity is patent, the study of political projects involved in the formation and production of collective identities for a diverse society become relevant.

Panelists:
Temporality, Difference, and Imaginaries of Nation: Seminal Reflections
Mario Rufer, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Mexico
In a previous academic work, I’ve already dealt with public memories, uses of the past and discourses of nation. There, I made out a topic I could not raise in depth, and I want to work it here: the salience of the expositive (or exhibitory) use of time, temporality and the “duty of memory” in the public management of cultural diversity, at the core of the nation. What kind of political issues are implied in the use of time in the name of difference? The Other has always His/Her time as a mode of temporality, and Johannes Fabian explained the work of Anthropology as a “denial of coevalness” of the Other in the discipline. But what about our postcolonial, “multicultural” politics of identity? In the postcolonial context of the Third World, are we really using the “public space” (museums, memorials, festivals) to show that the other is with us? Or he/she is prior to us? Or different from us? Or even outside us? How are we (the very we, in our metropolitan, academic, modern environment) using the categories of temporality and ethnicity? And probably more important: Who and how are we? Is not implied there an always pervasive distinction from culture to history? What kind of political implications have these usages in the (re) thinking of a radical/universal and problematic equal? These are the questions I would like to examine in this paper. 

New Names for Dynamic Identities
Sarah Corona Berkin, Universidad de Guadalajara, Mexico
Mestizo is a complex concept in at least three uses: a) It can be derogative like in half blood vs. purity. b) It can serve political interests as in México, where Mestizo conceals the existing national diversity and the indigenous population, to homogenize in one proposal a project of Nation. c) The indigenous sense, meaning everyone who is not indigenous: Mexicans, Germans, Norwegians, French, etc. My analysis will aim first to de-naturalize the concept (both biologically and culturally) putting it into a historical and discursive context in order to understand the multiple dynamic identities in the modern mestizo societies. This paper will discuss methodological uses of concepts like hybrid, melting pot, appropriation, syncretism, re-signification, and their limits for understanding difference in national contexts.

Rock, Race and National Identity
Ma. del Carmen de la Peza, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Xochimilco, Mexico
The aim of this paper is to analyses how rock lyrics can be vectors to produce national identity. In common conversation in Mexico, “la raza (the race)” used to be an utterance full of a racist meaning. By calling themselves as “the race”, rock groups contest ironically those meanings, changing social stigma into a new meaning. “La raza/The race” becomes the people, those who don’t have a name, marginalized Mexicans who are reclaiming their place in the nation trough rock music. 

Social Movements and the Construction of Indigenous Identity as a Political Strategy
Guiomar Rovira Sancho, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Xochimilco, Mexico
It is enough paradoxical to raise the topic of the “appearance” of indigenous people in Latin America. However, from 1992 many social movements arose in the Latin American political arena taking a salient identity character, based on the belonging to indigenous people. Indeed, it is at the core of the protest that the very indigenous identity is produced, at the inner mobilization, and this production is linked to the goals and the political strategies of the collective movement. There, they conjure up a kind of past according to a project. In the Mexican case, Zapatistas of Chiapas have reformulated their ethnic sense of belonging involving a political struggle in motion. 

Exploring Nation through Reality Tours: 
Between Postmodern Voyeurism and Educational Adventure 
Mónica Cejas, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Xochimilco, Mexico
What kind of “reality” (or realities) conceived as new brands of tourism named with ‘politically correct’ prefixes as eco- by travel agencies and NGOs have been offered to consumers? What kind of consumers are they directed to? Aimed to what objectives? How are consumers as potential travelers and the people who inhabit the places chosen for a tour “produced” by this brand of tourism and with them nation also are (re)produced? Is ethnicity reshaped in the process? Local people can be agents challenging forms of “invention of tradition” imposed by the travel industry which silence, stigmatize but sells? On the other side, what are consumers looking for: voyeuristic experience of a sort of postmodern human zoos (as in the case of favela tours provided with security and comfort avoiding any direct contact with natives, looking through the window of a minivan) or an “educational” experience perceived as a political alternative? These many questions are at the core of my presentation. I would like to explore the phenomenon of reality tours as an engine of identity meanings in the context of globalization focusing in some examples from Africa and the Americas. 

SESSION FIVE 14:30-16:00

5A Culture and Media

Global Box Office Consumption of Hollywood Films: 
Explaining Inter-country Similarities in Movie Selection
W. Wayne Fu, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Achikannoo Govindaraju, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
This study empirically examines the similarity of audience tastes in theatrical consumption of Hollywood films across countries or territories worldwide, given the ubiquity of American movie exports. Drawing on literatures concerning international media flow and media globalization, we hypothesize that world cinematic audiences have acquired increasingly uniform tastes in terms of choosing globally shared films, in particular Hollywood films, to watch. That is, the preferences of separate markets about given sets of Hollywood movies have become more similar over time. It is further postulated that the Hollywood tastes of a country more culturally similar to the US tend to resemble those of the American market more. We quantify the resemblance of individual countries’ patronage of the annual sets of Hollywood movies with the US’s patronage of the same movies in 2002, 2004, and 2006. Then, the measure of similarity in country-level consumption is attributed to cultural distance and economic statuses as well as time trend. Also, the study constructs a scheme to assess the across-the-board homogeneity of film tastes among all receiving countries and traces the trend of the homogeneity level over the years.

Social Construction of Apology: 
Japanese Corporate Apologies in Newspaper Advertisements
Toru Kiyomiya, Seinan Gakuin University, Japan
In Japan, apology is a very important form of communication at both interpersonal and organizational levels. Japanese business organizations have proliferated business scandals in the past two decades, and they usually apologize for their wrongdoing and poor management in crisis situations. The author focuses on corporate apology appearing in newspaper advertisements in the context of business scandals and analyzes apology advertisements of organizational discourse as a process of social construction in terms of critical discourse analysis. This article picks two incidents that contrast two different approaches: a Japanese milk producer that created mass milk-poisoning in 2000 and a Swiss company in Japan that had a fatal elevator accident in 2006. This analysis points to three aspects in the discussion: 1) a social construction aspect that shows a strategic use of corporate apology; 2) a cultural aspect that indicates Japanese uniqueness of apology, such as emphasis on relationship (not on responsibility) and ‘honne - tatemae’; and 3) a critical aspect that articulates management abuse of apology as hegemony.  

How Cultural Values Shape Employee Behaviors: 
Comparisons of Taiwanese and U.S. Employees’ Truth-telling
I-Han Hsu, University of Northern Iowa, USA
Laura Terlip, University of Northern Iowa, USA
The similarities and differences of organizational members’ cultural values in judging truth-telling are related to their perceptions of effective communication practices in multinational corporations. With increasing globalization processes, understanding the stability and change of Chinese cultural values becomes critical for effective communication practices in those corporations. This paper critically reviews studies published in the 21st Century, which have examined truth-telling behaviors by members of Taiwanese and United States business organizations. Specifically, the paper examines the impact of collectivism and individualism on perceptions of, and engagement in, truth-telling behavior by employees in these cultures. The authors describe common misunderstandings resulting from cultural norms about truth-telling when Taiwanese and American coworkers communicate. In addition, this paper focuses on similarities and differences of members’ ethical values related to truth-telling and the cultural assumptions associated with ethical decision making in organizational settings. The roles of these misunderstandings are also discussed in relation to perceptions and misperceptions of ethical business practices in intercultural settings.

5B Culture and the Olympics

Analysis of Cross-cultural Visual Communicaton Strategy: 
A Case Study of the 2008 Olympic International Campaign Logo Design
Mei-Chiung Chi, Chinese Culture University, Taiwan
So-Jeng Hung, National University of Kaohsiung, Taiwan
Yen-Ling Chen, Chinese Culture University, Taiwan
Brand communication strategy is defined as showing the brand and cultural characteristics through succinct visual signs. Brand signs themselves provide the functions of symbols and significations. When a brand sign connects to the specific cultural symbols, it will further extend the concept and quality of the brand through the value of the culture. This case study analyzes the 2008 Beijing Olympic logo design from the angle of cross culture visual communications, and discusses how traditional Chinese art elements are able to express the specific culture meaning with the integration of Eastern and Western as well as modern and traditional styles. Based on the framework of brand strategy and visual communication theories, the study discusses the brand image of the great global event, which used cultural symbols in its logo design. The 2008 Beijing Olympics successfully built up an international image while associating the national cultural image and traditional art. It also created a distinctive model of cross-culture visual communications strategy.

A Study of English Environment Changes up to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games
Zhao Hui, Kumamoto Gakuen University, Japan
This research focuses on changes of Beijing’s English environment up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Since any cosmopolitan event has an impact both on the world and on its own venue, the Beijing Olympic Games is no exception. It was expected to and did have a big influence on Beijing politically and economically. However, from the linguistic point of view, what changes did the Olympic Games bring about for the host city, Beijing? This is the subject of the present research. For this study, a lot of information was collected from internet, books, and newspapers before the Beijing Olympics, and a questionnaire survey targeting Beijing residents was also carried out, which contains two parts: a pre-Olympics survey and a follow up survey. Now, it is partially concluded that the change in Beijing occurred, and it has caused both Beijing’s linguistic landscape and its English environment to be different from the pre-Olympics period.

The Origin of the Olympic Games’ Opening and Closing Ceremonies: 
Artistic and Communication Perspectives
Wichian Lattipongpun, Macquarie University, Australia
This presentation reflects on the origin of the Olympic Games’ Opening and Closing Ceremonies (OGO&CC) through artistic creativity and communication perspectives. Historically, the Modern Olympic Games were adapted from the ideology of the Ancient Olympic Games, which originally treated sporting competitions as a form of religious ritual. It was employed to communicate between Greeks and their Gods. Music, dance and art also appeared in the Ancient Games. In particular ceremonies, only the victory ceremonies were indicated in historical records; no evidence of the OGO&CC can be found. Of significance, this hypothesis infers that OGO&CC commenced in the Modern Olympic Games. This study aims to convey the initial ideas and purposes of the OGO&CC through discourse analysis. Thus, the minutes of the 1906 International Olympic Committee Congress in Paris and Pierre de Coubertin’s (father of the Modern Olympic Games) biography were employed as data sources. The results significantly illustrate that the OGO&CC were initially associated and influenced by personal interests and cultural patterns. Also, the notion of the OGO&CC is still continuously evolved and contributed to by different cultures in various host cities.

5C Pragmatics Politeness in Cultural Context

A Study of Pragmatic Failure in Intercultural Communication 
from Cognitive Schema  
Jiang-Yu Feng, Harbin University of Science and Technology, China
Teng Lin, Harbin University of Science and Technology, China
During the last 20 years or so, pragmaticians have carried out pragmatic failure in intercultural communication basing on the theory of cooperative principle, politeness principle and relevance theory which are confined to the study of its linguistic and socio-linguistic factors, not on the role of cognitive-psychological factors. Such conviction motivated me to embark on the task of exploring the possibilities of applying cognitive schema to intercultural pragmatic failure which is a relatively new aspect in linguistic research. Through analyzing the results of a questionnaire with 150 participants (college students), the author adopted schema theory to explain pragmatic failure in intercultural communication from the inference, variation and absence of schema. Then the author proposed three tentative and practical suggestions for the innovation of traditional teaching methods in form of activation, adaptation and construction of schema. Finally the limitations of the research were demonstrated for guiding further discussion.

A Contrastive Study of Apology Discourse Organization in Japanese and American English
Mami Otani, Kyoto Women’s University, Japan
The present study aims to analyze apology discourse organization in Japanese and American English, and to identify the differences between them. Apologies can cause misunderstandings in intercultural settings. Many contrastive studies of apologies in Japanese and English have focused mainly on the utterances or discourses of apologizers; for example, formula expressions, objects of apologies, variables that influence apologies (e.g., power, gender, and generation), and so on. However, considering the fact that an apology is a remedial interaction between an apologizer and an apologizee, it is also essential to focus on the discourse of the apologizees. In this paper, the following points will be clarified through discourse analyses: 1. How apologizees accept the apologies and 2. How the relationship between them is restored. In addition, some differences in discourse organization between both languages will be pointed out. Data were drawn from approximately 30 role-play conversations by Japanese pairs and 30 by American pairs. The results will reveal the cause of misunderstandings between both language speakers. 

Routine Formulas: A Contrastive Analysis of Japanese and German
Yoshinori Nishijima, Kanazawa University, Japan
Every language has evaluating concepts of communicative behavior that are related to “politeness”, e.g., teinei, yasashii, namaiki in Japanese, höflich, freundlich, überheblich in German (Marui et al., 1996). The acquisition of such concepts is dependent on what each language focuses on in everyday communication. Now how can they be acquired? We suppose that the use of routine formulas for controlling communicative behaviors can play a role in their acquisition because one is often exposed to such formulas in his/her socialization process, like sonna koto shitara warawareruyo [your behavior will be laughed out] in Japanese, das gehört sich nicht für dich [this isn’t like you] in German (cf. Nishijima, 2006). The present paper will show differences and similarities in the use and formalization patterns of routine formulas between Japanese and German based on the results of comparison of Japanese and German routine formulas that are often uttered in various corresponding conflict situations. 

Transformational and Paternalistic Leaderships in Chinese Organizations: 
Construct, Predicative and Ecological Validities Compared
Vivian C Sheer, Hong Kong Baptist University, China
With a sample of 176 employees in Hong Kong organizations, transformational leadership (TL), a Western concept, and paternalistic leadership (PL), a traditional Chinese notion, were compared regarding their construct, predictive, and ecological validities. For construct validity, TL had a high convergent validity and a low discriminant validity; whereas PL exhibited no convergent validity and a suspect discriminant validity due to inconsistent relationships among PL’s three dimensions (i.e., morality, authority, and benevolence). PL was then examined via its individual dimensions. For predictive validity, TL consistently predicted all measured managerial outcomes (e.g., work unit innovativeness, performance, cohesion, individual job satisfaction, and commitment); whereas PL’s separately examined dimensions predicted, inconsistently, only a small percentage of the outcomes. For ecological validity (i.e., the degree to which a leadership actually exists), TL was widely exhibited in organizations while PL was not. TL appears superior, pragmatically sound, and displays a universal appeal. PL’s inconsistent conceptualization renders itself a nonfunctional concept with limited utility as a leadership construct. Scholars may need to reconsider whether PL, earmarked as the traditional Chinese leadership, actually still exists in modern Chinese organizations.

5D Culture and Rhetoric

The Interpretations of Rhetoric Expressions Based on Cultural and Linguistic Diversity
Jiin-Chyuan Mark Lai, Transworld Institute of Technology, Taiwan
The focus of this study is to analyze and interpret Chinese-speaking EFL, English as a Foreign Language, adult learners’ responses on the ACMA, American Culture Metaphor Assessment. The forty three (43) participants in this study are non-English majors in Taiwanese university. St. Clair (2002) has argued that metaphors can be used to define different cultures. He has shown, for example, that European cultures are defined by certain metaphors that have emerged from their own social history over time and these clusters of metaphors form a cultural profile. Therefore, literal translations in terms of rhetoric expressions are impossible due to great disparities between languages, cultures, social histories, and other salient features of symbolic interaction. In this study, examples of the analysis and interpretation of participants’ responses regarding the comparisons with Chinese counterparts in Chinese and English transliterations on ACMA, including the six categories of American culture metaphors, time, space, body, visual, emotional, and social metaphor are provided. These findings are expected to provide Chinese and English speakers with clues to greater understandings of both cultures in dealing with cross-cultural communication.

On the Rhetorical Construction of National Values: Cross-Cultural Study
Sayenko Tetyana, Nagoya University of Commerce and Business, Japan
The present study focuses on the comparative analysis of the value orientations that three European leaders (Churchill, Stalin, and Hitler) employ in their addresses to mobilize their respective nations during WWII. The study involves the compositional-pragmatic, auditory, and instrumental-acoustic analysis of the audio recordings of six political addresses (in English, Russian, and German). The data show that the choice of the universal values (Schwartz, 2001) that the leaders activate and prioritize in their addresses correlates with the changing socio-political context, and with the values culturally specific for each nation. The results of the instrumental-acoustic analysis suggest that specific variations in voice pitch, range, and timbre in the dynamics of the text may serve as prosodic intensifiers and markers of the activated values. Further analysis of the prosodic arrangement of oral political addresses in different traditions and cultures could help facilitate understanding of how the words acquire the “power” to control public perceptions and value orientations.

5E Study-abroad Programs

Attaining Intercultural Competence: 
A Phenomenographic Study of a Cultural Immersion Study Abroad Programme
Leo Hitchcock, AUT University, New Zealand
Cross-cultural experience is unavoidable. We all have experiences that we can learn from; “being astonished, enthralled, bedazzled, confused, contradicted, alienated, misunderstood, welcomed, accepted, understood” (Alred, 2003, p. 27). Such is the world of sojourners studying abroad. In the first weeks, sojourners begin to interact with their host cultures. Initial data shows that while some appear to adapt quickly, others struggle with adaptation, and all make comparisons with their home culture. This is because cultural worldviews become deeply ingrained, and are not recognised as something that can be changed. Consequently, the impression that other systems are backward, strange, immoral, or outmoded can be formed when one confronts a different worldview (Hall, [1959]1981, pp. 77-83; Trompenaars & Hampton-Turner, 1998). As Hall argues, it is necessary to understand, and accept, other formal systems first in order to work effectively with them. Using Phenomenography, my research examines study abroad sojourners’ live interaction experiences and resulting perceptions as they occur, examining the essence of the perceptions of interactions rather than the essence of the interaction itself. By examining those perceptions that enhance or detract from the development of intercultural competencies, the findings will enhance understandings of how such perceptions can be construed to improve the development of such competencies. 

Effectiveness of Pre-departure College Courses in Overcoming Culture Shock 
in a Japanese College Program
Lisa Rogers, Doshisha Women’s College of Liberal Arts, Japan
Recently, many universities are making attempts to include more programs for students to learn about other cultures and broaden their experiences with people from other cultures, especially those from outside of Japan. One of the ways some universities have chosen to do that is through offering various study-abroad programs. This presentation will describe one university’s attempts to give students a chance to explore and experience a year studying at universities in English-speaking countries. It will especially focus on the content lecture courses offered to students before they go abroad and how students prepare for their overseas experiences. Before going abroad all of the students in University A are required to take English language skills courses. In addition to skills courses, they must also take non-English language skills lectures in English. After taking these courses, the students spend a year at a university in an English-speaking country before returning to Japan to complete their college education. This presentation will look at the usefulness of at least one of the content English lecture courses as well as how useful their pre-departure courses were in helping them overcome culture shock during their time overseas.

On the Overseas Youth Volunteers of China: 
A Research Based on Confucius Institute and AIESEC
Nan-Yi Bi, Peking University, China
Although not a new concept in many countries, “overseas volunteer” is still in its infancy in China. University students are sent to other countries on different tasks like working in NGOs or Confucius Institutes, but no proportionate concern is given domestically; nor is there a training program. This paper, addressing the intercultural communication between overseas youth volunteers and local people, seeks to map the situation of the foreign exchange programs and their participants in China based on instances of Confucius College and AIESEC, an international student union. By examining the different ways of adjustment of the volunteers and the difficulties met in the process, the author intends to evaluate the status quo and make workable suggestions in the perspective of intercultural training. Further development of related studies will also be presented.

Possible Selves Analysis of Japanese University Study Abroad Students
Ron Martin, Rikkyo University, Japan
Jacob Schnickel, Rikkyo University, Japan
Yuka Maruyama, Toyo Eiwa University, Japan
Dornyei (2005) called for a new avenue into motivation research based upon the established psychological investigations of possible selves and the L2 motivation research conducted since Gardner and Lambert (1959). Possible selves research aims to ascertain the relationship between a participant’s current self and potential, or future, self (see Leary, 2007). Research into Japanese study abroad programs (e.g., Cox, 1995; Yashima, 2004; Asaoka, 2009) have focused on curriculum, student motivation, language gains, and cultural awareness. This study connects the budding possible selves research to the established study abroad and motivation literature by comparing university students’ current selves to their perceptions of their future selves. Participants were 120 second-year Japanese students studying intercultural communication at a private university in Tokyo. Data collection took place two months prior to participant departure for a one-semester study abroad program. Questionnaire items using a possible selves approach focused on the following motivational orientations: integrative, instrumental, international posture, travel, language use, and cultural awareness. 

5F Culture and English Language Teaching

Correlation between Self-Determination Theory and Language Learning Strategies 
for EFL Students: Comparing Korea and Japan
Saeun Lee, Kumamoto Gakuen University, Japan
The present study used Self-Determination Theory (SDT) by Ryan and Deci, one of the major motivation theories, and usage of language learning strategies (LLS) to compare students in two different EFL (English as a Foreign Language) countries, Korea and Japan. Instruments including the criteria of Self-Determination in Learning English within six different stages from Hayashi (2006), and Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL, version 7.0 (ESL/EFL) by R. Oxford (1989) were used to investigate about 300 English major and non-major students in two different private universities in both countries, supplemented with 11 additional questions added by the author. The aim of this research is to examine 1) how much and what kinds of self-determination students have while they are studying English, i.e., (how much autonomy they have); 2) what different kinds of LLSs both countries’ use; 3) difference in usage of strategies by highly self-determined students. Moreover, the paper will look into the reasons why such differences appear in each country, and approach these reasons based on nationality, different education background, and social differences in the discussion section. 

Words in Mind: Exploring the Relationship between Word Association and Lexical Development
Peter Roux, Tamana City Board of Education, Japan
Language is what makes social life and the formation and sustenance of a community possible. Moreover, internal to the individual, the acquisition of language and the development of thought are seen as inextricably intertwined. The acquisition of a first language mostly occurs as a natural developmental process, whereas learners of a second or third language often follow a slightly different route to mastery of the target language. But what exactly is different in the mind of the learner and what mental capacities are utilized in the process of acquisition? This exploratory study investigated the relationship between word association and the acquisition of vocabulary, or lexical development, in learning English as a second language. Although focused on the Japanese English-learning community, the participation of different first-language speakers enabled a contrastive analysis of the data. While the emergence of certain patterns in the data supported similarities in the acquisition process between learners, the mental processes employed suggested differences between first and second language learners. Implications for second language learning and intercultural communication are discussed. Audience participation welcomed. 

Learning English through Conflict Resolution
Christopher Stillwell, Kanda University of International Studies, Japan
There is a natural fit between the studies of ESL and conflict resolution, for both involve a pursuit of enhanced skills by which to use and understand language effectively. This paper will outline content that can be used to relate the two. Discussion will include the opportunities that can be created to address imagined conflicts, as well as procedures for the analysis of which language structures are appropriate in which contexts, all of which can lead to great strides in learners’ vocabulary, fluency, listening comprehension, and pragmatic awareness. Sample tasks will be provided for the application of content knowledge to the analysis of disagreements found in the news, stories, and movies; and methods will be explored for helping students learn to conduct mediations for themselves. Attention will also be paid to ways in which processes typically used by third party mediators to help disputants resolve their differences might be put to use at the level of effective teaching practices. As we shall see, the teacher’s way of beginning the class, of asking questions, and of dealing with the responses can all serve as models of good mediation practices, such that the medium of instruction serves equally well as the message. 

5H PANEL： Meaning, Culture, and Communication Study

Chair: Guo-Ming Chen, South China University of Technology, China/University of Rhode Island, USA
In order to examine the role of meaning and culture in the process of communication study, scholars from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and United States in this panel investigate the theme from four different perspectives. The papers provide insight views on the alternative way of intercultural communication study, Xystemic structures of communications, Yijing’s narratives, and ritual hermeneutics. It is hoped that the contributions of these papers not only help people understand the relationship between meaning and culture, but also enrich the intercultural communication literature.

Panelists:
An Alternative Way for Intercultural Communication Study
Yaly Chao, Tamkang University, Taiwan
Adopting the method of content analysis along with the text mining skill, this paper provides an analysis of the differences of research interests as well as the epistemology of intercultural communication study by analyzing the abstracts of more than a thousand international journal articles. This study finds that the major terms appearing frequently in the abstracts of general communication studies are “message, effect, group, media, and social” respectively, while “language, culture, identification, relation, social” comparatively appeared with greater frequency in intercultural communication studies. These differences not only reflect the distinctive different research interests as well as preferences of intercultural communication studies, but also reveal potential research directions for the future intercultural communication study. The findings of this article indicate that the intercultural communication studies seem to have in the past ten years overemphasized research issues from a macro perspective. Therefore, this study assumes that the overall comprehension and attentiveness of communication theory development in the intercultural communication area would be much facilitated and improved if intercultural communication study would reinforce research efforts on certain micro communication segments such as effect, message, media, etc.  

Meanings, Space of Images, and Xystemic Structures of Communications
Victor Lux Tonn, Salve Regina University, USA
In light of the structures of systems, this paper searches for the mechanisms connecting the space of meanings and the space of images so as to be applicable to the human acts of communications. In this paper, the author shall strive to develop the general mechanisms of ontological space in the context of xystematics pertaining to the study of communications in particular and the cultural study in general. As part of the efforts presented in this paper, the author also hopes to illustrate, at least symbolically, a few mechanisms constructed from the image space of poetry in attempting to connect the world of axiology with the world of meanings as justifiable from the perspectives of the daily cultural practices. 

Yijing: The Book of Narratives on Change
Xiaosui Xiao, Hong Kong Baptist University, China
This paper explores Yijing’s narrative structure. As a book of changes, its narrative structure not only allows changes, but is also capable of creating all sorts of changes. But on the other hand, such an open structure has to be subject to certain limitations. A course of change can be perceived as a change only when it is placed and unfolded within a certain logical or dialectical framework. How does Yijing deal with this narrative dilemma? The answer, it is argued, lies in an understanding of how its Yin-Yang dichotomy, its six-line arrangement, and the 64 hexagrams, which feature its narrative structure, open up a huge space for changes, while regulating the form and the way of these changes.

Ritual Hermeneutics as an Alternative towards the Source of Meanings
Zongjie Wu, Zhejiang University, China
Meixin Hu, Zhejiang University, China
Hua Yu, Zhejiang University, China
Our classic view of the source of meanings is usually found in the Saussurean thesis that meaning arises from the relationships within the linguistic system, and is the effect of structural differentiation. This paper explores an alternative view towards the source of meanings by looking at the classic Confucian ritual texts and the lived texture of ritual performances in a Chinese village. We will combine both ethnographic analysis of classic text and the textual analysis of ritual experiences to show the dialogic relations between the bodiliness of understanding as a way of cultural being and the space of interpretation in the form of emptiness of symbolic meanings. We consider that the meaning lies in the bodily interpretation of everyday life or activities, where the deepest vocation, or Tao in Chinese term, exists where language cannot reach. That explains why the essentials of Chinese knowledge on politics, ethics, morality, religion etc. are mostly recorded in the detailed description of ritual activities rather than in the form of propositional arguments. It is therefore not inappropriate to assume that the contemporary Chinese practices of communication are still unconsciously organized in ritual hermeneutics, where misunderstandings may arise among those who were not brought up in the Chinese ritual culture.

SESSION SIX 16:15-17:45

6A Culture in Translation

The “Age of Translation”: Then and Now
Natalia Teplova, Concordia University, Canada
Despite the continuing rise in the importance of the English language, globalization, focusing on global outreach of locales, has inevitably brought an increase in translation throughout the world. This increase has been felt not only in terms of production volume, but also in terms of production speed and methods (A. Pym) as well as various new linguistic pairings. Many call globalization the “Age of Translation”. However, this metaphor is not new. For example, eighteenth century Russia (E. Etkind), Meiji Japan (D. Keene), and postcolonial France (H. Meschonnic) all carry the same label. The main difference between then and now is, of course, the scope of the phenomenon. Indeed, translation in the context of globalization touches simultaneously all languages' cultures. Individuals and scholars all seem to be overwhelmed by the magnitude of the changes felt in political, economic, social, and cultural lives (G. Lipovetsky). In this paper, we aim at going beyond the obvious assumptions surrounding globalization and the role played by translation at this time, by focusing on the analysis of the following eight parameters that will help us better define and understand this new “Age of Translation”: “by whom”, “who”, “what”, “for whom”, “when”, “where”, “why”, and “how”. 

Approaches to Translation Theories: Dichotomously or Holistically?
Zi-yu Lin, Macao Polytechnic Institute, China
Many Western translation theories are heavily influenced by structuralism, particularly by the dichotomous presentation and analysis of linguistic and literary theories. This can be readily seen through Eugene Nida’s formal equivalence and functional equivalence and Peter Newmark’s semantic translation and communicative translation, where each pair contains two polarized notions, with a possible abstract continuum running in between. In comparison, the theory proposed by Yan Fu, a well-known Chinese translation practitioner and theorist, is a composition of faithfulness, expressiveness, and gracefulness, where the three elements form an inseparable whole. In this study, it is argued that the Western translation theories, like the structuralism they follow, have their roots deep in the analytical philosophy of the West. The translation strategies adopted by Chinese scholars, nevertheless, are characterized by the Chinese holistic methodologies in problem solving. It is further argued that TL variations from the translation of a given SL text can be explained either by the translator’s movement and placement of the rendition along the continuum mentioned or by his control and coordination of the three ingredients that are eventually mixed in the production of a translated version.    

Writing about Cross-Cultural Encounters: Anxiety, Representation, and Responsibility
Jonathan Benda, Tunghai University, Taiwan
Living in another culture can be a stressful experience; while writing about intercultural encounters is usually regarded as a way to reduce that stress, it can also provoke its own forms of anxiety. This study, based on work in the archives of the Oberlin Shansi Memorial Association at Oberlin College, focuses on how some Oberlin graduates sent as English teachers to Taiwan between 1955 and 1979 experienced—and sometimes narrated—that stress about writing. As part of their three-year assignments as “representatives”, or “reps”, these graduates were expected to write letters back to the Oberlin community about their experiences in Taiwan. This paper focuses on how some reps attempted to manage anxiety about writing campus letters in which embodied encounters with an other had to be made meaningful in particular ways for their reading audience. Often highlighted in the reps’ reflections on this difficult genre are the various, and sometimes conflicting, roles that time played in attempts to craft responsible representations of cultural others. The reps’ writings can help us, as teachers and students of intercultural communication, think about what sometimes makes writing about cross-cultural encounters both so difficult and so necessary.

6B Youth Culture and Identity

Re-identification of Chinese Youth in the Era of Globalization: 
Individualism and Chinese Youth
Liu Changyuan, Harbin Institute of Technology, China
This paper attempts to explore changes in the nature of Chineseness in the era of globalization by case analysis and observation of changes in the Chinese youth, specifically their steady movement towards individualism. As a category of social cultural identity, the re-identification of Chinese youth in the era of globalization is based on the ongoing global/local conflicts, compromise, and negotiations mainly between pre-reform ideology and the commercialized consumer culture brought into China by global capitalism since the economic reform started in the late 1970s. Although most of the changes undergoing in China have their roots in the government-initiated economic reforms and open-door policy, it is China’s younger generation who are driving many of the current changes, the most noted one of which is a new kind of individualism valued by Chinese youth. 

Global Diffusion, Local Consumption:
The Penetration and Reception of Imported Reality TV in Taiwan
Chun-Fu Chen, Fu Jen Catholic University, Taiwan
The compelling popularity of transnational television programming has raised concerns with regard to young people’s culturally specific viewing experiences in everyday media consumption. Among various transnational television programs, reality TV is an interesting genre that has garnered increasing appeal within the young segment of television audience in many countries. Based on data collected from institution interviews and a series of focus group discussions, the present study examines the penetration and reception of transnational reality TV shows in Taiwan. The focus of this study is two-fold. On one hand, the study analyzes the business strategies that transnational media corporations (TMCs) adopt in promoting reality TV shows in the current multi-channel television environment of Taiwan. On the other hand, it also explores Taiwanese youth’s consumption of this particular television genre to understand the facets of audience-centric meanings derived from watching imported reality TV shows. The research findings demonstrate the importance of “connectivity mechanism” in the local practices of TMCs for retaining the popularity of transnational television programming. Furthermore, an explanatory framework is developed for analyzing how local young audiences exercise reflexivity to make associations with the content of imported reality TV shows.

Hamlet’s Chinese and Tibetan Cousins: A Comparative Semiotic Study of Feng Xiaogang’s The Banquet and Sherwood Hu’s Prince of the Himalayas
Mao Sihui, Macao Polytechnic Institute, China
In the world of Chinese cinema, various efforts have been made to bridge the global (dominated by the West with various conflicting discourses thus generated) and the local (characterised by active resistance to that Western domination). Within this general context, this paper takes a comparative semiotic approach to the study of two recent films – Feng Xiaogang’s The Banquet (2006) and Sherwood Hu’s Prince of the Himalayas (2006), both of which are adaptations of Hamlet by William Shakespeare. Through a detailed analysis of some selected scenes from both films, this paper looks at how meaning is constructed through cinematic verbal and audio-visual codes such as narrative structure, mise-en-scène, and montage. Roland Barthes says in Mythologies (1957), “The face of Garbo is an Idea, that of Hepburn, an Event”. It would be interesting to see whether the face of Zhang Ziyi is an Idea or an Event. 

6C Conflict and Crisis Management

The Role of Culture in a Conflict in a Japanese Academic Organization
Tina Ottman, Kyoto University, Japan
Lisa Rogers, Doshisha Women’s College of Liberal Arts, Japan
Every academic institution is a society in microcosm and constitutes a cultural island unto itself, surrounded by the sea of the larger culture. And, as no interaction of people from different cultures is devoid of conflict, the Japanese university is no exception to this, containing an admixture of predominantly Japanese tenured faculty and minority non-Japanese non-tenured/adjunct faculty; and permanent and term-limited contracted clerical staff. Conflict and struggles can erupt, especially at a time when Japanese universities are beset by the economic pressures of a shrinking student population and injunctions to reform, shape up and slim down, and generally be market-sexy. Typically, the non-tenured non-Japanese faculty, who are inevitably cast in the role of language teachers, are the first and softest targets for cutbacks; other targets include contracted clerical staff, overwhelmingly female in gender. The presenters have first-hand experience of what happens when conflict takes over and a university goes into dispute with its academic and clerical staff. This presentation will examine the cultural aspects of a complex, dysfunctional and damaging labour conflict, and will seek to reframe the nationally publicized dispute through investigating its cultural aspects. 

Conflict Management Styles of Parents and Communication Satisfaction of their Children in the Korean Family
Khisu Beom, Sungkyunkwan University, Korea
Eun-Jung Kim, Sungkyunkwan University, Korea
Hye-Jin Chung, Sungkyunkwan University, Korea
In these days, intergenerational conflict is more frequently happening in Korea. The present study explores conflict between parents and their children. This study especially examines how children's communication satisfaction differs according to their parents' conflict management style (integrating, obliging, dominating, avoiding, and compromising). The concept of "hyo" (filial piety) in East Asian countries, especially in Korean society is a crucial aspect that affects communication behaviors between parents and their children. This study assumes that the level of communication satisfaction is affected by not only parents’ conflict management styles but also the perception of "hyo". This study will explain an effective conflict management strategy for increasing intergenerational satisfaction in the conflict situation of the Korean family through cultural distinction. For this study, a survey was conducted of 260 college students in Korea. A questionnaire consisting of a total of 65 items measuring parent's conflict management style, perception of "hyo", and communication satisfaction was used. The result will be explained with the theory of conflict resolution styles and practical implications will be provided.

Governmental Strategic Communications and Crisis Management: 
A Comparative Study between China and the United States
Xiaohui Pan, Shenzhen University, China
You Zha, Shenzhen University, China
This study investigates governmental strategic communications and public crisis management in both China and the United States by taking account of some typical local and global public incidences in order to reveal the determinants of influencing government media strategies and the approaches to manage public crisis in the two countries. The study was conducted through three dimensions: documentary studies on the press release systems, media outlets analysis to reflect the strategies, and questionnaire survey to test the strategic effects. Our research tries to disclose that apart from systematical differences, governmental media strategies and crisis management are also influenced by cultural values, such as “face” issues, even though in global context. The result implies that the cultural differences should be managed on different government communications and crisis management so as not to lead to undesired circumstances. This study can be a useful example for a better cross-cultural understanding between the two cultural patterns. 

6D Culture and Language

Power and Language Strategies in Chinese Mediation: 
Discourse Analysis on Mediation Sessions
Yiheng Deng, Southwestern University of Economics and Finance, China
While we are struggling to establish a more globalized world based on the principle of equality and peace, in reality, power has been a salient phenomenon, especially during conflict management and resolution. Power is often reflected in languages in various contexts. Aristotle (1909) said that logic and facts are not enough to persuade people. Only when they are combined with language and language style, can persuasion be achieved. To manage and resolve conflict in a multicultural context, it is important for us to understand how power is played out through verbal messages and how conflict is dealt with in different cultures. In this study, we are interested in what bases of power have a major role on Chinese mediation and how power is reflected and demonstrated through language strategies. Discourse analysis is adopted to analyze transcripts from ten mediation sessions collected in both northern and southwestern Chinese provinces. At the end of the paper, social and cultural indications are drawn about contemporary China. Practical advice is provided for communication involving today’s Chinese. 

Linguistic Evidence on Interdependent-self Cultivation: The Case of Taiwan
Shirley Liang, National Taiwan University, Taiwan
Drawn upon the interactivist metatheory (known as knowing model) which stresses that 1. agency and culture are intertwined and distributed across levels of knowing within a developmental ontology, and 2. children acquire culture through functional interaction with their environment, this paper analyzed the content and story of a government-sponsored local cartoon that actively reflects and educates appropriate interaction mechanisms in Taiwanese children with respect to self-construals. Cultural framework of independent and interdependent self-construals refers to the perceptions that individuals have about their thoughts, feelings, and actions in relation to others. Members of all cultures hold both independent and interdependent self-construals, but one tendency tends to predominate. The independent self-construal involves the view that the self is unique, distinct, and autonomous entity, and the interdependent self-construal involves the view that an individual's behavior is mostly motivated by maintaining harmony in relationships. This paper specifically illustrated how interdependent self-construal is cultivated in a collective culture such as Taiwan using actual linguistic data. Finally, implications on cross-cultural contrast of independent-self and interdependent-self were also discussed.
 
Cultural Avoidance and Cultural Communication in the Context of Globalization: 
A Comparative Study of Television Culture in East Asia
Liu Chen, Beijing Foreign Studies University, China
In his study of intercultural communication effects published in the 1980s, Albert Moran identifies four influential factors: power distance, cultural avoidance, individualism/collectivism, and masculinity/femininity. Of these factors, cultural avoidance plays a crucial role in intercultural communication. Recent studies have illustrated the basic correlation between cultural avoidance and cultural adaptation or cultural communication: As the former grows weaker, the latter becomes stronger. While these studies have their own merits, they fail to address certain issues concerning whether or not the lack of cultural avoidance has the potential to negatively impact national identity and even national stability, and what appropriate and objective principles of cultural avoidance should be followed for successful intercultural communication in the context of globalization. In efforts to answer these questions, this paper will focus on a comparative analysis of cultural avoidance strategies adopted by the television media in five East Asian countries (China, Mongolia, North DPRK, South Korea, and Japan), to define and assess the specific factors which make for successful intercultural communication in different global markets.

6E Culture in Education 4

“Criticality” and “Reflection”: 
An Empirical Study of Japanese Language Courses at a British University
Etsuko Yamada, Sophia University, Japan
Byram (1997) highlights “critical cultural awareness” as the central notion of Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC). He explains the notion further by saying that “relativisation of one’s own and valuing of others’ meanings, beliefs and behaviours does not happen without a reflective and analytical challenge to the ways in which they have been formed and the complex of social forces within which they are experienced (ibid., 35).” This study specifically investigates the relationship between “critical cultural awareness” and “reflection”. It focuses on the result of a long-term (2005-06 and 2008) empirical study conducted in a Japanese language course in a British university. The qualitative interview data were collected from the same participants at two different times (in their first and fourth years): when they were completely beginning learners of the Japanese language in England and after returning from one year study (year abroad) at Japanese universities. It is implied that “reflection” plays an important role in the development of “criticality”. However, “criticality” is not limited only to the cultural dimensions of language learning but is also one of the factors contributing to the development of “criticality”. The study also discusses the role of language education in the development of “criticality,” as a possibility of an educational goal.

Negotiating Cross-Cultural Learning in Liberal Arts Education 
in Harbin Institute of Technology
Liu Xiaodan, Harbin Institute of Technology, China
Based on the belief that liberal arts education is one of the most important and indispensible components of higher education, liberal arts programs should not be overlooked in universities, like Harbin Institute of Technology, which take science, engineering, and research as their core. This paper is mainly about how HIT has enhanced the construction of its liberal arts programs since 2000 and at the same time taken the measures of negotiating cross-cultural learning in liberal arts education by offering optional courses both in Chinese and in English and holding various academic activities. To better promote understanding of the cultural differences either among Chinese students coming from different parts of China or between Chinese students and international students coming from all over the world, and set up a harmonious university community, some constructive suggestions, which are intended to cultivate students’ communicative competence, are also presented.

Narrative and Performative Acts in Cultural Education: 
The Teaching of Writing as Critical Communication
Yuen-fun Muriel Law, Lingnan University, China
Ching-kiu Stephen Chan, Lingnan University, China
Grounded in the interdisciplinary work of Cultural Studies, this paper examines the pedagogical potentials of narrative and performance for the teaching of writing as a mode of public critical discourse. Guided to address a wide readership, learner-writers engage in critical communication linking self inquiry and discovery to the contextual analysis of the social. Drawing on research findings derived from the undergraduate teaching of cultural criticism at Lingnan University, Hong Kong, we look at how the mediation of educational drama, as manifested through the work of narrative and performative acts with the learner-writers, contribute to the shaping and representation of critical ideas and perspectives, thus articulating the process and impact of writing to the public mode of critical communication. By revealing how such acts in critical discourse may engage the writer dialogically with the potential reader, we argue how both writing and its learning process are to be seen as effective stages in the making of cultural criticism.

6F Globalization and the Internet

A Preliminary Analysis：
The Business Model of Online Music Websites with Creative Commons Licenses
Chia-Jung Yang, National Chengchi University, Taiwan
In the age of Web 2.0, users collect digital contents to remix and compose new works. Immediately, disputes about copyrights occur. The suggestion of Creative Commons licenses (the abbreviation: CC licenses) is about the copyright. If creators want to keep “no rights reserved “or “some rights reserved”, they can use signs and words which stand for legal rules to display on their works (including websites, music, films, photos, teaching materials and so on). CC licenses protect creators’ rights and make sure that it is legal for users to use works with CC licenses. Moreover, CC licenses are good for creators to protect their copyrights and embody the spirit of “Open and Free” when their works are used by the public in the public domain. Some people may be of the opinion that CC licenses are against business, but there are many business models with CC licenses. This paper explores the current situation and future of the business model with CC licenses by looking at the online music websites with CC licenses. Furthermore, it discusses whether the business model with CC licenses can maintain the purpose of common and alleviate problems between private and public interests.

Digital Citizen Media Network: An Open Source System Development Perspective
August F.Y. Chao, Chengchi University, Taiwan
Vicky C.H. Huang, National Chengchi University, Taiwan
Our study aims to discuss how to adapt Open Source System Development (OSSD) methodology to support an event-based community which could leverage current information communication technologies (ICT) to distribute proper public message under Media Literacy guild lines. In OSSD many tools have been used to collaborate people’s idea toward a new system, such as version control system or wiki system. And by OSSD community’s objective goal setting, each member uses their spare time and their own knowledge to develop the system (write down their thoughts) to satisfy the predefined goal. In our study, we will illustrate how this digital citizen media network works by adapting OSSD and identify specific function of ICT within this network to evaluate public messages with Media Literacy.

Self-identity and Pleasure of Online Shopping:
 A Case Study of Consumers Who Purchase Japanese Commodities in Taiwan
Yu-Pei Chang, National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan
Po-Fen Lu, National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan
Since 1995, on-line shopping has been developing steadily in Taiwan. This study used consumers who purchase Japanese commodities in Taiwan as examples, trying to understand how people shape their life style and identity in postmodern society. This article has four main concepts include on-line shopping, consumer self-identity, the pleasurable experiences in aestheticism, and the atmosphere constructed by consumption. We observed the website of Japanese commodities and interviewed 16 heavy users of the website. There are four findings, including 1) internet breaks the limits of traditional consumption, 2) purchasing Japanese popular commodities becomes the means to fight the social factors of consumers, 3) the cross-culture factors between Japan and Taiwan imply the self-identity process of consumers, and 4) although the online shopping consumers don’t contact each other, they build an imagined community which shares a common life-style and atmosphere of special taste. Online shopping has become a way of social practice in self-presentation, self-explanation, and self-revelation. Consumers who purchase Japanese commodities in Taiwan try to be different from others. However, they don’t want to be completely different from the world either. The sense of contradiction and conflict has made this type of consumer create a brand-new value, a form of stylish identity.

6H PANEL: Communication with Chinese Characteristics: 
New Development in a Globalized Context 

Chair: Wenxiang Gong, Peking University, China
The Open Policy, technological and economic “leap forward”, and the force of globalization have brought about great socio-political changes to China. In such context, papers of this panel are centered on the new issues, trends, as well as new interpretations of the Chinese way of communication via media old and new, and its impact upon the Chinese people and society. Topics include the newly emerged Shan Zhai 山寨 (parody online) phenomenon, the new media events, creative cloning of Western TV programs, etc. This panel is formed mainly by graduate students from the Media and Communication program in Peking University, China.

Panelists:
The Image of China and Media Events Online: The Case of Beijing Olympic Games
Wenxiang Gong, Peking University, China
This paper borrows ideas from Dayan & Katz’s Media Event: the Live Broadcasting of History, and views China’s mass media coverage of 2008 Olympic Games as a major media event for the Government to propagate its ideology and goals, and especially to present the bright image of China to the world. The paper goes further to argue that with the unprecedented growth of Internet users in China, the monopoly by traditional media is being eroded or even replaced at times by the active participation of the newly emerging Netizens, mainly composed of the educated younger generations. Rules governing the working of Dayan’s Media Events have been altered by the interruption of New Media Events initiated not by the Authorities, but by spontaneously gathered groups or simply unorganized individuals. The paper compares Media Events old and new, and studies typical cases such as Boycotting Carrefour, to illustrate the characteristics of new media events. Both types of media events during the Beijing Olympic Games are analyzed as persuasive campaigns especially for constructing the good Image of China. Since the formation of the State image is a complicated process, goals can not easily be reached. Have the events online created the potential for a sort of E-democracy is still a question to be answered.

Zhang Yimou: A Cultural Symbol in a Transitional Chinese Context
Jijun Ran, Peking University, China
This study employs a cultural study’s perspective to depict the political economy underlying the transformation of Zhang Yimou from a feeder of Orientalist imagination by the Western audience to a spokesperson of the main-stream Chinese cultural endeavor. Based on an in-depth analysis of the major works directed by Zhang, his career is periodized into three stages, indicating that as a typical fifth-generation director, Zhang has witnessed a development trajectory from catering to the Western imagination of China to collaborating with the main-stream ideology. His being co-opted into the mainstream manifested that if a director aspires to be accepted in a de-political rhetoric context, he has to be deeply politicized by embracing the ideological needs of the State, especially in China. A case study of the Olympic Opening ceremony is presented to illustrate the interplay between the personal pursuit of the director and the ideological needs of the State.

An Analysis of the Cause of the Shan Zhai 山寨 (mocking) Phenomenon
Jia Guo, Peking University, China
Chunying Yue, Peking University, China
Shan Zhai, roughly translated as “mocking”, refers to the newly emerging trend in China for Internet users to imitate, parody, challenge, and subvert the contemporary culture monopolized by the authorities and elites. The paper uses comparative case study to analyze the cause of this phenomenon. It presents a group of comparisons including, the Shan Zhai edition Spring Festival Gala vs. the original CCTV edition; the Shan Zhai super stars vs. the original; the Shan Zhai expert forum vs. the real forum covered by the official TV stations. The possible explanation of the cause of the Shan Zhai phenomenon is that when the mainstream culture can not meet the demands of all strata and groups, a great variety of “non-official” cultural expressions would come to fill the vacuum. Therefore, the Shan Zhai phenomenon indicates that Internet could be used to exert huge influence on non-mainstream cultures. The paper also discusses the potential limitations and directions for future studies.

How Could the Foreign TV Programs be Successfully Cloned in China?
Chunying Yue, Peking University, China
It is a widespread practice in the Chinese TV entertainment industry to clone Western original TV shows. The paper analyzes this phenomenon and the underlying factors so as to prescribe some solutions to tackle this problem. The hypothesis is that if we expect a successful “cloning” of the Western originals we should incorporate some Chinese values into the cloned program forms so that the indigenized version enjoys both the Chinese dimension and foreign elements. The paper presents a theoretical framework of cloning and indigenous innovation upon foreign shows. It delineates the eight ingredients of program forms, such as timing, program types, the selection process, etc. The paper compares Win in China, a cloned inspirational reality show launched by CCTV-2 with the original Apprentice of NBC, to verify the hypothesis mentioned above.

Companies’ Role in China’s Internet Censorship System: The Corporatism Perspective
Zhengzheng He, Peking University, China
Shiqi Fu, Peking University, China
The study explores two recent cases in which companies running web sites in China chose to shut down certain online services concerning politically sensitive issues in response to official directives or simply in anticipation of troubles. By investigating on this aspect of China’s internet censorship system, with specific focus on companies’ roles and netizens’ gradually changing attitude and behavior, this paper tries to explain this new pattern of development with the Corporatism perspective.

Media Discourse and Online Public Sphere：
 A Comparative Study of Qiangguo and Tianya Forums During the Beijing Olympics
Jijun Ran, Peking University, China
Fangfang Ji, Peking University, China
In analyzing the mechanism of online public sphere, the study sets the Internet, discourse and the event, which constitute the three poles of the triangle, as the agents for analysis. How they interact with each other to yield different triangles will be elaborated through a comparative study of the Qiangguo forum sponsored by The People Daily, which is still one of the hottest public online forums, and Tianya forum, which is more of a grass-root nature. Both are frequented by a lot of neo-leftists and neo-rightists in the current Chinese society. Given its relatively long history and co-option by the government, Qiangguo showcased the development trajectory of most official forums in China, while Tianya exemplified how a non-governmental origin lends to its credibility. The comparison will be highlighted through the different performance of the researched forums in the 2008 summer Olympics, which acts as a good occasion in delineating the difference in the two forums. A structured questionnaire was designed to be distributed to the respondents to collect their attitude towards the two forums, which will be supplemented by in-depth interviews with some randomly selected netizens from the two forums. Then a content analysis will be made by using Leximancer, a data-mining tool to highlight the most prominent issues about the Olympics. The three actors will then be fitted into the analysis framework to establish the causality between them and some comments will be made on its implication for the future similar studies.

Sunday

SESSION SEVEN 10:30-12:00 

7A Education Across Cultures

The Motivational Factors Which Shape Intended L2 Learning Efforts
Damian J. Rivers, Kanda University of International Studies, Japan
This presentation will share the results of an investigation into the specific L2 motivational factors responsible for the intended L2 learning efforts of Japanese university students. Based upon foundations created in previous L2 motivation research (Dornyei & Clement, 2001; Dornyei & Csizer, 2002, 2005; Dornyei et al., 2006; Higgins, 1998; Ryan, 2008) the current research employed a 111-item questionnaire which was constructed based around four primary elements: attitudinal factors, situational factors, self-related factors, and effects of motivation. Within these four primary factors were a total of 22 specific dimensions related to the concept of L2 learning motivation. The web-based questionnaire was administered in Japanese to 150 freshmen students studying International Communication. Through a quantitative analysis of the data gathered, this presentation will illustrate and discuss those motivational variables which played a significant role in the intended L2 learning efforts of the students with specific reference to the Japanese educational context and conceptualizations of the Self. Furthermore, the presentation will highlight ways in which such variables can be addressed in order to increase student motivation to partake in positive learning behaviours.

Classroom “Shock”: 
A Case Study of Teacher-student Interactions in a Chinese Heritage Language Classroom
Chang Pu, Berry College, USA
Li Xiaoshi, Michigan State University, USA
Due to the continuous increase of immigrant population in the United States, heritage schools have been on a steady rise and heritage language learning and teaching is an area that scholars have been trying to investigate. Informed by Interactional Sociolinguistics and Conversation Analysis, this qualitative study presents detailed classroom interactions in a Chinese heritage language (CHL) classroom in the U.S. to reflect on the ways Chinese and American cultural values come into conflict, which have impact on classroom dynamics. The data include participant observation and interviews with the teacher. Results showed that Chinese American children were not always “docile” in class and power negotiations between the teacher and students often came into sight. In addition, Chinese identity was acknowledged by Chinese American children, but how to act Chinese may not be understood and practiced in the CHL classroom. We conclude with suggestions that educating students’ ability to empathize towards the target culture might be a good step to start. The goal of CHL education should be to cultivate students’ awareness of and empathy towards the belief/value systems in both cultures and ultimately their ability to make appropriate choices in daily interactions as effective bilingual users.

7B English Language Education Across Cultures

Eliminating the Effect of Fossilization on Adult Learners’ Oral Communication
Xiao-yu Hou, Harbin Institute of Technology, China
Xiao-ling Jin, Harbin Institute of Technology, China
Both comprehensibility and accuracy are very important in communication, but fossilization may not only affect accuracy, but also result in misunderstanding. Effect of fossilization in oral communication is very obvious for adults who had some proficiency in English, but have not been exposed to formal English instruction for many years. Helping adult English learners change long-used speech patterns is a challenging task. Yet teachers are able to do so. Successful classes for English-fossilized speakers should be different from those for learners who are still developing. Strategic teaching is indispensable in successful classes for “fossilized” learners. Winning the learners’ trust and developing their self-confidence is necessary. Choosing appropriate materials and activities is another step towards the success of the class. Opportunities for practice and feedback should be created for the learners. Indeed, for some adult learners, significant change in speech under all circumstances is almost impossible. Yet fossilization may be alleviated or finally eliminated by the combination of willing students, adequate time, and skillful teaching.

An Exploration of the Perceptions of Teachers and Students in Streamed and Non-Streamed Classes
Brian McMillan, Hiroshima Bunkyo Women's University, Japan
Paul Joyce, Kinki University, Japan
In many second and foreign language programs, it is customary to place students in streamed, homogeneous classes according to their level of proficiency in the target language. Many Japanese universities employ streaming as a way of dividing students into different “tracks” in order to facilitate learning and teaching (e.g., Gillis-Furutaka & Sakurai, 2002; Mills, Swain, & Weschler, 1996). Advanced, intermediate, and beginner-level learners were surveyed to examine their perceived ability to participate and learn successfully in streamed and non-streamed classes in two different departments at a Japanese university. Following the collection of data from the questionnaire, one-on-one interviews with students and teachers were conducted, allowing for a more in-depth, qualitative analysis of responses.

Low Context Teaching in High Context Cultures
Kate Parkinson, Fukuoka University, Japan
This paper attempts to create an interface between the two fields of Language Education research and Intercultural Communication research. By examining some of the non-linguistic barriers that can hinder effective communication, it is hoped that the mutual influences of language and culture can be better understood, and therefore better accommodated in the language classroom. Of particular interest to EFL educators is the cultural dimension described by Edward T. Hall as "High and Low Context", which assesses the extent to which both speakers and listeners are sensitive to the non-verbal communications accompanying speech. This paper seeks to define the terms "Culture" and "Context", examine their influences in EFL education, and suggest strategies to accommodate such cultural dimensions to the greatest advantage in the classroom.

7C Writing in English Language Education

Interpreting and Intercultural Communication Aspects of a Haiku-in-English Competition
Howard Doyle, Kochi University, Japan
Kyoko Koga, Kochi University, Japan
This presentation reports the process and success of the first Haiku-in-English competition at Kochi University in 2009. The haiku genre was chosen for its brevity, familiarity to local Japanese contestants, and requirement of rigorous manipulation of conventional language form to articulate an intended meaning inside a proscribed 16- to 18-syllable frame. A competition feature is the shift away from the haikus themselves as texts or as cultural artifacts, to writers’ own explanations of meaning, symbolism, inspirations and choices of language in their haikus. In this way, the writers have to interpret their own work in their own words in their own language (Japanese). Though initially chosen as a device for avoiding plagiarism, explaining the haiku in the writer’s first language has been predicted to be a source of useful data for investigating how people translate and interpret their own culture, its symbols and assumptions in terms of the semantics of another language. Accounts of competition preparation, haiku-writing training and feedback are also presented.

The Effect of Cultural expectations on Teacher’s Written Feedback: 
A Study of ESL Student Writers at Tertiary Level
Raashid Nehal, Aligarh Muslim University, India
Recent research in feedback on second language writing has demonstrated the significance of feedback in strengthening learning and developing writing proficiency. However, the context and issues of second language writing are very complex and problematic in nature since L2 writing proficiency is heavily influenced by diverse cultural (Conor &　Kaplan, 1987; Hinkel, Kachru, & Leki, 1991;　Purves, 1988) and social expectations, which in turn affect the “cognitive demands of interpreting feedback and negotiating revisions” (Hyland & Hyland, 2006). Also, the effects of teachers’ written feedback on student writing and its delivery mechanism are directly related to the social, cultural, situational, contextual, and institutional dimensions of the teacher’s and learner’s roles. This results in inconsistency of feedback or a mixed/partial success rate of teacher’s written feedback which merits serious attention. This paper intends to explore the following issues: (1) How much does the cultural, social, and institutional context of second language writing affect the teacher’s written feedback on ESL writing proficiency and the practice of teaching writing? (2) How do ESL writers perceive, interpret, and respond to teacher’s written feedback? (3) Does feedback improve writing proficiency? The results of the study will draw implications for the teaching of L2 writing.

The Effect of Unfocused Feedback on the Development of Interlanguage in Writing
Rachael Ruegg, Kanda University of International Studies, Japan
Studies on unfocused feedback in writing tend to measure change in the number of errors over time. If unfocused feedback does reduce the number of errors significantly over time, it is arguable that along with this increased accuracy goes equal or decreased complexity. The presenter will discuss an approach to measuring the effect of unfocused feedback which takes into account repetition of errors over instances of writing, rather than simply considering the number of errors, indicating that a learner is developing his or her interlanguage. In the present study, one group of students was given feedback on content while another was given both feedback on content and indirect feedback on errors. Repetitions of the same errors on subsequent instances of writing were counted. The treatment group was found to have significantly less repetition of the same errors than the control group. This indicates that while unfocused feedback may not lead to increased accuracy, it does result in interlanguage development. Findings will be presented and implications discussed. 

7D Englishes, Linguistics and Language Choice

Co-Evolution of a Globally Shared Language and Cross-Cultural Communication
Jonathan B. Britten, Nakamura University, Japan
Co-evolution of a Globally Shared Language (GSL) holds enormous promise for sharing knowledge and ideas across socio-linguistic boundaries. Indeed, GSL co-evolution will gradually eliminate many boundaries. Although English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) will play a preeminent role in academic communication for the foreseeable future, and although increasingly powerful translation/interpretation tools have enhanced global communication, nothing holds greater promise than GSL co-evolution. Internet social networks, including the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program, make possible a process that was heretofore nearly unimaginable, and remains largely unimagined, perhaps due to the well-known failure of constructed languages such as Esperanto, to fulfill their dream of a world tongue. In contrast, GSL co-evolution will proceed from primary scaffolding components provided by ELF and fifteen other major lingua franca tongues, and secondarily by smaller structural elements contributed by thousands of minority and threatened languages, thereby encouraging multilingualism and language survival. The proposed discussion will include an overview of the World Language Process (WLP), an international volunteer group, and discussion of controlled languages such as Ogden’s BASIC English apropos creation of efficient scaffolds for linguistic co-evolution. Finally, the author will present the potential for beautiful linguistic outcomes, including remarkable innovations in vocabulary and orthography.   

Comparative Study of Motion Verbs in Standard Thai and Northern Thai Dialect
Rungwimol Rungrojsuwan, Mae Fah Luang University, Thailand
The present study aimed to investigate motion verbs in Standard Thai and Northern Thai dialects. The occurrence and meanings of motion verbs in the two dialects were compared. The spoken data of Standard Thai and Northern Thai were analyzed. The results of the study show that the motion verbs in Northern Thai dialect have more functions and meanings. For example, the word /maa/ can be used as a main verb which means ‘to come’, and an adverb which marks past tense, perfect aspect or directional aspect in both dialects. But there is only one occurrence which is found only in Northern Thai Dialect when the word /maa/ co-occurs with a question word /yaóN/, it can be used as an adverb that emphasizes the meaning of the main verb.

Including Non-standard Varieties of English in the Language Classroom
Hadija Drummond, Momoyama Gakuin University, Japan
Katherine Song, Hiroshima University, Japan
Considering Japan's location and existing economic relations, Japanese language learners and future professionals are likely to find themselves using English to communicate with speakers of "non-standard" or "non-native" English. Thus it is in the students’ interests to gain exposure to and to develop familiarity with such non-native variations as English as spoken by Chinese, Singaporean or Indian speakers. Nevertheless, students' exposure to language varieties is usually limited to the standard or native varieties (e.g., British or American) spoken by their instructors or included in class materials. The presenters express the benefits of including non-standard materials and models: focusing time and attention away from perfecting “native” pronunciation and towards mastering effective communication strategies, while at the same time improving students’ comprehension and tolerance of non-standard accents. The presenters then describe activities which have been used to raise students' awareness of spoken English variations, and students’ reactions to those activities. 

Characteristic Grammatical Constructions and Usages in 50-Word Essays by L2 Japanese Senior and Junior High School Students
Yoshiyuki Okaura, Fukuoka Institute of Technology, Japan
The purpose of this paper is to analyze some characteristic grammatical constructions and usages in 50-word essays written by L2 Japanese junior and senior high school students and university students in the framework of Relevance Theory. First, we will outline the theoretical framework of Relevance Theory, and will refer to the two crucial notions: “relevance” and “explicatures.” The second section will examine some characteristic grammatical constructions and usages in 50-word essays affected by the authors’ L1, the Japanese language. Thirdly, we will consider two types of characteristic grammatical construction and usage in 50-word essays by Japanese junior and senior high school students. More specifically, we will take some examples to illustrate that optimal relevance is achieved in 50-word essays, a kind of ostensive communication, and to make it clear how optimal relevance is achieved. In addition, we will observe that sentences including characteristic grammatical patterns and usages affected by the Japanese language can get optimal relevance in the same way and in the same degree as “grammatical” sentences in spite of their syntactical ambiguity. Finally, we will discuss some effective elaborations contributing to the formation of explicatures in 50-word essays to achieve optimal relevance.

7E Media and Culture

“Charisma Man”: The Discourses of Desire and Western Men in Japan
Steve Silver, Kwansei Gakuin University, Japan
Roslyn Appleby, University of Technology, Australia
Recent research has examined discourses of desire for all that is Western or associated with the West – and the associated desire for English – as these are constructed in Japanese media and played out in the lives of female Japanese learners of English (Piller & Takahashi, 2006). This paper shifts the focus from the desiring female to the object of desire, represented in the Western men living in Japan. It examines the figure of ‘Charisma Man’ – the stereotypical comic book character of a white Western man, an ‘average guy’ in his native land who becomes something of a superhero when transported to Japan as an English language teacher. The presentation discusses the discourses that bring Charisma Man into being, and also presents some preliminary research into the ways in which these discourses are played out in the lives of Western men living in Japan as well as those they interact with. Through reflective personal accounts and analyses of articles, internet sites, and blogs, it considers some of the implications that these discourses of desire have in the professional and personal lives of Japanese women and Western men within a Japanese context.

The Portuguese and the Europeans: At the Mirror of the Media
Ana Horta, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
For the Portuguese the Europeans represent an ideal. Europe means civilization, culture, development, wealth. In contrast, the Portuguese describe themselves as “second order Europeans”, as a country “in the tail of Europe”. Yet, generalist national newspapers have been producing an inconsistent frame of Europe’s representation. Between 1985 and 2004, the media shows a tendency for producing a positive conceptualization of Europe but, in other dimensions, the press discourse becomes scarce and void. The Portuguese press gives little attention to European issues, and on the occasions when the European common identity could be highlighted and commemorated the press chooses to emphasize the national point of view. The same tendency is also present in the discourse obtained in interviews with a sample of Portuguese people. Results also indicate that amongst the Portuguese there is an important gap in terms of the discourse about Europe that is associated with different levels of qualification. 

7F Culture and Ethnicity

Intercultural Communication Studies: Issues and Dialectics
Ling Chen, Hong Kong Baptist University, China
Several issues in intercultural communication studies have been discussed on and off. With respect to understanding of cultures, cultural generality vs. cultural specificity in conceptualization and theorization is one, and etic vs. emic perspective is another. Cultural general conceptualization allows cross-cultural comparisons but necessarily glosses over the contextual variations. Cultural specific conceptualization, on the other hand, is grounded in concrete contexts and, by definition, almost precludes possibility for comparison between societies. Etic perspective provides cultural information available for all yet has no access to cultural knowledge and rich nuances necessary to members that come with an emic perspective. With respect to intercultural interactions, ethnocentrism results from contrasting one’s own culture with that of another; so does cultural identity with a different focus. Taking note of the contradictory nature of these and other related issues, this essay examines both sides of an issue and explores the dialectical forces behind them, for implications to studies of intercultural communication as a social phenomenon.

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) and Its Influence 
on Sino-US Relations
Zhang Shengyong, Dezhou University, Shanghai International Studies University, China
The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) was created on October 30, 2000. Its purpose is to monitor, investigate, and submit to the US Congress an annual report on the national security implications of the bilateral trade and economic relationship between the United States and the People’s Republic of China, and to provide recommendations, where appropriate, to Congress for legislative and administrative action. The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission shall investigate and report exclusively on each of the following areas of China: proliferation practices, economic transfers, energy, regional economic and security impacts, the extent of access to and use of United States capital markets by the People’s Republic of China, the United States-China bilateral programs, the compliance of the People’s Republic of China, and freedom of expression. So far it has sent 5 annual reports to Congress (2000-2007). These reports reached the same conclusion; that is, based on their analyses to date, the Commission believes that a number of the current trends in U.S.-China relations have negative implications for the long term economic and national security interests, and therefore that U.S. policies in these areas are in need of urgent attention and course corrections.

Comparison of Polite Behavior in Everyday Communication in Japanese and Chinese
Tao Lin, Kanazawa University, Japan
This research tries to clarify some of the features of polite behavior in everyday communication in present-day Japanese society and Chinese society from the viewpoint of cross-cultural   communication. First, this study introduces a questionnaire survey conducted among Japanese and Chinese university students in order to compare the use of several corresponding evaluating concepts of communicative behavior between Japanese and Chinese such as friendly, polite, frank, etc. in English. Second, based on the results of the survey, we discuss the similarities and differences in the polite behavior focused on by the students of both countries according to each situation in everyday communication. Furthermore, we also analyze the results from the point of view of gender.

7H PANEL: Addressing Stereotypes through Education

Chair: Song Li, Harbin Institute of Technology, China
Stereotypes have been the subject of much study but frequently undermine intercultural communication. The first paper will examine ways in which stereotypes can impact negatively upon communication and potentially upon relationship-development (focusing on Japanese stereotypes of communicative behaviour in English). The second and third papers will explore ways in which teachers have attempted to address stereotypes through intercultural and foreign language education (in Russia and Japan). Similarities and differences between the two approaches will be highlighted, and it is hoped that the ensuing discussion will spark new ideas for future research and pedagogy taking into consideration practical and theoretical concerns.

The Potential Problems Caused by Stereotypes upon Communication
Yumiko Furumura, Kyushu University, Japan
This paper aims to show how stereotypes about communication patterns in English can cause non-native speakers of English to communicate ineffectively with native speakers of English (NSE). Six out of 13 Japanese speakers of English (JE) were found to have some stereotypes of behavior in English rooted in their experience and knowledge. Thirteen JE role-played with a British lady in English in five conflict situations. Two role-plays will be reported in this paper, in which many NSEs speculated that the relationships between the JEs and the interlocutor would develop negatively in the future. This finding may suggest that learners of English need to acquire more elaborate communication patterns in English to rid their schemas of misleading stereotypes. The 40 evaluators of the NSE only included British and North American teachers of English, so this paper focuses specifically on their communication patterns, although it is recognized that various kinds of English are used in the world today.

Teaching Ethnic Stereotypes to Tackle in ICC
Maria Lebedko, Far Eastern National University, Russia
Albeit stereotypes have been the subject of much study, they still are one of the main barriers in intercultural encounters. Teaching stereotypes is included into the “Introduction to the theory of intercultural communication” course within the “Translation / interpretation and translation studies” curriculum. Analysis is conducted in several stages: 1) eliciting stereotypes from learners for the identification of the problem; 2) getting learners acquainted with the content of stereotypes (explicit and implicit verbal and nonverbal representation, salient features that underlie stereotypes, their functions, etc.) for the purpose of stereotype recognition; 3) discussing, commenting, and reflecting on stereotypes in order to tackle them. All these stages are grounded on the tasks to authentic texts. The author developed activities based on focal awareness and critical thinking, highlighting different facets of the problem. The ultimate goal is to raise intercultural awareness and understanding of interlocutors in the context of intercultural communication.

Managing Stereotypes through Experiential Learning
Stephanie Houghton, University of Kitakyushu, Japan
How can stereotypes be managed through education? Theoretically-driven learning objectives were embedded into two lessons in three English language courses focusing on intercultural communication at a Japanese university. Qualitative data indicate that learners can define stereotypes clearly, and recognise stereotypes and stereotyping tendencies. Memory plays a key role as learners relate what they learn about stereotypes to past experience. Through experiential learning, learners can recognise and overcome the potential pitfalls of stereotypes, developing meta-cognitive awareness and control. This involves the flexible revision of information held in the mind about people in response to new information about them. But the author agreed with some learners that people can only ever aim to gather more accurate information than they already have, and that information can never be completely accurate. Judgement itself should thus be revised along with the information it is based upon, which should be as correct and accurate as possible. 

Cultural Stereotypes: From Threats to Promises through Foreign Language Education
Song Li, Harbin Institute of Technology, China
Fu Li, Harbin Institute of Technology, China
Cultural stereotypes have long been considered threats to intercultural communication and as unacceptable in foreign language education. This study, however, will explore cultural stereotypes from a dialectic approach. The authors will reexamine the potentials of stereotypes in their dual functions as barriers and dynamics for intercultural communication. Based on a study of some Chinese English learners’ experience of intercultural learning through guided metacognitive reflections on cultural stereotypes, it is concluded that cultural stereotypes, however dangerous they are, can be turned into resources for intercultural education as long as the learners are led to see how stereotypes come into play in their perception of others and others’ perception of them, which in turn will enhance the learners’ critical cultural awareness and ability in negotiating identities and relationships in intercultural encounters. Cultural stereotypes in foreign language education, therefore, are not to be eradicated but rather to be exploited to their full potential value in liberating the learners from stereotyping and being stereotyped in intercultural communication through the target language.  

SESSION EIGHT 13:20-14:50

8A Culture Across Languages

Babel of Angels and Demons: 
The Significance of Creative Misinterpretation in Cross-cultural English-Haiku Studies
Richard Gilbert, Kumamoto University, Japan
There is an undeniable power and universality in the Japanese haiku, which has now become a worldwide literary genre. Nonetheless, due to a history of problematic scholarship in English, academic study of contemporary haiku is virtually absent. It has been nearly a century since Ezra Pound penned his 14-word poem, “In a Station of the Metro,” the first recognizably adept attempt at haiku in English, and a source-point for modern poetry. In his critical exposition, Pound both willfully and mistakenly misinterpreted the Japanese haiku ethos in advancing his modern poetics. Pound was but the first in a lineage of interpreters who ‘creatively misinterpreted’ a new genre: the English-language haiku. This paper seeks to illustrate the paradoxical concept of cross-cultural creative misinterpretation by presenting a twinned history: 1) those creative acts of cross-cultural misinterpretation from which has developed an innovative poetics, and by contrast, 2) problematic issues in scholarship (remaining to be addressed). These twinned histories, taken together, have inspired notable poets, including Wallace Stevens, Gary Snyder, John Ashbery, and many others. This paper suggests that renewed academic interest in haiku poetry and criticism, making use of new media, would be of great benefit to intercultural communication, education, and literary creativity.

The Analysis of Translated Language and Better Intercultural Communication
Kenji Ikeda, Fukuoka Institute of Technology, Japan
As the Italian proverb goes, every translator is a traitor, and all the content and the aspects of the original language cannot be translated to perfection. However, it is necessary for us to try to make a translation of the original language into another one as nearly perfectly as possible for better communication. In addition, it is essential that we have understanding of the difficulty and limitations of translating caused by cultural and linguistic differences. In this presentation I will consider the differences culturally and linguistically, and show what is needed to have better intercultural communication by classifying the cause of the differences into two categories of internal and external factors and by analyzing some examples of the difference between English and Japanese from various viewpoints: ignorance, nonexistence, inexperience, intentionality, syntax, style, and vocabulary. Based on the above considerations, it must be recognized again that the fundamental basis of better communication is thoughtfulness, that is, putting yourself in the other person’s/culture’s place. 

The Nakama Relationship in Japanese Society
Charles McHugh, Setsunan University, Japan
Koji Uenishi, Setsunan University, Japan
Liping Li, Ritsumeikan University, Japan
This paper investigates some attitudes that Japanese hold toward interpersonal relationships with family, nakama, and strangers. Nakama has been referred to as companion (Masuda, 1974), cohort (Gudyhunst & Nishida, 1986), and work group (Cargile, 1998). Thirty-seven Japanese adult males (Age=41.84) and 43 adult females (Age=37.95) rated 33 statements followed by four sections for freely written comments. Twenty-eight statements loaded onto six factors with four referring to nakama: Close proximity paramount, masking true feelings, Family exceeds nakama consciousness, and Nakama support. The remaining two factors are: Personal information exchange and Unmindful of strangers in public. The voluntarily written comments show females often believe that participating in activities is an important feature of the nakama relationship while working males view exchanging information as a key element. These results suggest ways for long-term sojourners in Japan, and others, to more closely conform to proper behavior and communication styles when interacting with Japanese nationals.

8B Education and the Internet 

Media-mediated Learning Activities: Emergent Practices in Online Gaming
Huang Lingyi, National Chengchi University, Taiwan
Many new types of media-mediated activities have challenged the taken-for-granted shared meanings in everyday life and blurred the boundary between different meanings such as learning and playing. Hence, I will examine the following question: If online gaming is a kind of learning activity, what emergent practices are associated with it? The method is ethnography and the studied game is World of Warcraft. The research result shows that players cooperate with each other and construct meaning from the community such as a gaming club. In a gaming club, players create a sense of place, develop a social capital, and players also become a part of a social network that crosses cultural boundaries “in real life.” Such a social group has a collective intelligence. Players learn by practice so that newcomers are cultivated into skilled participants. Players also have the literacy to modify flaws in the game and even redesign the game. Above all, MMOGs are not only designed tools but also an emerging culture that changes learning activities.

A Survey and Analysis of Internet Assisted College English Teaching in Harbin Institute of Technology
Hou Xiaoyu, Harbin Institute of Technology, China
Wang Lixin, Harbin Institute of Technology, China
Computer Aided Instruction is one of the most vital applied fields of computer science, among which the development of Internet Assisted Foreign Language Teaching (IAFL) has especially drawn great attention. What’s more, IAFL has become the new model of foreign language teaching in many universities including HIT. Therefore, we have done research on it. By analyzing the survey data collected, we found that undergraduates have some elementary knowledge and mutual awareness of Internet-assisted college English teaching. Therefore, college English teachers’ training should be carried out so that teachers can be more prepared when it comes to the guidance toward learning methods under Internet environment. What’s more, universities should enforce the construction of software and hardware facilities and reinforce the administration.

The Effects of Blogging on Media Literacy Education: 
Exploring the Research on Electronic Theses in Taiwan
Tzong-Sheng Deng, Naitonal Chengchi University, Taiwan
Blogs feature “user created content,” which allows information to be contributed by anyone who has access to blogs. In particular, the main content of most blogs carries a lot of personal experiences. Therefore, many people are starting to discuss blogs as an electronic social communication platform for people to express their experiences, opinions, and views about their living world. Taiwanese researchers are increasingly turning to blogs to research social effects. This study explores the research on electronic theses and dissertation system in Taiwan, and adopts the concept of “social communication” to discuss what imagination is found in it and to discuss its effects on media literacy education.

Addiction to the Internet and Psychosocial Well-being among University Students in China
Fang-Yuan Wang, Chiba Institute of Technology, Japan
Yuko Shibahashi, Chiba Institute of Technology, Japan
The addiction to internet among young population in China has been one of the major concerns of the society. The present study investigated the relationship between the addiction to internet and the psychosocial well-being of university students in China. A survey, which was conducted on 132 participants, revealed that the students who had worse relationship with their parents and the larger stress of taking examinations and job hunting had the higher addiction to internet. In additional, the survey also revealed the addiction to internet was associated with the presence of brothers, too. Therefore they showed the addiction to internet was not only concerned with the psychological factors, but also was affected by social factors, relationship of child-parent, and the stress caused by the examination ordeals and job hunting.

8C Culture in Text and Literature

Intertextuality in global warming discourse in Taiwan
Chin-Chih, Chiang, Shih Hsin Universtiy, Taiwan
Since the documentary An Inconvenient Truth screened in Taiwan on Oct. 13, 2006, “global warming” has become a popular term and an important public issue which draws lots of attention and discussion. With a focus on the media texts on global warming in Taiwan, this study draws on Norman Fairclough’s (1992) approach of intertextual analysis to examine the intertextual relations of press coverage and popular science articles whose target audience is the general public. This study charts the way relations are enacted between and across the two media genres and analyzes how the meaning shifts between genres. In particular, this study is concerned with the influence of genre on the meaning construction of global warming and explores the tendency of press news of science reports about global warming in Taiwan. 

Stereotypes on Minorities in Romanian Press: 
Between Ethics, Editorial Policy, and Justice--The Case of President Traian Băsescu
Andra Seceleanu, “Andrei Saguna” University, Romania
The present paper proposes to bring to discussion the wider perspective of stereotypes and intolerance from the media (as a reflection of the society), and to analyze the dilemma between ethics and editorial policy; that is, whether journalists have the right to violate the private life of public figures or not, even when they are not in service and if justice (by the solution issued in this situation) managed to clarify these aspects. The case of president Traian Basescu, who calls a young journalist “little bird” (slang with sexual connotation), because the journalist was very persistent with questions resulting in irritation of the president, covers at the same time many issues connected with the ethics of the press, some of which may be the public interest versus protection of the private life, protecting the group’s instigation to hate and racism. The methodology is based both on an analysis of the verdicts given by the magistrates and their motivation, and on a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the publications in the Romanian press on this case.

A Study on the Role of Local and Ethnic Press in Azerbaijan Province of Iran 
in Developing National Convergence and Integrity
Sedigheh Babran, Islamic Azad University, Iran
Maryam Tarzami, Islamic Azad University, Iran
The Islamic Republic of Iran is one of the countries which enjoy ethnical diversity. The ethnical diversity can bring some opportunities and threats to the country’s national convergence and integrity. One of the important means which can help the governments to manage their ethnical groups and their probable crises, is mass media. Proper application of mass media can provide the ground for converting the threats of ethnic diversities to opportunities for national integrity and practicing good governance. The article reports the results of a study on assessing the role of local press in the Azeri ethnic area in Iran for developing national convergence and integrity. The study focuses on the assessment of views of a sample of 100 journalists who are working in 30 press publishing companies in Azerbaijan Province regularly. The assessment of variables by the sample journalists indicated that increase of publishing Azeri ethnic subjects has direct impact on developing their national convergence. Other results show that objectives of the local press—preserving Azeri identity, using ethnic language correlated to national interests, and national convergence—also show an impact. According to the study results, the article presents some main proposals and strategies for developing the role of local/ethnic media in developing national integrity.

An Analysis of the Media Frames of Hakka Magazine: 1990-2007
Meihua Lee, National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan
The Hakka, a minority ethnic group in Taiwan, has been “invisible” for many years until the Hakka Language Movement in 1988. Nowadays various Hakka ethnic media such as Hakka Television, Formosa Hakka Radio Station, and Hakka Magazine are playing vital roles in constructing and maintaining the Hakka identifications in Taiwan. Based on the theories of interethnic communication, cultural identity, and ethnic identification, the current study employs the method of discourse analysis to examine the renowned “Hakka” Magazine’s Editorials from 1990 to 2007. Forty-six editorials are selected and analyzed to delineate the media frames and identification discourses represented in the magazine. As a result, 178 micro-propositions and six macro-propositions are derived from the discourse analyses. Potential limitations for the current study and suggestions for future studies are discussed and provided. 

8D Bridges in the Classroom

An Analysis of a Japanese School District’s Primary and Secondary EFL Program
Ron Martin, Rikkyo University, Japan
As Japan prepares to implement compulsory English language activities at public elementary schools in 2011 (MEXT, 2008), school districts in Japan are facing the most common concern held by primary and secondary EFL educators worldwide: the lack of a link between the two school levels (Nikolov & Curtain, 2000; Butler, 2007). Of the potential areas to link such programs, curricular content has been noted as a conceivable and valuable step toward primary-secondary EFL program integration (Nikolov & Curtain, 2000; Butler, 2007). This study compares the topic and vocabulary coverage of a Japanese school district’s primary school EFL program to its associated secondary school English education program. Topic comparison highlights English as a focus of study, as a tool for communication and English as a medium for cultural understanding. Vocabulary analysis shows the overall breadth and depth of English across the 9-year syllabus.

Action Research: Building a Bridge in the Foreign Language Classroom
Stella Millikan, Kyushu Sangyo University, Japan
The present study was conducted over a one year period beginning April 2006 on 12 intact classes of both seventh (N = 256) and eighth (N = 244) grade junior high school students at an all girls’ school on Kyushu Island in Japan. It was born out of a classroom management crisis in which both the novice instructor and students were in need of bridging a cultural and communication gap. An instrument was created, a classroom charter, in which 8th grade students were given the autonomy to decide their medium of learning for one year concerning such items as use of the textbook, regularity of quizzes and/or games, and opinions on methods of assessment and discipline. The students’ free comments in Japanese were also taken into consideration after having been translated into English and adapted where appropriate into the charter. Both pre-charter and post-charter attitudes towards English were collected individually from students in both grades on the first day and last day of classes. The results will be announced in the presentation. 

The Representation of World War II: A Comparison of Japanese and American Textbook Discourse
Erica J. Hashiba, Rua de Luis Gonzaga Gomes, China
This paper presents the findings of a linguistic comparison of the representation of World War II in Japanese and American history textbooks. It is curious that while Japanese textbooks have received much attention and criticism for their biased depiction of history, American textbooks have not experienced the same degree of scrutiny. Thus, the aim of this paper is to analyze the language use of the two textbooks and evaluate how they compare with regard to communicating bias. The findings of this study reveal that the two textbooks share several striking similarities that indicate they both strive to portray a history that is favorable to their country. Differences between the two texts reveal some linguistic strategies implemented only by the Japanese textbook that serve to communicate a favorable history. However, as contrasting language characteristics may have produced such differences, the mere difference in numbers seen in the results cannot necessarily lead to the conclusion that the controversial Japanese textbook is more biased than the US textbook. Thus, though the Japanese textbook has received much more criticism than its US counterpart, it seems that the two textbooks share more powerful similarities than differences in regard to portraying a biased history.

SESSION NINE 14:55-16:25

9A Culture and Globalization

Global Inequality—Environmental vs. Racialized Views: A Sociolinguistic Analysis
Ray T. Donahue, Nagoya Gakuin University, Japan
For the purpose of developing cultural sensitivity, a cornerstone of effective intercultural communication, this presentation demonstrates a sociolinguistic analysis of an online chat between an American Christian and a Malay Muslim, both college-educated, on the topics of globalization and religion. Analysis reveals several noteworthy points:　1) instances of ethnocentrism on both parts; 2) a difference between environmental vs. racialized or genetic view of world affairs; 3) evidence of racism and its illogical rationalization. All three points have importance for inter-ethnic relations, cultural globalization, and its effects. Dealing effectively with these issues embodies perceptual management or cultural sensitivity. Such analysis reveals how social discourse can encode racism and cultural insensitivity even without conscious awareness or the intent to do so. Moreover, for educators the contrast between environmental vs. genetic views of the world provide a reason d’être for the study of cultural globalization, a standard topic in intercultural or international studies today. As intercultural trainers are well aware, racism is ever present in the world, despite the fact that political correctness might lead educated people to believe otherwise. The present case demonstrates how racism can exist within the minds of people least expected and how it can be interwoven with religious belief.

Creativity and Entrepreneurial Behavior
Mahbub Uddin, Trinity University, USA
L. Brooks Hill, Trinity University, USA
Whether we can teach creativity may be a moot question. We can, however, create environments and opportunities in which one can discover creative potential and how to harness it. An emerging Center of Entrepreneurship at Trinity University proposes to cultivate, coordinate and integrate our diverse resources for the development and application of more creative entrepreneurial behavior and achievement. A central feature of this program is to help students develop an entrepreneurial mindset about whatever they might do in their lives, and not simply how to develop a business, as is so typical of such programs around the world. A first step in this initiative is an introductory course about Creativity and Entrepreneurial Behavior. Designed for students who love the initiative, ingenuity and excitement of putting ideas into creative action, this course focuses in part on how to awaken creativity and how to channel creativity through design. Because of its strong emphasis on social entrepreneurship, we actively recruit international students in order to expand our thinking and to help us realistically address cultural concerns. In this paper, we report our progress with this course and project its role in a world confronting the positive and negative aspects of globalization.

Dialectic Perspective on Globalization and Intercultural Dialogues
Jia Yuxin, Harbin Institute of Technology, China
Globalization provides a new context for intercultural communication and a new perspective on the study of intercultural communication. The dynamics of globalization of the 21st century hopefully predisposes a multicultural symbiotic global society, which can best be described by the buzz term “unity in diversity”. “Unity in diversity” is underpinned by dialectic framework rather than the framework of dichotomous right or wrong distinction. Therefore, the paper proposes that the dialectic perspective be adopted for the study of intercultural communication in the ever-globalizing age. “Unity in diversity” predisposes equality and difference and calls for equal cultural dialogues between/among different cultures. Equal cultural dialogues, as assumed in the paper, serve as the departure point as well as a platform for the building of mutual reciprocity and mutual benefit, negotiation of conflict and differences, and thus lead to global harmony. However, the paper assumes that such dialogues should be initiated or started by “listening” which is the Eastern tradition, rather than motivated by persuasion and changing others which is what the Western rhetoric of dialogues is all about. Listening can serve as an effective entering into equal dialogues, which in turn leads to the building of a symbiotic global society. So, the paper gives a lengthy description and analysis of the cultural and philosophical concept of listening.

9B Culture and Identity

From Discord to Harmony? :
A Textual Analysis of Political Theme Songs in Contemporary Taiwan
Pei-Ling Lee, Wenzao Ursuline College of Languages, Taiwan
In the process of decolonization, Taiwan, as well as many other previous colonies, has experienced rapid political, cultural, and social movements. After Taiwanese people departed from the control of martial law, the room for developing democracy had given them a chance to break the old identity and then reconstruct an alternative identity. In fact, the movement of localization has directly agitated the identity and political conflicts among people who have different political tendencies and ethnic backgrounds. In 2004 and 2006, two large political movements—the 228 Hand-in-Hand Rally and the Red Clothes movement—presented different political voices. The theme songs sung in these two movements, however, revealed subtly similar claims. The purposes of this paper are to discuss and answer, in the process of localization, how Taiwanese people relocate their identity as well as to analyze what kind of identity consciousness is generally shared in contemporary Taiwan. By applying textual criticism, two theme songs of the above political movements will be evaluated

The Conception of “Polylogue” and the Question of “Intercultural” Identity
Hsueh-i Chen, National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan
In this study, the author will concentrate on analyzing two different ideas: the conception of “polylogue” and the assumption of an “intercultural identity.” Complementary relations between the two ideas will be elaborated. “Polylogue” puts individuals in confrontation with several dialogue partners from different cultures at the same time and is used in order to emphasize that many perspectives should be taken into consideration and not just two, as it is the case of “dialogue”. Due to its different approach, the idea of “polylogue” will have profound effects in the structure of intercultural communication. This study also takes the actual multi-cultural reality into account, presupposes human ability of accepting different cultures, and tempts to explore the relation between “interculturally capable” individual and multi-cultural society. With the aid of the conception of “intercultural identity,” finding one’s identity does not only involve one’s own pre-existing tradition but also includes influences from other cultures as well. Employing the concept of “polylogue” and relying on the ability of one’s multi-cultural acceptance, individuals should be able to construct his or her personal intercultural identity and communicate with others from other cultures interculturally.

At the Edge of Language and Certitude: 
The Construction of Cultural Identity within the Context of Globalization
John Foster, Kagoshima University, Japan
A growing volume of cognitive science and neuroscience research into psychological awareness points to individuals structuring reality largely based on the logic of a particular set of embodied linguistic frames. How does this evidence bear on the construction of cultural identity? Specifically, where does the individual identity find itself situated in the contemporary state of globalization? The current lecture suggests that individual identity is altered in positive ways by intercultural communication at the edge of dominant cultural-language bound narratives, where the Absolute Certitudes of Language are put into question by fresh and diverse thought.

9C Communication and International Students

The Voice of Japanese International Students
Miho Kanda, Recruit HR Marketing, Japan
Ee Lin Lee, Western Washington University, USA
The present study investigated Japanese international students’ (JIS) communicative and educational experiences in U.S. classrooms. Twelve JIS who had attended a university in the Pacific Northwest for at least nine months were interviewed. The questions were designed using Spradley’s (1979) ethnographic interview guidelines. Participants were asked to narrate their experiences in the classroom, their perception of their own classroom participation, and the concerns they had when engaging in classroom discourse with native speakers of English, including their peers and their instructors. The data were analyzed using the constant-comparison method (Lindlof & Taylor, 2005). Participants were unanimously dissatisfied with their oral participation and current experiences in the classroom. They listed their prior academic training in Japan, lack of proficiency in the English language, fear of others’ negative evaluation, and unpleasant classroom experiences in the U.S. as contributing to their reluctance to speak up in the classroom. The JIS perceived their professors’ and American classmates’ reaction to and treatment of their oral participation as unwelcoming and discouraging. The discussion of this study centers on intercultural sensitivity issues in communication and education. 

Intercultural Communication Concerns: 
Interactions between Chinese Graduate Students and American Advisors in Educational Contexts
Wang Song, Harbin Institute of Technology, China
This paper focuses on the intercultural and interpersonal aspects of the communication between Chinese graduate students and their American advisors in the U.S institutions of higher education. It attempts to identify the intercultural communication concerns of Chinese graduate students and their American advisors in the educational contexts, to compare differences in the communication concerns, and to explore way(s) of developing the intercultural communication sensitivity of both Chinese graduate students and their American advisors. In this paper, a questionnaire was developed based on the Communication Concerns Statement and the Teacher Communication Concerns Scale. Altogether, 107 Chinese graduate students and American advisors participated in the questionnaire survey. The results showed that both Chinese graduate students and their American advisors expressed a higher level of concern about students’ language proficiency and communication in classroom settings. Culture-related behaviors appeared to be less a barrier than English language to Chinese graduate students’ academic communication. 

Intersection between Culture and Leadership: 
An Analysis of the Chinese students’ Leadership Assumption in a Non-Chinese Group
Wenbo Liang, Shanghai International Studies University, China
This paper is a case analysis of Chinese students’ leadership emergence in an American study group and aims to rationalize and contribute to the understanding of Chinese students’ reservations in assuming leadership when working with their American group mates. Against the harmony-oriented Chinese communication context, the other-orientation makes it an imperative for a Chinese leader to understand how he or she is related to the others in his or her group; an emphasis on role relationships prompts the Chinese leader to seek a perfect timing for action to live up to the principle of “doing the proper things with the right people in the appropriate relationships”; in their actions, they are guided by the principle of avoiding conflicts and preserving harmony. In this context, Chinese students tend to see themselves as representatives of their home country and an urge to create a positive image (and to avoid a negative image) of their home country underlies their “play-safe” cautiousness in taking initiatives to assume leadership; an emphasis on the timing of leadership emergence tends to hold the Chinese students back in exercising their influence; an uncertainty about the intervention outcome and about whether the intervention would destroy group harmony deters the Chinese students from exercising their intervention. 

9D Culture in Literature

Literary texts by H. Murakami in Terms of Intercultural Communication
Lyubov A. Kuryleva, Far Eastern National Technical University, Russia
Svetlana A. Boeva, Far Eastern National Technical University, Russia
The present study deals with the intercultural communication processes reflected in the works by Haruki Murakami. The analysis of the facts and events of intercultural communication as well as of the intertextual references occurring in the texts under study made it possible to single out a cross-cultural geographical range presented by 24 countries of the world. Linguistic and cultural analysis of H. Murakami’s works revealed a great number of gairaigo and words and sentences in European languages, including numerous pretexts of non-Japanese origin belonging to various thematic groups, which is peculiar for Murakami’s creative work in the age of globalization and intercultural communication. The investigation also showed that intercultural communication mechanism is an artistic device used by H. Murakami to compose his literary texts. The intercultural communication encodes Japanese realia and adapts Japanese literature for readers from various countries, which partially explains the phenomenon of Murakami in the world culture.

A Study on Grammatical Metaphor in Catch-22 by Case Study Method
Jia-Ying Hu, Northeast Agricultural University, China
By applying case study method and quantitative method, the paper analyzes grammatical metaphors in six selected typical black humor discourse segments in Catch-22. The paper is divided into four parts. The first part briefly introduces Halliday’s theory of grammatical metaphor and its application. The second part selects six typical black humor discourse segments in Catch-22 and respectively collects the data of ideational grammatical metaphor, interpersonal grammatical metaphor and textual grammatical metaphor in the six selected segments. The third part comprehensively analyzes the data. It is found that grammatical metaphors widely exist in the selected discourse and that grammatical metaphors in the black humor discourse have special features as follows: the incomplete and elliptical language features of black humor discourse resulting in the incomplete realization of grammatical metaphor; and the repetition feature of black humor discourse making the same phenomenon of repetition of grammatical metaphor in Catch-22. Lastly, the paper is concluded and the theoretical and practical significance of the paper are proposed. Theoretically, grammatical metaphor theory is enriched from linguistic perspectives, and an empirical method is applied to analyze black humor discourse. Practically, a new application field of grammatical metaphor in black humor discourse is provided and also a fresh angle for appreciating black humor literary works is presented. 

9E Culture on Television

The Assimilation of Asian Culture: The Case of Asianovelas on Philippine Television
Florinda de Fiesta-Mateo, University of the Philippines, Philippines
Dubbed foreign television programs have gained popularity in the Philippines as early as in the 1990s with the entry of the Mexican dramas or what were called the telenovelas. In the 21st century, these were replaced by Asian telenovelas, particularly the Chinovelas (Chinese telenovelas) and the Koreanovelas (Korean telenovelas). The key to these programs’ popularity was their translation to the Philippine language, Filipino. This study looks into the polysemic construction of meanings through the use of language in broadcast media text. Through the use of textual and linguistic analysis, the Filipino audience’s appropriation and interpretation of specific aspects of these Asian cultures, particularly the concepts of family and country will be determined. In the end, this study hopes to look into how Filipinos understand their fellow Asians, and how television, through the language used, contribute to the formation of their conceptions and perceptions of foreign cultures.

A Multimodal Approach to the Genre of TV News Broadcasting
Li-ying Wu, Wenzao Ursuline College of Languages, Taiwan
This study employed a multimodal approach to the genre of TV news broadcasting (TVnb) to explore how the genre of TVnb incorporated multimodality to enhance communication of news and messages to its viewers. Moreover, multimodality was seen as a facilitating practice of TVnb not only situated in the ‘here and now’ presence of broadcasting but also transposing the past news as well as anticipating the future news. An investigation of three TV stations of Taiwan’s TVnb looked into the two dimensions of 1) the content of TVnb as discourse and design, and 2) the expression of TVnb as production and distribution. The preliminary analysis of data pertaining to the relationship between multimodality and TVnb and the implications of the study are discussed.  

The Synergy of the Idol Drama Format in the Asian Market: 
Taking Taiwan's Idol Dramas as an Example
Yi-Hsiang Chen, Shih Hsin University, Taiwan
Television drama is moving to a new stage of diversification and such trends are an inevitable outcome of keen competition in the Asian television drama market. The expansion of the Taiwanese TV industry has been limited by the scale and resources of its domestic market. However, with its linguistic and cultural proximity, the potentially massive Chinese markets are big attractions for Taiwan in pursuing internationalization strategies. Taiwanese idol-drama presents an opportunity for local cultural industries to survive the challenge of trans-national hegemony. Idol-drama has generated a unique value chain, such as the high license fees associated with ratings, marketing, and merchandising of the idols and ancillary products. The integration of telecommunication, media, and information technology has created a new platform through which traditional media-content broadcasters can provide various contents to end users and benefit directly from their usage. In this research, issues of “idols,” “entertainment,” “interactivity,” and “co-production” will be discussed with respect to this kind of drama format. Besides those points, an idol drama called Green Forest, My Home (luguang senlin 绿光森林) will be used as an example to discuss the synergy of the resource integration and to initiate an alternative business model to explore the Asian market.

Comparative Study on Media Performance and Content Diversity 
between Mainland China and Taiwan
Kirsten Y. C. Huang, Shih-Hsin University, Taiwan
Diversity has been described as one of the key issues in communications policy. In this paper, by using 2003-2007 Nielsen and CSM People Meter TV rating data for Taiwan and China, the analysis of assessing TV audience’s exposure diversity was conducted. The media performance between Taiwan and China was compared along the following three dimensions: program-type supply, demand, and bias rate. The program-type supply is the programs which are available on the market. The demand is measured by the rating of different program-types. Bias rate is calculated from the differences between supply and demand. After being separated for more than fifty years, the two entities on either side of the Taiwan Strait have developed different broadcasting policies and media performance due to the widely diverse political and economic views. The finding of this study is, through an analysis of TV program-type supply, demand, and bias rate difference, that effective policies do have impact on content diversity to a certain extent. In addition, this paper points out the critical point of TV program bias rate was found within these 5 years. 

9H SPECIAL JAFAE/IAICS JOINT PANEL: 
Recognizing and Responding to International Linguistic Environments

Chair: Yuko Takeshita, Toyo Eiwa University, Japan
The current complexity of globalization has led us to recognize again and again the importance of our increased competencies in various kinds of language and our expanded knowledge about various aspects of language, culture, and communication. This panel will discuss how Japanese businesses, government offices, and other organizations can respond to the demand of these linguistic competencies and how evaluation be made of their efforts. Addressing these issues, we use language management as a conceptual term for policy formulation and implementation, and a language management specialist for a person who does these jobs in business and government contexts in Japan. 

Conceptualizing International Language Management and International Language Management Specialists in Japan
Nobuyuki Honna, Aoyama Gakuin University, Japan
In view of the contemporary linguistic environments, government and business organizations are required to develop concrete and feasible language policies and programs. If their activities attract international interest, they are asked to distribute information in English as a global language. A working command of English utilized by employees is a great asset of any business firm and public office. Effective in-house training programs will contribute to increased credibility and therefore better evaluation of an organization. It seems likely that public disclosure of these linguistic endeavors will soon be demanded by a well-informed public in general and forward-looking shareholders in particular. Since management response to linguistic needs is an essential strategic operation, it is desirable that companies make efforts to acquire and train personnel of sufficient capability of international languages. 

Developing a Training Program for International Language Management Specialists
Junko Saruhashi, Aoyama Gakuin University, Japan
Many parts of management strategies for coping with linguistic environment change are unwritten and are embedded into post holders’ innate and discursive memories. Scholars and researchers are able to contribute to this field by gathering not only successful but also failure cases, expounding the cases along with existent theories from intercultural communication studies, sociolinguistics, management, and so on, and extracting new frameworks. One of the most important tasks is describing desirable competencies required to international language management specialists. These are the abilities (1) to observe the current linguistic environment and its trend, (2) to manage linguistic and cultural diversities (3) to practice and to promote skillful intercultural communication, and (4) to react flexibly and creatively according to the needs and demands of the international language environment. We will discuss in more detail these competencies and other frameworks, which are to be provided in our training program for international language management specialists. 

English Language Teaching In-House
Chie Saito, International University of Health and Welfare, Japan
Employees of middle-sized and big companies in Japan have opportunities to receive in-house English training somehow. But sadly enough, the contents of the training programs tend to be TOEIC-oriented, in spite of the fact that they do not meet the actual needs of the situation which Japanese companies are facing. Amidst the rapid progression of globalization, offering efficient and effective training programs is vital. The concept of linguistic auditing can be applied to meet the actual needs, and create and offer custom-made programs for the employees. In this paper, current companies’ approaches to the training programs are analyzed and discuss the future and ideal pictures of English language teaching in-house.

English as a Company Language in Japan 
Ayako Shibata, Aoyama Gakuin University, Japan
This report will attempt to identify the current situation of English as a company language in Japanese society. Adopting English as a language at Japanese companies seems to become one of the approaches to make them global enterprises. Through examining such a phenomenon, it will be possible to understand what Japanese companies accepting this approach do in order to maintain and develop their global images. Whilst investigating the recent trend of English as a company language, however, it is also necessary to consider the problems they have encountered, such as: (1) whether employees’ English abilities meet the demands from their employers and customers and (2) if their language policies are appropriate for undertaking international business projects. 

Corporate-level Responses toward the Linguistic Needs in Japan
Akiko Matsumoto,　Daito Bunka University, Japan
 Japanese Corporations are struggling to find ways to cope with challenges generated from globalization of their internal and external operations. Giving their employees language training is one of the most common remedies they take. The existing corporate language training systems in Japan vary significantly from company to company, and they are often criticized as unfocused or inefficient. In order to plan and implement effective corporate language training, it is essential to take into account both the current linguistic needs and long-term vision of the organization, as well as employees’ language competencies. Each employee in each section has specific linguistic needs to carry out her/his tasks, so language training methods and materials also need to be tailored to the individual and specific job, which can lead to issues of cost and time. In this report, distinctive examples of corporate language training will be presented to see how Japanese companies are responding to these challenges.

Looking at Kumamoto Castle from an International Language Management Point of View
Judy Yoneoka, Kumamoto Gakuen University, Japan
Linguistic environments have changed worldwide, and even small towns such as Kumamoto are no exception. The Kumamoto Castle, which celebrated its 400th birthday in 2008 with the addition of a new daimyo palace, Honmaru-Goten, received an unprecedented number of foreign tourists. A large majority of these international tourists were from Korea, due not only to the birthday of the Castle (which has historical significance for Koreans) but also because of the appreciation of the won against the yen. How did Kumamoto City, as important shareholders and keepers of the Castle, react to this unusual situation? What plans were made? What changes could be seen in the environment as a reaction to the situation? More importantly, now that the rush is over (for the time being), we will discuss how the city is recovering and what are they doing to improve the linguistic situation at the Castle.