Intercultural Communication and Collaboration within and

across Sociolinguistic Environments

The 15th International Association for Intercultural Communication Studies (IAICS)

September 18-20, 2009

Kumamoto Gakuen University, Japan

In cooperation with the Japanese Association for Asian Englishes (JAFAE)

POST CONFERENCE NEWS!

Thank you everyone for making the conference such a great success! We sincerely hope that you have brought back with you some good memories as well as some new ideas for collaborative research.

We have pictures, more pictures, pictures of the tea ceremony and even more pictures ! If you have some to add please send them, and we will add them to the online albums.

ACCESS TO THE UNIVERSITY FROM DOWNTOWN

The conference is getting closer! Please make sure to check the transportation information about how to get to the downtown hotels from either Kumamoto or Fukuoka airports at http://www2.kumagaku.ac.jp/teacher/~judy/cgi/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=IAICS.Transportation

You can also find a map of the downtown hotels on the official hotel reservation site at http://www.nishitetsutravel.jp/niccs/k918en/info_access.html and a good walking map of the downtown area at http://www.kumamoto-if.or.jp/public_html/work/wlkngmap/wlkgmap.htm

IF you come in on the 17th between 2:00 and 9:00 PM, will be student assistants waiting to greet you at the following locations: 1. international terminal of Fukuoka Airport and 2. Kotsu Center Terminal, where buses from Fukuoka and Kumamoto Airports come in. They will explain how to get to the bus, hotel, preregistration venue, etc.

You are welcome to join a syposium on Interlocality and Global Warming to be held on Sept. 17 at the conference venue. See the conference schedule for further information.

  • Our keynote speakers have been finalized as follows:

Brooks Hill, Ph.D. (Trinity University, USA)

Michael H. Prosser, Ph.D. (Shanghai International Studies University, China, and University of Virginia, USA)

Patrice Buzzanell, Ph.D (Purdue University, USA)

Guo-ming Chen, Ph.D. (University of Rhode Island, USA)

Masahiro Hori, Ph.D. (Kumamoto Gakuen University, Japan)

Song Li, Ph.D. (Harbin Institute of Technology, China)

Plus a Special Past Presidents’ Panel:

  • “Everything you wanted to know about intercultural communication but were afraid to ask!"

Moderator: Bates Hoffer, Trinity University, past president

Panel: Nobuyuki Honna, Aoyama Gakuin University, current president

Jia Yuxin, Harbin Institute of Technology, past president

L. Brooks Hill, Trinity University, past and in-coming president

The continuing globalization of the world brings ever-increasing opportunities to share knowledge and ideas across sociolinguistic boundaries. This is not simply a matter of the world becoming smaller or more alike—on the contrary, recognition and respect of diversity have become prerequisites in face of the need to understand and get along with each other. Moreover, intercultural sensitivity and accommodation are necessary for successful collaboration towards exchange and resolution of global issues.

The importance of effective communication across different environments has long been recognized; however, it is becoming more apparent that the need for enhanced communication skills to share ideas effectively even within the same sociolinguistic environment is posing an ever increasing challenge. This is at least partly due to the relative decrease in face-to-face communication that has become a dangerous side-effect of the bewildering increase in methods of global communication and the speed of change in the environment itself. The challenge of successful cooperation not only across but also within sociolinguistic and cultural boundaries, then, remains in the limelight today.

This year’s conference aims to bring together experts in cross-cultural communication studies with a focus on recognition of the changing communicative environment in which we live and work, with the hope that new ideas and opportunities for collaboration will result. As an interdisciplinary conference on human communication across cultures, the suggested paper topics, therefore, cover a wide range of communication related themes.

Guidelines for Submission

Categories: Abstracts and panel proposals may be submitted. 

 Abstracts should be 150-200 words in English, and include keywords, affiliations, email 
 addresses and mailing addresses for all authors. See the sample format of the abstract 
 here.

 Panel proposals reflecting the conference theme may be submitted. All panel
 proposals should provide a 100-word rationale and 150 word abstract of each
 panelist's paper, mailing addresses and email addresses of all panelists.

Deadline: Please submit the abstracts and the complete panel proposals online as an MS Word attachment by June 15, 2009. **DEADLINE EXTENDED** Completed paper should be done by the time of the conference. Authors will be informed at the conference where to send the completed paper and when the deadline is for the consideration of being published in one of the two issues of the IAICS journal, Intercultural Communication Studies, which will be devoted to conference papers. All submissions will be carefully reviewed.

Conference language : International English

Organizational website: http://www2.kumagaku.ac.jp/teacher/~judy/cgi/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=IAICS.IAICS

Submission to: Judy Yoneoka and/or Yuko Takeshita at iaics2009@kumagaku.ac.jp

Conference Organizing Committee