Cultural Linguistics and Intercultural Communication

The relationship between language and culture is the core issue in intercultural communication.For native language learners,their native language and local culture are in perfect harmony;while for foreign language learners,they often unconsciously separate the two,resulting in the phenomenon of“half-cooked rice”in foreign language education.This phenomenon makes us reflect on the purpose,content,and methods of foreign language education and seek theoretical guidance.Foreign language teaching aims to improve intercultural competencies,so it must face language and culture in intercultural communication.As a branch of cultural linguistics with multidisciplinary origins,intercultural linguistics focuses on the relationship between language and culture in intercultural communication.In the process of exploring how to apply linguistic theories in second language acquisition,it shows that intercultural linguistics not only has important enlightenment and application value,but also needs further studies.

Cultivating Cultural Self-Awareness to Teach Intercultural Communication

Intercultural communication is undisputably important in today’s world.Schools on every level in China attach great importance to educating young people with intercultural communication competence.Chinese anthropologist Fei Xiaotong developed the concept of cultural self-awareness to meet this urgent need.The paper explores the rich meanings of cultural self-awareness concept and how the idea is relevant to teaching intercultural communication.

Research on Enhancing Students’Intercultural Awareness and Competence in English Teaching

With the deepening of globalization,intercultural communication has become an important part of people’s daily lives and work.English,as an international language,plays a vital role in intercultural communication.However,simple language knowledge can no longer meet the needs of modern society.Students need to have intercultural awareness and competence to better adapt to the development of globalization.Therefore,it is particularly important to improve students’intercultural awareness and competence in English teaching.This paper will discuss how to improve students’intercultural awareness and competence in English teaching,which includes three parts.The first part introduces the definition of intercultural awareness and competence.The second part explores the importance of intercultural awareness and competence to students,which can help students better understand and respect different cultures,stimulate students’innovative thinking and creativity,and cultivate critical thinking skills,and is also of great significance to students’professional development,personal growth,and social responsibility.The third part discusses the effective methods and strategies to improve students’intercultural awareness and competence in teaching,including carrying out cultural discussion and debate,introducing diverse materials,creating intercultural experience teaching activities,and using virtual learning tools.To a certain extent,this study can enrich the theoretical research in the field of intercultural awareness and competence,help to improve students’intercultural awareness and competence,and provide certain practical guidance for educators to teach intercultural courses.

The Impact of Street Interviews on Chinese EFL Undergraduates’Intercultural Communicative Competence

The study adopts Byram’s Intercultural Communicative Competence(ICC)model as the theoretical framework,and structured interviews were conducted to explore the impact of street interviews on the participants’ICC.Analysis results revealed street interviews help students acquire knowledge in intercultural attitudes,intercultural knowledge,skills of discovery and interaction,and critical cultural awareness,aligning with the four components of Byram’s ICC model.Meanwhile,they have positive perceptions of street interviews.Therefore,street interviews have a positive effect on the development of participants’ICC.

The Application and Impact of Flipped Classroom Model in Intercultural Communication Teaching

Flipped classroom, as a new teaching method, brings new perspectives and practices to intercultural communication teaching. This paper discusses the application of flipped classroom in intercultural communication classrooms to enhance students’ language proficiency, communication skills, and intercultural awareness. Firstly, the definitions and importance of flipped classroom and cultural communication are introduced. Then, the paper explores how to integrate the principles and methods of flipped classroom into the practice of intercultural communication teaching, including pre-class activities, in-class interactions, and reflection. Finally, the advantages and challenges of implementing flipped classroom in intercultural communication classrooms are summarized, along with practical recommendations.

Teaching Intercultural Competence Using Critical Incident and Cultural Story Telling

Intercultural literacy is attached increasingly great importance in this interconnected world.People from diversified cultural backgrounds need to interact with each other for various purposes.Schools and organizations offer courses to improve people’s intercultural competence.This paper examines two effective techniques to teach intercultural competence in the classroom setting:critical incident activity and cultural story telling.These two strategies can help achieve the desired objectives of Michael Byram’s intercultural communication model.

Intercultural attitude： An ethic of the intercultural communication

Intercultural communication as one of the activities of the mankind should be coordinated and regulated by ethical roles; it is the essence of intercultural attitude. Establishing this ethic of intercultural communication can be completed either with the outer compulsive force such as international laws, WTO roles, etc that have to be obeyed passively, or through the active and self-conscious behaviors of the communicators with self-discipline so as to control and guide the process of intercultural communication. The latter is more worthy to be advocated in the world today, where a globalization process with multipolarization and pluralization as its characteristics is going on. In such a situation, the developmental tendency of continual intercultural communication requests communicators to assume the intercultural attitude for looking on state of affairs and solving problem. This attitude is conductive to forming ethic of intercultural communication and reflects this ethic in itself as well; it can bring up the rational intercultural communication to promote common development of world cultures. It consists of five basic elements： mutual respect, tolerance, cooperation, intercultural understanding and intercultural learning. These five elements make up of a whole of supplement each other.

Investigating the Reliability and Validity of Chen and Starosta's Intercultural Sensitivity Scale (ISS) against Chinese Cultural Background

Intercultural Communication Competence (ICC), as one of the research fields of intercultural communication, has been given much importance from scholars all around the world. Intercultural sensitivity is one of the three dimensions in Dr Chen's ICC model. This research investigates the reliability and validity of Chen and Starosta's Intercultural Sensitivity Scale (ISS) (2000) against Chinese cultural background by using Chinese university students majoring in English as respondents.

The Exploration of Intercultural Education in College

Intercultural education was paid more and more attention in college English teaching.However,the college English teaching is still stay in "language ability stage".So,more and more people realize that"student need a kind of intercultural communication competence,so that,they can benefit from the education of language and culture".(Byram&Morgan,1994:62).We must integrate language and culture in the foreign language classroom and optimize the atmosphere of English cultural cognition to improve the intercultural communication competence of students in college.

Impact of Intercultural Learning Program on Language Learners＇ Intercultural Competence

As institutions of higher education continue to internationalize, the number of exchanged students climbs ever higher in China. It is important to know what they have gained in the intercultural learning experiences in terms of attitudes, awareness, and knowledge, which are the three constructed dimensions of Intercultural Competence in this study. A qualitative research is conducted by using interview and seven English language learners are investigated to explore their learning outcomes in the intercultural learning program. From the thematic analysis of the interviews, it can be found that these English language learners＇ intercultural competence has been improved during their stay in USA. They successfully overcome cultural shock, hold positive attitudes toward target culture and people, become more confident in English study, and acquire more cultural knowledge. The research outcomes contribute to promoting intercultural learning effectiveness and improving learners＇ intercultural competence.

Using Converging Strategies to Reduce Divergence in Intercultural User Interface Design

This chapter starts with an introduction illuminating the theoretical back-ground necessary for taking culture into account in HCI design. Definitions of concepts used are provided followed by a historical overview on taking culture into account in HCI design. Subsequently, a glimpse of the current state of research in culture-centered HCI design is derived from secondary literature providing the gist of the structures, processes, methods, models and theoretic approaches concerning the relationship between culture and HCI design (“converging” strategies). After presenting controversies and challenges, a short discussion of results from empirical studies and design recommendations for culture-centered HCI design lead to implications and trends in future intercultural user interface design research to close the knowledge gap (the “divergence”) regarding the relationship between culture and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), i.e. converging the divergence to reach the convergent divergence.

Taking Stock of Grammar-Translation Teaching Method in Developing Intercultural Pragmatic Competence

Grammar-translation teaching method(GTTM as a shorthand below) has long been a buzzword when it is adopted in the class of English as a foreign language.It has been universally acknowledged that such teaching method contradicts the development of communicative language competence advocated in recent decades.However,I positively argue that GTTM in English class,as a comparative and intercultural model,should be given a due reconsideration to improve L2 learners' pragmatic competence.

The framework and cultivating modes of intercultural communication competence for business English majors in vocational colleges： Based on the study of vocational colleges in Guangxi

The teaching objective of vocational business English is not only to improve students＇ English language competence, but also to develop their intercultural communication competence. Based on an analysis of the outcome of a survey on cultivation of English majors＇ intercultural competence among vocational colleges in Guangxi, the paper aims at exploring the framework and cultivating modes of intercultural communication competence for business English majors in vocational colleges.

An investigation into the speechlessness of Chinese native culture in Chinese EFL learners＇ intercultural communication in English

Based on a survey of intercultural competence in intercultural communication in English, this paper discusses the speechlessness of Chinese native culture in Chinese EFL learners＇ English intercultural communication, its effects as well as its pedagogical implications for English learning ＆ teaching in Chinese EFL context.

Reflections on Intercultural Communication: Culture and Communication

We live in the changeable and dynamic change.The study of intercultural communication is about the world’s change of social relationships and how we must adapt to them.This paper mainly deals with the relationship between culture and communication.And what the influences of culture and communication have on studying ICC.

Case Studies of Some Misunderstandings in Intercultural Communication

Misunderstandings are mainly due to the fact that they are from diffrent cultures. There are eight specific ingredients of Communicution within the context of intentional communication. Encoding and decording have a direct link to the effectiveness of communication. People from diffrent culture may use the same language symbols but diffrent systems of convention to encode and decode message so misunderstanding or conflicts most frequently occur in intercultural communication as a result of their ingnorance of each other’s cultural background.

Privacy and Intercultural Communication-Causes Behind Different Privacy of the Chinese and the American

Chinese culture is featured by its "togetherness", collectivism, and its agricultural tradition; while American culture is featured by its "apartness", individualism and its industrial tradition. The three dominant features determine the two cultures' different privacy rules. This paper puts the focus on the analysis of the causes behind the two different privacy. What's more, the globalization influences the privacy rules of the two cultures, people are more adaptive and have changed a lot.

An Analysis of Value Differences in English and Chinese Idioms from the Perspective of Intercultural Communication

Idioms are the essence and gems of human wisdom and an important carrier of national culture. As a special form of language, they play an important role in intercultural communication. Due to the uniqueness of each culture, English and Chinese idioms are different in many aspects, values included. The present paper attempts to analyze the different values in English and Chinese idioms from three aspects: dependence vs independence, past-time orientation vs future-time orientation, and harmony vs competition. And the authors hope that it will be of some practical significance in people's intercultural communication.

Using Social Media to Promote Intercultural Communication Between Chinese and American University Students

This paper reports a five-year computer-mediated intercultural exchange project between Chinese and American university students that explores the use of various social media tools with WeChat application as the main medium in collaborative intercultural assignments. The study combines quantitative and qualitative approaches by using questionnaires and action research, to investigate how Chinese EFL and American CFL learners increase their intercultural communication competence by assessing their knowledge, awareness, attitudes, and skills of discovery and awareness. The findings reveal their changes and progress in the following variables: knowledge about the variety and subtlety of both the home and target cultures, a different worldview, and cultural study methods;awareness of the importance of differences and similarities between the home and target cultures, their negative reactions to these differences(e.g., fear, ridicule, disgust, feeling of superiority, etc.) and therefore, critical evaluation of the target and home cultures;attitudes from excitement or blind admiration of the target culture to confusion, anxiety or frustration about the cultural differences, later to toleration and appreciation of cultural differences, adaptation to the target culture, and eventually to openness and readiness to suspend disbelief about other cultures and belief about one’s own;skills to contrast the target culture with their own, to demonstrate a capacity to interact appropriately in a variety of different social situations in the target culture and resolve cross-cultural conflicts and misunderstandings. This research will serve as a valuable reference for computer-mediated intercultural communication teaching and open up new possibilities to extend classroom teaching by bridging the gap between second-hand knowledge and hands-on experience.

Integration of Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence

The launch of the Belt and Road Initiative in China calls for a paradigm shift in theory and practice of foreign language(FL)teaching from a communicative language teaching approach(CLT)to intercultural language teaching(ICLT),which treats intercultural communicative competence(ICC)as the core of FL education.Unfortunately,the College English Curriculum Requirements of China(CECR)does not specify the aspects for cultural teaching or assessment;nor does it provide any theoretical or practical guidance for teachers on how to teach or assess ICC.This leads to teachers’confusion about what should be taught and assessed and how,hence to a deficiency in real actions.In this paper,we first outline the learning outcomes of ICLT-oriented courses,the ICC components which respectively fall into the categories of intercultural attitude,knowledge and skills.By presenting the pedagogical practice of a cultural literacy course,we also demonstrate how FL teachers can help learners achieve these learning outcomes through a fivestage instruction process.Finally,we discuss how these learning outcomes can be assessed using formative and summative assessment tools,especially how ICC components can be incorporated into a comprehensive test of FL.