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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Analysis of the Necessity and Significance of Learning Intercultural Communication

Intercultural communication can be simply defined as communication between people ol dltterent cultures. As various aspects of culture determin and guid communication behavior, it is impossible to successfully communicate with people of different cultures without understanding how they think. By saying ＂language is the archives of history＂, Ralph Waldo Emerson is telling us that we will never seperate our language from our culture. Culture is everything and everywhere and the need for learning intercultural communication is by no means insignificant. This essay mainly disccusses the significance and necessity of understanding different culture values in intercultural communication, and shows by some misunderstanding cases how misunderstanding between different people from different cultures happens.

Dimensions of Intercultural Communication Competence

Intercultural communication competence can help us adapt better to the host culture and deal with culture shock successfully. This paper mainly discusses the dimensions of intercultural communication competence.

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.

Discourse System and Intercultural Communication

Discourse is the language in use. Discourse system is about the study of whole systems of communication. This article tries to analyze the influences of discourse system on intercultural communication from the points of ideology, socialization, forms of discourse, face systems and context. Studying intercultural communication from the point of discourse system is an innovative and effective research method, which helps to enhance the participants＇ cultural sensitivity and makes the communication continue.

Being Chinese in Lived Intercultural Experiences:A Discourse Analysis of Chinese Undergraduates’Perceptions of Chinese Culture

The current study investigates a group of Chinese undergraduates’perceptions of Chinese culture.It examines the discourses that the students drew on to assign meaning to Chinese culture and how the students used these discourses in constructing their Chinese cultural identity.A qualitative study was conducted collecting written self-reflective reports on critical intercultural incidents from 39 Chinese undergraduates at a university in Beijing.Questions designed to evoke reports from the students had them describe incidents in their past intercultural experiences that made them acutely aware of themselves“being Chinese”and specify aspects of Chinese culture that they felt such awareness could be attributed to.A discourse analysis reveals the multiplicity and contextuality of the students’notions of Chinese culture.The findings raise important considerations for contemporary Chinese undergraduates’cultural identity and their much debated“identity crisis.”

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.

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.

A Study on Pragmatic Failures in Nonverbal Communication in Intercultural Communicative Context

In the intercultural communication, people often ignore the nonverbal behavior when they talk to others. With the raid progress of modern traffic and tools of communication, people’s contacts have become increasingly frequent with different regions and countries. The research on pragmatic failures in nonverbal communication allows people to understand its nature and eliminate some unnecessary misunderstanding. This paper aims at finding out the root causes about pragmatic failures in nonverbal communication in the intercultural communication, and providing several sensible recommendations.

Intercultural Communication and Chinese Tourism Texts Translation

Intercultural communication language plays a crucial role in our global tourism.When we are doing translation we are doing intercultural communication in a sense,so it is necessary for translators to have intercultural communication awareness and be sensitive to the cultural elements in translation.Taking the perspective of intercultural communication,this paper analyses the cultural elements in Chinese tourism material translation in terms of culturally-loaded words and terms,and presents certain translation techniques a translator can use to deal with culturally-loaded words in their translation.

Probing into the Sino-American Cross-National Marriage Failures:An Intercultural Perspective

With China’s opening to the outside world, Chinese people’s attitude toward marriage has been undergoing great changes. Cross National marriages(CNMs) emerge as a result of economic development, social progress, cultural exchanges and freedom of marriage. However, according to statistics, CNMs are not always successful and satisfactory as they look: the divorce rate is reported to be on the increase. The paper studies several Sino American CNM cases which ended in failure from an intercultural perspective, and on that bases it points out that it is not cultural differences but people’s attitudes toward cultural differences that lead to the breakdown of the CNMs. In this paper, ethnocentrism is specially discussed as a major barrier to successful intercultural communication. And suggestions such as developing empathy, learning about cultural adaptation are offered to improve the quality of the CNMs and the competence of intercultural communication.

The Influence of Culture and Customs on International Business Communications

This paper discusses culture. Scholars have not been able to agree on a definition of culture but most include values and norms as components of their definition. Intercultural communication is vital that skill managers must possess in order to effectively do business in foreign countries. Hofstede＇s theory of national cultural dimensions is employed to provide a framework for defining intercultural communication. Subsequently, several countries are examined using Hofstede＇s scoring system for cultural dimensions. This is followed by a discussion of ways to achieve intercultural competence.