James Haines

Abstract

For about a year and a half now I have been studying non-racist and anti-racist skinheads and their look-alike neo-nazi "bonehead" cousins, using skin websites, e-mail lists and newsgroups as my primary source of data. As I have had no face-to-face contact with my informants, my approach might be called discourse-centered ethnography. At a Cultural Studies conference in June 1998 I reported on an ether community of US and Canadian gay skins that I have been monitoring since November 1997, the Queer Skinhead Brotherhood [QSB]. That report had its origins in a longer ethnography which was based on data gleaned from the QSB website, a QSB e-mail list, the home pages of several QSB list subscribers, and e-mail interviews and personal correspondence with a little over a tenth of the QSB membership. This ethnography is available on the web and has been linked to from the QSB website, which suggests that QSB members find it a fairly accurate report.

Keywords: Skinheads, QSB website, discourse-centered ethnography.

The Notion of Misunderstanding in Intercultural Communication

Volker Hinnenkamp

Abstract

On the one hand, the notion of misunderstanding plays a very salient role with respect to the criteria of interculturality in intercultural communication research. On the other hand, however, it remains a notoriously underdefined and underspecified concept. In the first part of my paper I develop a typology of the different kinds of misunderstandings and demonstrate that each type of misunderstanding can be treated as a sequence in its own right, comprising a trajectory which encompass both, the misunderstanding core and the frame or event, that is its whole negotiated part. As a result of this, a fully negotiated (and hence clarified) misunderstanding will usually lead back to the status quo ante. In the second part I then discuss a case study of a full misunderstanding cycle within a multinational group discussion and deal with the difficulties in drawing up clear-cut criteria capable of differentiating between intercultural and 'non-intercultural' misunderstandings.

Keywords: criteria of interculturality, misunderstanding cycle, core and frame, negotiation and clarification, intercultural and “non-intecultural” misunderstanding.

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Communication in product development in an alliance setting.

by Sten Jönsson, Anders Edström and Urban Ask

Abstract

This paper deals with communication across functional and cultural borders in product development in an alliance context. It shows how the multiple levels of co-ordination in an alliance increase complexity. Product development takes place in meetings in a nexus of meetings. Communication is studied by the use of video. Sequences from such recordings are played back to participants who assist in the interpretation of communicative situations. It was found that participants tend to become myopic in their attributions of implications of behaviour in meetings, which hampers communication efficiency. It is suggested that Complexity Theory provides an explanation and that a solution can be sought in feedback of video sequences and reflection on communication problems.

Keywords: co-operative product development, alliance context, contextual complexities, ways of working, implications of behaviour in meetings, observation methods.

Intercultural Communication through Hypermedia

by Kaisu Korhonen

Abstract

The objective of interculturally-oriented language teaching is intercultural competence. The theory of perspective transformation (Taylor 1994) provides a model for the learning of intercultural communication. When practicing, the cognitive, affective, and behavioral components of competence as well as students' stage of intercultural sensitivity must be paid attention to.

The Culture General Assimilator (Brislin et al. 1986; 1996) is a programmed learning approach based on simulation and consisting of critical incidents with alternative explanations and their rationales. When analyzing reasons for the problems and misunderstandings, students begin to learn about culturally influenced behavior.

The Same but Different hypercourseware developed for Finnish polytechnic students contains 25 modified critical incidents. The incidents have hotwords linked to display further information about the word. The program was implemented using the Asymetrix Multimedia ToolBook 4.0-CBT Edition authoring system. To develop The Same but Different further, the program has been tested with information technology students (n 78).

Keywords: Theory of Perspective Transformation, learning of intercultural competence,Culture General Assimilator, critical incidents, Same but Different, hypercourseware.

Charles McHugh

Abstract

Americans, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, and Vietnamese (N=250) rated 57 random proposed conversation topics on a five-point scale (i.e., very good, good, neutral, bad, very bad) to a same-culture, same-sex school friend. Five factors emerge and are characterized as: Familial Biographical Data, Skeletons in the Family Closet, Small Talk Topics, Personal Information Topics, and Intimate Relations Topics. For the 17 topics included in Factor Two, Skeletons in the Family Closet, about 51% of Americans appraise them at neutral, good or very good. Among the Asians, Thais report the lowest percentage at about 22% and Chinese the highest at about 35%. On those topics appraised as either bad or very bad, subjects then selected one of three possible reactions: avoidance, false information, or silence. Thai and Vietnamese favor silence, choosing it at about 38% of the time, while Chinese and Japanese select avoidance, at about 40%, as the preferred reaction. These results suggest that native English speakers could encounter a higher than expected frequency of avoidance and silence rejection strategies when communicating with Chinese, Japanese, Thai, and Vietnamese on some topics deemed appropriate among Americans.

Keywords: intercultural encounters, conversation topics, avoidance/ false information/ silence.

Discourses of Community and Embodiment in Intercultural Cyberspace

Abstract

This paper examines the recent emergence of visions of globalised virtual communities who inhabit graphical versions of cyberspace implemented on the Internet. Often it is claimed that geography, nationality, 'race' and gender (are) no longer matter in these novel domains. In regard to the contemporary debates over the nature of intercultural communication, the paper considers how human communication is envisaged in these so-called transcultural 'virtual communities', whether the pervasive troubles of 'off-line' intercultural communication are really transcended 'online', and how participants shape their talk and language use to constitute their virtual intercultural encounters. Lastly, the role of graphical avatar embodiments for participants who communicate a 'virtual ethnicity' to others is analysed in a particular setting. The focus is on our changing conceptions and practices of, as well as relations between identity, community and embodiment in intercultural cyberspace.

Keywords: transcultural “virtual communication”, inhabited virtual worlds, notions of computable community, graphical versions of cyberspace, ideological technologies.

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Paralinguism in the Theatre and the International Theatre Festivals
(with the special review on the Macedonian theatre paralinguism)

Sasho Ognenovski

Abstract

The paralingual structure of the theatrical concepts,particulary those of the postmodernist trends,successfully break the linguistic barriers in the communication of the theatrical play - spectator - recipient in the art of thetre.I would say that the international theatre festivals who are treated assuch in their programs,in their own way,manage to maintain complete communication between the artistic forms on several culture structures taking into account that paralinguistic which is particulary present in this form of performances is in close relation to the roots of the national identity of a nation.Transfused into artistic work through the international festivals this form of artistic performance opens a complex streams of communications which imply to dialoge whose finite consequence is the similarity in the manner of thinking and living of different civilizations,and of course,the polemical parts which are not excluded.

Keywords: paralingual communication, linguistic barriers, international theatre festivals, theatrical paralinguistics, national identity.

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