Open Access Article Intercultural Communication

Community of Practice Involvement Obligations.

Justin Charlebois (1)
1. Department of Language and Communication, Aichi Shukutoku University, Japan
https://doi.org/10.36923/jicc.v6i2.423

Article Sidebar

Issue
Vol. 6 No. 2 (2006)
Submitted
2004 August 19
Published
2006 September 30
Keywords:
    community of practice, frame, obligations, expectations, deference, demeanor, tightness, looseness, giri, ninjo, omote, soto, uchi, ura
Ask AI (Dimensions)
Download PDF

Abstract

One way of studying group involvement is through the paradigm of communities of practice (CofP) (Lave 1988, Lave & Wenger 1991). Students on university campuses are simultaneously members of various CofPs. This article investigates the CofPs Japanese students were involved in while studying in the United States. It found that the whole notion of CofP involvement is framed (Bateson 1972; Tannen & Wallet 1993) differently by Japanese. Specifically, the Japanese frame for attendance obligations and appropriate behavior is tighter (Goffman 1963) than that of their American counterparts. The results of this study suggest that what constitutes good demeanor is different in both societies and highlights the cultural relativity of frames regarding community of practice involvement. (community of practice, frame, obligations, expectations, deference, demeanor, tightness, looseness, giri, ninjo,omote, soto, uchi, ura).

Full text article

Generated from XML file

References

Bateson, Gregory (1972). Steps to an ecology of mind. New York: Google Scholar | WorldCat

Ballantine. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Baxter, Judith (2003), Positioning gender in discourse: A feminist methodology. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Brown, Penelope & Levinson, Stephen (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Google Scholar | WorldCat

Frederic, Louis (2002). Japan encyclopedia. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Furo, Hiroko (2002). Frames in American and Japanese political discourse. In Ray Donahue (Ed.), Exploring Japaneseness: On enactments of culture and conscious (pp. 317-339). Westport, CT: Ablex. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Goffman, Erving (1963). Behavior in public places: Notes on the social organization of gatherings. New York: Free Press. Google Scholar | WorldCat

_____(1967). The nature of deference and demeanor. In Interaction ritual, (pp. 47-95). New York: Anchor Books. Google Scholar | WorldCat

_____(1981). Footing. In Forms of talk (pp.124-159). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Gumperz, John (1978). The conversational analysis of interethnic communication. In E. Lamar Ross (Ed.), Southern anthropological society proceedings, No. 12 (pp.13-31). Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. Google Scholar | WorldCat

_____(1982). Discourse strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Haring, Douglas (1967). Japanese character in the twentieth century. In Annuals of the American Academy of political and social science, Vol. 370 (pp. 133-142). London: Sage Publications Google Scholar | WorldCat

Iino, Masakazu (1996). "Excellent foreigner!": Gaijinization of Japanese language and culture in contact situations—an ethnographic study of dinner table conversations between Japanese host families and American students. Google Scholar | WorldCat

(Doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1996). Google Scholar | WorldCat

Dissertations Abstracts International, 57, 1451. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Japan Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, & Technology. (2005). Outline ofthe student exchange system. Retrieved April 25, 2005, from http://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/koutou/ryugaku/main4_a3.htm Google Scholar | WorldCat

Kakava, Christina (2002). Opposition in modern Greek discourse: Cultural and constraints. Journal of Pragmatics, 34, 1537-1568. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Komisarof, Adam (2004). The impact of perceived acculturation attitude alignments upon US-Japanese relations. Journal of Intercultural Education, 7(4), 83-102. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Kondo, Dorinne (1990). Crafting selves: Power, gender, and discourse of identity in a Japanese workplace. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Lakoff, Robin (2000). The language war. Berkeley: University of California Press. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Lave, Jean (1988). Cognition in practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Lave, Jean & Wenger, Etienne (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Lebra, Takie Sugiyama (1976). Japanese patterns of behavior. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Maynard, Senko (1997). Japanese communication. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Nakane, C. (1970). Japanese society. Berkeley: University of California Press. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Norton Peirce, Bonny (1995). Social identity, investment, and language learning. TESOL Quarterly 29 (1), 9-31. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Sacks, Harvey, Schegloff, Emanuel & Jefferson, Gail (1974). A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation Language, 50, 696-735. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Sakamoto, Nancy & Naotsuka, Reiko (2004). Polite fictions in collision: Why Japanese and Americans seem rude to each other. Tokyo: Kinseido. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Schegloff, Emanuel, Jefferson, G., & Sacks, H. (1977). The preference for self-correction in the organization of repair in conversation. Language, 53, 361-382. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Schiffrin, Deborah (1984). Jewish argument as sociability. Language in Society, 13, 311-335. Google Scholar | WorldCat

_____(1987). Discourse markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Google Scholar | WorldCat

_____(1994). Approaches to discourse. Cambridge: Blackwell. Google Scholar | WorldCat

_____(2002). Mother and friends in a Holocaust life story. Language in Society, 31, 309-353. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Scollon, Ron and Scollon, Suzanne (1981). Narrative, literacy, and face in interethnic communication. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Google Scholar | WorldCat

_____(1996). Intercultural communication: A discourse approach. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Scollon, Ron (1998). Mediated discourse as social interaction. London & NY: Longman. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Tannen, Deborah (1983). Ethnic style in male-female conversation. In John Gumperz (Ed.), Language and social identity (pp. 217-231). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar | WorldCat

_____(1984). Conversational style: Analyzing talk among friends. Westport, CT: Ablex. Google Scholar | WorldCat

_____(1989). ‘Oh talking voice that is so sweet’: Constructing dialogue. In Talking voices (pp. 98-133). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar | WorldCat

_____(1998). The argument culture. New York: Ballantine. Google Scholar | WorldCat

_____(1993). What’s in a frame? Surface evidence for underlying expectations. In Deborah Tannen (Ed.), Framing in discourse, (pp.14-56). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar | WorldCat

_____& Wallat, Cynthia (1993). Interactive frames and knowledge schemas in interaction: Examples from a medical examination/interview. In Deborah Tannen (Ed), Framing in discourse (pp. 57-76). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Watanabe, Suwako (1993). Cultural differences in framing: American and Japanese group discussions. In Deborah Tannen (Ed.), Framing in discourse (pp. 176-209). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Yamada, Haru (1997). Different games different rules: Why Americans and Japanese misunderstand each other. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar | WorldCat

Authors

Justin Charlebois
charlebo@hotmail.com (Primary Contact)
Author Biography

Justin Charlebois

Justin Charlebois is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Language and Communication at Aichi Shukutoku University, Japan. He teaches a variety of courses such as gender, sociolinguistics, and discourse analysis. He received an M.A. in Applied Linguistics from Columbia University and is currently working on his PhD from Lancaster University. His research interests include gender, discourse analysis, and intercultural communication.

Charlebois, J. (2006). Community of Practice Involvement Obligations. Journal of Intercultural Communication, 6(2), 1-15. https://doi.org/10.36923/jicc.v6i2.423
Download Citation
Endnote/Zotero/Mendeley (RIS) BibTeX

Copyright (c) 2006 Justin Charlebois

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

This journal provides immediate and free open access to all its content and is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). This means readers are permitted to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author, as long as proper attribution is given. This policy is consistent with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) definition of open access. 

 

Article Details

How to Cite

Charlebois, J. (2006). Community of Practice Involvement Obligations. Journal of Intercultural Communication, 6(2), 1-15. https://doi.org/10.36923/jicc.v6i2.423