Articles
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Re-imaging Understanding of Intercultural Communication, Culture and Culturing
Abstract: The paper examines intercultural communication as the management of messages across cultures. Our understanding of culture, culturing, and intercultural communication enlarges our understanding of what being human means and, moreover, expands moral action by locating our humanity within a constantly changing world. This emergent quantum understanding brings a closer look on intercultural theory and the phenomenon of culturing, thus,... [...] Read more
Analysis of EFL elementary textbooks in Syria and Germany: cognitive, affective and procedural aspects in their inter-cultural context
Abstract: This study attempts to explore and compare the cognitive, affective and procedural aspects of EFL elementary textbooks in Syria and Germany. It analyses a corpus which consists of three Syrian elementary textbooks, Starters I-III , and their German counterparts, Kooky I-II . Based on the paradigmatic change from instructivism to constructivism, a descriptive-analytical approach is used to examine the content-material in terms of... [...] Read more
Unintentional Humour in the Translation of Jordanian Shop Signs
Abstract: This paper examines unintentional humour, as a non-bona-fide instance of communication, in the translation of shop signs in the Jordanian public commercial environment. It shows that unintentional humour not only permeates a shop sign's translated version, but is also indissolubly linked to its lingua-cultural and social context. Closer scrutiny reveals that unintentional humour, just like intentional humour, essentially emerges... [...] Read more
Expatriate Power – a counteractive factor of intercultural Learning?
Abstract: Due to the advancement of globalization , overseas assignments are becoming increasingly necessary for the coordination of international subsidiaries or to guarantee the transfer of knowledge, among other things. However many of these assignments are unsuccessful in that either the business expatriates return earlier as planned or they do not perform as well as expected. Multiple reasons for the failure of such assignments have been... [...] Read more
Identity and health in transcultural mediation: The Model of Culture-Synergetic Transcultural Mediation and its Impacts
Abstract: Over the past decades, interest in the field of conflict research has developed worldwide. A broad range of literature evaluates conflicts as stressors with negative health effects. Particularly in transcultural situations conflict parties experience stress due to the lack of transcultural understanding, differences in value-orientations and culture-specific attitude and behaviour. This article introduces the model of "Culture-Synergetic... [...] Read more
Values, Cultural Identity and Communication: A Perspective From Philosophy of Language
Abstract: Problems of communication in intercultural dialogue typically arise when the communicators understand concepts of meaning and identity in strikingly different ways. This article employs influential assumptions in modern philosophy of language to discuss fundamental aspects of these problems. Drawing on a distinction between beliefs and values, it is argued that intercultural communication typically fails when communicators have different... [...] Read more
Service telephone call openings: a comparative study on five European languages
Abstract: The paper presents the results of a comparative study on how speakers of different languages (English, French, German, Italian and Spanish) manage the opening of service phone calls. Previous research has focussed on cross-cultural variability in telephone conversations, but this is the first attempt to systematically compare several European languages at the same time. The communicative strategies speakers use in each language are analyzed... [...] Read more