Polylogical Core of Modern Intercultural Interaction Models

The article is devoted to the problems of transformation and phenomenon of complication of intercultural communication models. The significance of the study lies in the fact that intercultural communication through the prism of cultural and civilizational developments reflects the sociocultural changes taking place at all levels of social development. The problem of application of theoretical knowledge about the communicative paradigm of modern culture with its polylogical core for the development of a specific model of intercultural communication and effective cultural policy relates to the difficulties of achieving compliance of the research results with the real state of the sociocultural environment. Basing on the previous and current research approaches and taking into consideration a systemic and synergistic approach as well as a dialogue concept, the authors aim to investigate theoretical modeling of intercultural interaction. As a result of investigation, the authors conclude that the study of models of intercultural interaction cannot be carried out without understanding the principles and factors of the dynamics of cultural changes in the modern world which allows us to consider the transition from a dialogue model to a polylogue model as a natural stage in the dynamics of culture. Also, the methodological set of philosophical and cultural studies of the dynamics of modern culture is proved as constantly expanding due to the new tendencies, like total digitalization. It is stated that overcoming outdated models of intercultural interaction and adopting the new ones is a long process that must be tested by the human society

Building perspective awareness as a workplace practice

Purpose The present study aims to describe the implementation of a facilitated dialogue model intended to improve communication across professional logics and knowledge boundaries in two units of a large health-care organization in Sweden. Design/methodology/approach This is a mixed-methods study with interviews, field observations and follow- up questionnaires that were conducted during the implementation process. Findings The conclusion drawn in this study is that it is possible to change and improve the dialogue between health-care professionals with the help of a tailored, facilitated dialogue model. The authors found that different professional logics can indeed meet and share perspectives if the right conditions are provided. Moreover, an improved dialogue between different professional groups may contribute to work satisfaction, engagement, social cohesion and communication between professionals. Practical implications This study shows that the right organizational conditions, such as support from managers, must exist if the model’s inherent possibilities are to be used. Inhouse facilitation may be a sustainable model for facilitated workplace dialogue when its implementation is supported by the overall organization. Originality/value The contribution is an empirically based analysis of a new form of model for mediating perspectives within an organization with distinct professional roles. This study shows how, under the right conditions, the model can contribute to a perspective awareness and thus a more mature work organization.

A Telecollaboration Project on Giving Online Peer Feedback: Implementing a Multilateral Virtual Exchange During a Pandemic

Telecollaboration, also called virtual exchange or online intercultural exchange, is a form of collaborative learning whereby language learners in different locations engage in computer-mediated communication to complete tasks online. There is ample evidence that telecollaboration promotes the acquisition of language skills, intercultural competence, and digital literacies. Challenges faced implementing virtual exchanges include differences in time zones, learning objectives, academic calendars, and cultural attitudes. The present article describes a case of a multilateral telecollaboration project based on the facilitated dialogue model involving four institutions—two in Europe and two in the United States—that was designed to prepare students for the experience of giving online peer feedback on collaborative writing assignments. Our initial goal was to explore the challenges students would face and the benefits they would receive from a complex telecollaboration project involving multiple institutions and two task sequences: 1) input and reflection on giving and receiving peer feedback, 2) completion of the collaborative writing task to be peer reviewed. However, new challenges and opportunities emerged after the switch to emergency e-learning and remote teaching during the Covid-19 pandemic. Relying upon multiple data sources—including correspondence, observations, class discussions, surveys, reflective writing, and information stored in virtual learning environments—our methods of data collection involved convenience sampling, while data analysis was predominantly descriptive. Our results demonstrate that even during a global pandemic, students and instructors face similar logistical challenges and reap similar benefits as has been reported in the literature. Yet our experience also reveals the resiliency of telecollaboration in the face of extreme disruption as well as the potential to exploit virtual exchange to develop learning strategies—such as methods for giving and receiving peer feedback—and meta-awareness of how language is used in the real-world—such as the implications of English as a lingua franca.

Enhance the Language Ability of Humanoid Robot NAO through Deep Learning to Interact with Autistic Children

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a life-long neurological disability, and a cure has not yet been found. ASD begins early in childhood and lasts throughout a person’s life. Through early intervention, many actions can be taken to improve the quality of life of children. Robots are one of the best choices for accompanying children with autism. However, for most robots, the dialogue system uses traditional techniques to produce responses. Robots cannot produce meaningful answers when the conversations have not been recorded in a database. The main contribution of our work is the incorporation of a conversation model into an actual robot system for supporting children with autism. We present the use a neural network model as the generative conversational agent, which aimed at generating meaningful and coherent dialogue responses given the dialogue history. The proposed model shares an embedding layer between the encoding and decoding processes through adoption. The model is different from the canonical Seq2Seq model in which the encoder output is used only to set-up the initial state of the decoder to avoid favoring short and unconditional responses with high prior probability. In order to improve the sensitivity to context, we changed the input method of the model to better adapt to the utterances of children with autism. We adopted transfer learning to make the proposed model learn the characteristics of dialogue with autistic children and to solve the problem of the insufficient corpus of dialogue. Experiments showed that the proposed method was superior to the canonical Seq2sSeq model and the GAN-based dialogue model in both automatic evaluation indicators and human evaluation, including pushing the BLEU precision to 0.23, the greedy matching score to 0.69, the embedding average score to 0.82, the vector extrema score to 0.55, the skip-thought score to 0.65, the KL divergence score to 5.73, and the EMD score to 12.21.

Switzerland in Europe and the World

The final chapter looks at Switzerland in Europe and the world. The first section discusses the reasons why Switzerland is not a member of the EU. The second and third sections analyse the reasons and political consequences of Switzerland’s selective participation without membership and try to answer the question whether or not ‘bilateralism’ is a sustainable strategy for the Swiss preference: utmost economic integration and least political loss of national autonomy. The final section addresses the growing interest in the institutions of Swiss democracy from abroad, be it regarding decentralisation, direct democracy or political power-sharing. Instead of wanting to export democracy, the chapter proposes the ‘dialogue model’ as a discourse between equals. Through this approach, others can draw from the ‘Swiss experience’ as a base for autochthonal developments of their institutions. And the Swiss can be inspired, in turn.