Culture and Social Norms: Development and Application of a Model for Culturally Contextualized Communication Measurement (MC3M)

Studies of social norms are common in the communication literature and are increasingly focused on cultural dynamics: studying co-cultural groups within national boundaries or comparing countries. Based on the review of the status quo in cross-cultural measurement development and our years of experience in conducting this research among a co-cultural group, this paper describes a Model for Culturally Contextualized Communication Measurement (MC3M) for intercultural and/or cross-cultural communication research. As an exemplar, we report on a program of research applying the model to develop a culturally derived measurement of social norms and the factors impacting the norm-behavior relationship for members of a unique population group (i.e., ethnically Tibetan pastoralists in Western China). The results provide preliminary evidence for the construct validity and reliability of the culturally derived measurements. The implications, benefits, and shortcomings of the MC3M model are discussed. Recommendations for advancing both conceptual and measurement refinement in intercultural and cross-cultural communication research are provided.

Report from the 13th International Conference on Researching and Applying Metaphor: "Metaphorical Creativity in a Multilingual World" (Hamar, Norway, 18–21 June 2020)

Report from the 13th International Conference on Researching and Applying Metaphor: Metaphorical Creativity in a Multilingual World (Hamar, Norway, 18–21 June 2020)The RaAM 2020 conference on metaphor research was held online on 18–21 June 2020, hosted by the Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences (INN) in Hamar, Norway. The aim was to exchange ideas and research findings of historians, culture studies specialists, and cognitive linguists from all around the world. The theme of the event was Metaphorical Creativity in a Multilingual World, including the following areas: multimodal metaphor, metaphor in spoken discourse, metaphor in gesture, metaphor in cross-cultural communication, metaphor and translation, metaphor and film, metaphor in education. Among the large group of researchers, specialists from Lithuania and Latvia presented their findings in metaphor research based on local data (Lithuanian media, posters, advertisements and billboards, film translation into Lithuanian). Sprawozdanie z trzynastej międzynarodowej konferencji dotyczącej badania i zastosowania metafory pt. Metaphorical Creativity in a Multilingual World (Hamar, Norwegia, 18–21 czerwca 2020)Wirtualna konferencja naukowa RaAM 2020 poświęcona badaniom nad metaforą odbyła się w dniach 18–21 czerwca 2020 roku w Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences (INN) w Hamarze w Norwegii. Celem spotkania była wymiana myśli i wyników badań naukowych historyków, kulturoznawców i językoznawców kognitywnych z całego świata. Tematem konferencji była kreatywność metaforyczna w wielojęzycznym świecie i obejmował on następujące obszary: metafora multimodalna, metafora w dyskursie mówionym, metafora w gestach, metafora w komunikacji międzykulturowej, metafora i przekład, metafora i film, metafora w edukacji. Wśród licznych badaczy byli również specjaliści z Litwy i Łotwy, którzy zaprezentowali wyniki badań nad metaforą na podstawie danych ze źródeł krajowych (media litewskie, plakaty, reklamy i bilbordy, tłumaczenie filmów na język litewski).

Biography in the aspect of cultural communication of an artist and audience

The purpose of the article is to reveal the communicative potential of the master's biography, to prove its influence on the cultural dialogue between humanity and the achievements of the artist. The research methodology is to apply a number of approaches: analytical – to comprehend the literature on the topic of the article; interdisciplinary - for a comprehensive study of factual material and in obtaining new knowledge; systemic using a whole range of methods (biographical, semiotic, culturological, hermeneutic, historical, theoretical generalization) – comprehending the stated quest, etc. Scientific novelty – for the first time in the national humanities, biography is explained as the way of civilizational contact between the creator and the public, the translator of the most important meanings of the era. Conclusions. The publication states that the artist's biography is an important component of the communicative space of nowadays. It embodies the anthropological dimensions of history, the worldview of the day through the coverage of the hero's life, his significant achievements. The author of the chronicles builds the life strategy of the master in such a way that he becomes clear to the recipients of any period. An analysis of the chronicle reveals the richness of symbolic forms of cultural contact associated with works of art, epoch-making features and social circumstances, and so on. In unity, they affect the perception of the artist's image. This process is carried out by the public as a result of decoding spiritual information in accordance with existing norms, traditions of a particular time, awareness of the existential and creative experience of the character. Biography as a means of communication demonstrates freedom from ideological, social limitations, as it allows communication of individuals of different eras, removes territorial, speech, social, and others barriers. Due to their ability to embody the universal concepts of civilization, the chronicles express not only the story of the artist, but also allow the modern recipient to express himself. Thus the listener (viewer) through the biography is in contact with the master, his time, humanity. Keywords: biography, cultural communication, artist, audience.

Overcoming awkwardness

As Chinese people engaged with the Australian cultural scene in recent years, two posts about its humour attracted considerable attention from netizens in the People’s Republic of China. The post authors believed that their firsthand accounts of events demonstrated how Australians used humour to overcome awkward situations and regarded this as an essential national characteristic. In each case, other interpretations were possible if cultural factors had been taken into account, including the contemporary culture of China, Putonghua language usage and the Anglo-centrism that is common to cross-cultural studies. This exploratory generalist textual study concludes that the authors’ interpretations were largely determined by their cultural bias and by traditional regard for ‘face’ and politeness, and reflect the fact that, ultimately, the extent of cross-cultural communication is governed by international politics.

Practical Challenges to Teachers and Students in Asynchronous Cross-cultural Communication Projects

Teachers are expected to prepare their students for life in a world that changes daily, fueled by technological progress and globalisation (Howells, 2018). In this internationalized world, English has become the lingua franca for business, science and education (Tatsioka et al., 2018). Young professionals are expected to be proficient in English and able to easily communicate with colleagues from other countries. Achieving these objectives presents challenges for teachers and students. Practical approaches to incorporating authentic communication across cultures in the English language classroom are discussed in this paper. Over three years we authors implemented several projects using different didactic methods to bring students from Japan and Germany together to improve their proficiency in language as well as their cross-cultural communication skills. Students worked in small teams on joint tasks, in which the use of ICT (information and communication technologies) was crucial to successful outcome. Naturally, any careful advance planning was quickly met by the emergence of unforeseen problems that needed immediate attention from teachers and students. In this paper, we focus on challenges teachers and students may encounter when developing new strategies to include meaningful cross-cultural and intercultural exchanges in the tertiary ELF classroom, based on teacher and student experiences.