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This article attempts to study how the richness of swearing expressions functions in the Chinese vernacular novel Jin Ping Mei (1617) and how it fares in the two English translations: The Golden Lotus (1939) and The Plum in the Golden Vase (2013). Based on the paradigm of descriptive translation studies, the study describes and compares translational strategies adopted by the translators using textual samples drawn from source and target texts. Findings suggest that the earlier translation is oriented to domestication through omission and attenuation of the original swearwords whereas the latest translation exhibits a foreignizing trend by faithfully rendering as many expletives as possible. Moreover, the study demonstrates that swearing in some ways pushes interlingual translation to face the extremes of its capacity and that both domesticating and foreignizing approaches are not effective enough to convey the intended communicative effects of swearwords and vulgarisms used by fictional characters, which negatively influences the novel's discursive representation and characterization. Finally, the article not only sheds some light on the interlingual translation of non-standard language varieties in literary works but also proposes a more cautious approach to domestication and foreignization in the sphere of translation studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the impact of communication context on face concerns in business interactions. In previous research face concerns were studied across cultures, but here for the first time compared within intra-and intercultural business communication settings. The study aims at investigating whether the priority of face concerns is the same or different in intracultural and intercultural face-threatening business communication. We hypothesized that managers would apply different face concerns in response to face threatening acts in interactions with either their compatriots or people from foreign cultures. We surveyed 380 Russian business professionals working in international companies. To measure face concerns we adapted the questionnaire by S. Ting-Toomey and J. Oetzel to the Russian sample. We compared two contexts using t-test and rmANOVA. Results showed a significant difference between face concerns in managers behaviour in intercultural and intracultural communication. Managers tend to employ either self-face or mutual-face rather than other-face concern in intracultural communication. On the contrary, they prefer mutual-face rather than self-face or other-face concerns in intercultural communication. These results provide empirical evidence that Russian managers create public image in business interactions considering cultural differences and modify their behaviour to fit the context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the translational transference of culturally-bound utterances and expressions of the Qur'anic discourse into English. The study adopts a qualitative research method and content text analysis to analyse how culturally-bound utterances and expressions of the source language text were translated into English by two well-known translators. The study argues that lexicosemantic realization and analysis of the culturally-bound utterances and expressions of Arabic is a mandatory pre-condition to accurately transfer them into English. The studyproposes Lexicosemantic Decipherability Strategy that may assist translators to accurately select the target language lexicosemantic items of different genres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By analysing survey data collected from 1,033 adults, this study examines health inequality related to COVID-19 protective health behaviours by ethnicity, trust, and concern in the U.S. There are three major findings. First, the U.S. adults can be categorized into four clusters based on their concern and public trust. Second, there are significant differences in concern and public trust among different ethnic groups. Finally, concern and public trust are the significant predictors for individuals' protective health behaviours. When individuals have higher levels of concern and public trust, they are more likely to comply with the public health policies to adopt protective health measures. The results of this study highlight the importance of building public trust with co-cultural groups in order to promote protective health behaviours. Thus, this study brings additional insights into effective intercultural communication in the healthcare context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been limited empirical research probing English language learners' perspectives towards Intercultural communicative competence (ICC). Specifically, it is mostly unknown how English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) students respond to ICC emergence in some constituents and the degree to which they master each constituent in the socio-cultural learning context. This study evaluated the ICC perceptions of 310 EFL students in Vietnam. Findings demonstrated that ICC constructs were interconnected and diversely perceived by different genders, ages, and English proficiency levels. Implications are discussed regarding how the localized ICC construct can support policies, curriculum developments, and EFL instructional practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) has always been studied through the behaviorist lens using quantitative methodology. An alternative is to view it as an intercultural communication and study it qualitatively. Through the frame of the Sociocultural Tradition of Communication Theory (SCT)where communication is theorized as the production or reproduction of the social order and where alienation, misalignments and conflicts are problematized, this study was conducted to answer two research questions: (1) What is the view of the international non-native English professional teachers on ESL teaching? (2) How does this view define their intercultural communicative practices as ESL teachers? In this investigation the view of the participants on ESL teaching constitutes as the meaning that defines their intercultural communicative practices. Such practices explain how the social order where professional standards are alienated and how the traditional teaching proliferates in the ESL classroom is reproduced. A thematic analysis of the interviews of three overseas professional teachers was employed. The analysis surfaced participants' view of ESL teaching as embracing of the local culture for employment and education. This view defines three communicative practices: local colleagues are befriended; local language is learned; and local culture is integrated in teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a netnography approach, this study examines Martial, a Chinese fansub group, as an online community of practice. It finds four identities to be exhibited by members of the group: language-, education-, mediation-, and business-related identities. In its work flow and division of labour, Martial pools the collective intelligence of its members to localize Western culture through various "domestication" translation strategies. As a result, this research extends our understanding of intercultural communication by offering an example of how contemporary online fansub groups speak for Western culture on the Chinese Internet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates how people from different cultures negotiate meanings in email interactions. The data is composed of 120 emails written by two groups of students: sixty emails are written by Jordanian university students and sixty by American university students. The emails are supposed to be written to hypothetical friends. The data were analysed qualitatively, relying primarily on discourse analysis complemented by the theory of politeness, in addition to the notion of cultural stereotypes. The evaluation of the data indicated that the American students used much more indirect strategies than their Jordanian counterparts. The results of this study offer insights into the nature of politeness strategies as employed by the two groups of students. This study argues for the importance of including pragmatic and intercultural communication instruction in language classes to teach students how to be polite in a foreign language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To assess the influence of quality of contact on attitudes towards intercultural communication while quantity remained constant, 21 domestic-international undergraduate student pairs engaged in four 30-minute semi-structured interaction tasks over the course of a semester. Following each interaction, the 42 participants wrote reflections. Using content analysis, these reflections were coded for major themes. Predominant themes common to both domestic and international students include: Thought-provoking, Learning, and Connection. The least predominant themes common to both domestic and international students include: Stereotype-confirm, No Personal Change, Own-reject, and Awkward. Examination of the most and least predominant themes indicate support for the contact hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emerging democracy in Cameroon has been experiencing unprecedented challenges in managing sociocultural/sociolinguistic diversity, thus, instigating "The Anglophone Cameroon crisis". From the trajectory of applied ethics, this article substantially presents those challenges in their ensemble as a lacuna in intercultural governance, thereof demonstrating how the proper exploitation of the expertise of pragmatic intercultural ethics through interactive intercultural communication could help avert this crisis. By this, it is argued that using the wisdom of deliberative reciprocity, otherwise known as practical wisdom, pragmatic intercultural ethics could exploit the services of communicative ethics to contextually manage various disagreements between Anglophone Cameroon and the Government. Underscoring this insight as an indispensable but neglected pillar of emerging intercultural governance in post-colonial Africa, the author elucidates the likelihood that besides negligence and/or ignorance, the intercultural crisis in Cameroon could have been galvanized by "the happiness of the greatest number" theory. Wishing that the awareness of this pragmatic intercultural dexterity revitalizes the spirit of intercultural communication in Cameroon, the author draws the attention of their stakeholders to the wise recommendation of Plato that rulers should become philosophers – that they should seek justice more with the virtue of wisdom than with force/power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theoretically, this study is framed within the rhetorical tradition of communication theory which theorizes communication as the practical art of discourse and problems of communication as social exigencies requiring collective deliberation and judgement. Methodologically, this study is influenced by hermeneutic empiricism as a qualitative/interpretivist framework which helped in making sense of human participant data guided by the rhetorical criticism as a lens. The rhetorical nature of classroom teaching as an intercultural communication phenomenon can create social exigencies in communication when the culture of students is in conflict with the culture of teachers when it comes to teaching, and when intercultural problems emerge in the classroom. To resolve these social exigencies, teachers participate in discourse by performing rhetorical practices in the classroom. This discourse paves the way for feedback to emerge as a communication dynamic and helps in the accomplishment of learning. A theoretical implication of the findings of this study underscores the potential for building existing knowledge about the rhetorical influence of imperatives and appeals as feedback dynamics in the intercultural classroom, as well as the role of intercultural teaching in dealing with intercultural problems that emerge in class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A poetic performative script is offered in this piece to highlight through critical playful speech the metaphoric, archetypal, and narrative forms of habituation and scripting that lay powerfully in the shadows of intercultural performative work, if only because we fail to interrogate the most mundane and repetitive framing stories, assumptions, and language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Utilizing "theories in the flesh" as a theoretical framework, the author challenges the reader to embrace the disorienting, fragmenting, and confusing space in/between performance and intercultural communication. By moving from the classroom and into Latina/o/x communication studies, the author names the intersectional exclusions and erasures that persists throughout academia and everyday life. Embracing theories in the flesh is a challenge to act and embody the borderlands between what is, was, and could be. Through personal narrative and performative writing, the author utilizes the intercultural communication classroom as an entry into the role of performance studies and intercultural communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The traces of performance studies that bolster intercultural communication elude strict disciplinary confinement. Despite many convergences between the two disciplines, they have been frequently made to occupy oppositional positions within Communication Studies. While their methods vary, I see the impetus of both areas being oriented towards moving through three major dialectics: 1. Reflection <-> Reflexivity 2. Illumination <-> Emplacement 3. Transcription <-> Translation. This essay considers how intercultural communication and performance studies enter these dialectics together to illuminate paradigms of power. I argue that the "performative turn" has underwritten negotiations of culture, identity, and power in intercultural communication scholarship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To engage the contributions of Performance Studies for the study of culture and communication, this article offers an initial exploration of a performative turn in intercultural communication. Using performances of sexuality with a focus on the declaration of one's own sexual non-normativity – commonly known as "coming out" in Western discourses – as an example, I first discuss how a performance analytic might examine cultural particularities of this communicative action. Next, I discuss the notion of "hardening performances" and introduce three processes – sedimentation, calcification, and ossification – for the examination of power in intercultural communication. I conclude by exploring some implications of a performative turn in culture and communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the "critical" turn in the intercultural communication field, dominant scholarship produced in the field still relies on White/Western frameworks, resulting to the dismissal of marginalized knowledge and identities. In this autoethnographic essay, I use my lived experience as a transnational Black African scholar to demonstrate how intercultural performative works can serve as critical decolonial scholarship to subvert "colonial gatekeeping" and (re)centre marginalized identities and knowledge at the core of the communication discipline. In so doing, my lived experience serves as strategic tool to advocate for resistance to the colonization of identities and works of marginalized scholars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Refugees and other displaced people have been the object of much research related to how people are adapting. Few have focused specifically on women even though women and children are by far the majority of refugees in general and especially in Utah. One of the few focused on narratives of newly arrived women refugees. Narratives are an important method for hearing authentic lived experiences versus assuming researchers can know the answers. However, questions arose about how those narratives might change after being in the U.S. for a longer period of time. Eleven refugee women who had been in the U.S. longer than 10 years were interviewed for this study. Narratives allowed us to present this scholarship in a way that is accessible to anyone. Five themes were found: language, education, family, assistance, and transition. These themes demonstrate both the resilience of the women and the difficulty and complexity of long-term adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study seeks to understand critical intercultural communication pedagogy (CICP) and the struggles associated with how to teach intercultural communication from a critical perspective. We explore the nexus of critical communication pedagogy and critical intercultural communication by analysing interview discourses with fifteen self-identified critical intercultural communication instructors across the United States. The analysis revealed themes featuring: (1) embodying accountability in CICP instruction; (2) challenging white supremacy and U.S. imperialism within neoliberal universities; and (3) calling for support on how to teach critical moments. We offer an extension of current conceptualizations of CICP and future directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Literature indicates that the intercultural competency of a leader bridges leadership communication and social change. Mahathir Mohamad, the fourth Prime Minister of Malaysia was perceived as a significant social change agent who has contributed enormously to the development of Malaysians, including Malaysian Hindus. This study has investigated Mahathir Mohamad's leadership communication attributes and social change from the perspective of Malaysian Hindus. In the study, twenty-two Malaysian Hindus informants were interviewed, ranging from political leaders to ordinary members of the society. The findings showed that Malaysian Hindus recorded positive development due to Mahathir Mohamad's intercultural leadership communication attributes. This study also indicates that a transformational leader should possess significant culture-specific intercultural competencies in order to promote social change in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of intercultural competence and local wisdom to build tolerance. Recent situation shows that the rights of religious and cultural minorities are on the decline. It focuses on the experience and practice of tolerance in kampong Buneng to prevent ethno-religious conflict. This study employs accommodation theory and qualitative approach to investigate a case study, which describes real phenomena. The findings show that convergence strategy is more dominant than divergence strategy and local wisdom found in Buneng is designed to maintain harmony between village members rather than voicing distinction amongst plural identities occupying the same public sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some cultures rely heavily on visual channels for gathering information. One specific group is the Deaf and hard of hearing community who often rely on signed languages to communicate. Language and thought are woven, therefore this study examined whether bicultural-bilingual schemas can be activated via the visual channel. A sample from a Deaf community were compared to hearing participants via a decision task whereby judgments were made regarding the veracity of a suspected liar. The results of the experiment reveal that it is possible to activate culturally appropriate schemas for decisions about veracity in a visual task during intercultural communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vision for this issue was to create an intellectual space where scholars using diverse methodologies and theoretical frameworks would be afforded the opportunity to showcase their scholarship on race in an international context. These manuscripts provide further validation that race will always be an integral part of the fabric of many nation states throughout the world. Moreover, they offer important insight into the impact of race on how we communicate with each other despite our racial/ethnic differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theoretical foundations to intercultural communication (ICC) are integrative and interdisciplinary but few have studied ICC from a systemic linguistics perspective. Viewing communication as a dialogic process, this study takes a systemic functional linguistics (SFL) view of language as a social semiotic where semogenesis (meaning making) is both construed and construed by context of situation which in turn is construed by culture. Using interview data collected from Swedish managers who have extensive international management experiences, this study aims to illustrate how SFL can be used as an adaptive theory and framework of discourse analysis in uncovering semogenic strategies in ICC processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This two-by-three between-subjects factorial study tested how American domestic students and Chinese international students responded to a scenario of performance failure by a friend whose membership varies across conditions. The study measured collective face, politeness strategies, and participants’ discomfort feelings. Robust findings were observed in the condition where Chinese participants imagined witnessing an ingroup-friend’s incompetence resulting in the strong correlation between collective face and discomfort. The cultural difference between these two groups regarding relating self-images to group-images is also observed. The implications of the study in assessing collective images, identities, and values for intercultural communication research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study investigates the impact of intercultural communication on Japanese students during short-term study-abroad programmes. Quantitative analysis indicates the students believe study-abroad broadened their views. Semi-structured interviews identify five categories of impact: utilization of English language, interpersonal communication skills, involvement in global society, opening doors to greater possibilities and positive attitudes towards living. To explain these changes, a theory from cognitive behavioural therapy is applied and a cognitive modification model for intercultural communication is proposed. The study presents evidence that intercultural communication can be an opportunity to recognize and modify one’s cognitive appraisals initially grounded in one’s home culture. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper is concerned with understanding how Saudi academic migrants utilized reflective knowledge to promote their development of Intercultural Competence. Two collective instrumental case studies investigate how Saudi academic migrants perceived and described their development of intercultural competence. Research findings indicate a variety of common and divergent examples, topics, and themes that describe SAM development of intercultural competence from the category of reflective knowledge. The participants perceived the importance of intercultural competence and, through critical reflection, were able to describe impactful instances of their developing abilities to communicate and behave effectively and appropriately in a variety of intercultural situations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

It is well-documented that news media (both traditional and social) have a significant impact on intercultural relations in contemporary societies. This paper compares results of two surveys where we asked Australians about their news sources. The study shows that Australian news consumers from diverse cultural backgrounds are alienated from Australian mainstream news media, increasingly relying on online and social media sources for their information. The paper situates this empirical research in the contemporary articulation of uses and gratification theory to understand audiences’ preferred media sources for news and information and the potential implications for intercultural relations in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This is a qualitative study examining aspects of refugee adaptation. As refugees negotiate an adaptation process into their host cultures, secondary communities, those who possess certain commonalities and similarities with the newcomers, often act as intermediaries between the refugee groups and host cultures. This article aims to answer the question:how does a refugee group’s extended community of an intermediary group influence the group’s adaptation to their new environment and social context?The study is an examination of narratives of a particular refugee group in the United States, called Meskhetian Turks, ethnically Turkish refugees from Russia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of cultural intelligence was formulated to ease and understand multicultural interactions in business organizations. Based on the theory of multiple intelligence; it is the cross-cultural facet of intelligence that assists adaptive cultural adjustment. Due to its implications for the contemporary world witnessing increased cultural contact and clashes; it has attracted multidisciplinary scholarly interest. This article reviews the development, validation and major approaches to the construct, along with a focus on its critical analysis. Significance of the construct in promoting intercultural discourse to encourage pacific multicultural existence is implicated. Furthermore, suggestions are made to extend the scope of cultural intelligence research and integrate it in diverse fields encompassing intercultural contact and communication. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article seeks to provide an evidence-based set of recommendations for the development of an intercultural crisis communication (ICC) research agenda with three goals. First, to provide an advancement in our understanding of the state of crisis communication research in general. Second, to offer a grounded introduction to crisis communication for intercultural scholars who may not be as familiar with the field. Finally to identify three broad evidence-based areas for developing ICC research – (1) representing different cultural perspectives in crisis communication research, (2) placing American crisis research in a global context, and (3) developing cross-cultural comparisons. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study explored the identity management processes in interfaith marital communication in a United States setting. Sixteen marital partners participated in this interview study. Interviews were transcribed verbatim, interpreted, and analyzed. Guided by identity management theory, the interview data analysis revealed three general themes: development of the interfaith relational identity via the co-creation of a superordinate spiritual and value system; implementation of relational boundaries to prioritize the relational identity; and identification of key milestone decisions (i.e. wedding plans and children socialization coordination) interfaith partners face in their intimate relationships. Contributions, limitations, and directions for future studies on interfaith marital communication are addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]