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The present book is a collection of selected papers held at the 23rd International LAUD Symposium on «The Cultural Context in Communication Across Languages» (26-31 March 1997) in Duisburg, Germany. The papers included in this volume highlight several aspects pertaining to the cultural dimension of foreign language teaching and learning. The topics covered range from theoretical accounts on text, language, and culture through to empirically-based aspects of non-native discourse as well as sociolinguistic and cultural awareness in foreign language teaching. Finally, the volume brings together contributions from a wide variety of languages and cultural settings. The Cultural Context in Foreign Language Teaching will interest students of educational linguistics and language pedagogy, intercultural communication and discourse analysis.

Der Band befasst sich mit Zusammenhängen von Sprache, Interkulturalität und Digitalität. Die neun Kapitel untersuchen, wie sich Interkulturalität in verschiedenen Settings digitaler Kommunikation – von YouTube über Tripadvisor bis Twitter – manifestiert und wie sie mit kommunikativen Strategien und komplexen Identitätsdarstellungen verwoben wird.The contributions to this volume address the blending of language, interculturality and digitality. The nine chapters investigate how (inter)culturality is manifested in various settings of digital communication – from YouTube to Tripadvisor and Twitter – and how it becomes intertwined with sets of communicative strategies and complex displays of identity..

Migrationen verändern bestehende Sprach- und Kulturräume. Nur mithilfe genauerer migrationswissenschaftlicher Kenntnisse der Bedingungen des individuellen und sozialen Sprachgebrauchs können kleinere Sprachgemeinschaften von Migranten gegenüber konkurrierenden Nationalsprachen geschützt werden. Die Beiträge des vorliegenden Bandes widmen sich diesem Thema aus dem Blickwinkel unterschiedlicher Länder und Fachrichtungen, darunter der Sprachkontaktforschung, der Soziolinguistik, der Bildungspolitik, der Neuro-phänomenologie und den Kulturwissenschaften. Migration alters existing linguistic and cultural areas. Only a more precise knowledge of the conditions that determine individual and social language use enables us to protect smaller speech communities of migrants from competing national languages. The contributions in this volume examine this range of topics from the perspective of various countries and research disciplines including language contact studies, sociolinguistics, education policy, neuro-phenomenology and cultural studies.

The aim of this monograph is to present the traces of intercultural encounters between Poland and Latin America realized by means of literary translations produced in the post-war period. It considers various aspects of the reception of Polish translations of Spanish American prose in 1945-2005 by examining their presence on the book market in the communist times and after 1990 in free market conditions. The analyses of critical texts show the attitudes of Polish critics towards this prose over the years. Survey research presents motives, behaviours and needs developed in different epochs by Polish readers. The interdisciplinary character of the monograph involves methodology inspired by translation, reception and cultural studies, sociology of literature and intercultural semantics.

Speech practices as discursive practices for meaning-making across domains, genres, and social groups is an under-researched, highly complex field of sociolinguistics. This field has gained momentum after innovative studies of adolescents and young adults with mixed ethnic and language backgrounds revealed that they «cross» language and dialectal or vernacular borders to construct their own hybrid discursive identities. The focus in this volume is on the diversity of emerging hybridizing speech practices through contact with English, predominantly in Europe. Contributions to this collected volume originate from the DFG funded conference on language contact in times of globalization (LCTG4) and from members of the editor's funded research group «Discursive Multilingualism».

Today, globalisation has reached its peak not only due to economic integration, but also by the multiplier effect stemmed from digital communication technologies. The concept of «global village», mentioned nearly half a century ago by Marshall McLuhan, confronts us as actual reality. Of course, this approach creates radical impact on all management practices. Public relations is one of the management instruments which is affected most by the emergent change in approach within this context. In this volume, the authors define public relations through an international perspective within the context of both theory and practice. Consisting of fifteen sections, the book describes what intra- and extra-organisational public relation theories and practices correspond to in the present day.

The book deals with the question how students in multicultural EFL-classrooms can be prepared for their role as world citizens. The author shows that teaching English offers important potentials for cosmopolitan education due to its role as a «lingua franca». The study develops the construct cosmopolitan communicative competence as a theoretical framework. It also presents a teaching approach that combines students'life-writing with the discussion of literary texts to advance the associated knowledge, skills and attitudes. The potentials of this approach are evaluated through the assessment of students'competence development.

This monograph aims to stimulate thinking and increase consciousness about the cultural dimension of foreign language teaching.　The author draws from the theoretical framework of Schmidt's «ABCs of Cultural Understanding and Communication» (Schmidt, 1998; Schmidt & Finkbeiner, 2006) to support and advocate for expanding awareness in relation to the influence of culture on the perception of self and other. She interrogates how language learners acquire interpretative skills to gain a deeper reflexive understanding of different cultures and how electronic communication can be effectively utilised in teaching for intercultural learning. Learning how to interrogate diverse cultural practices using multiple cultural frameworks has been shown to facilitate authentic engagement with the complexities of diverse pluralistic societies. This qualitative research study explores how culture can be taught in the foreign language classroom and school setting.

This book investigates inconsistencies in the accent adopted by advanced German learners of English with respect to differences between standard American and British English (rhoticity, t-voicing, the vowels in the lexical sets «bath», «lot» and «thought»). From a theoretical point of view, the volume contributes to understanding the status of L1 transfer in language learners at «ultimate attainment», a stabilized, late stage in language acquisition. Unlike in many studies in second language acquisition, the approach taken here is variationist, taking into account extra- and intra-linguistic factors as potential explanations for variability. The findings suggest that in addition to the target accent the strongest external factor is time spent abroad, while L1 accent and proficiency level seem to have minor impact only.

Italy often suffers from its cultural heritage. Certain themes have passed into stereotype and popular consumption, while others have been overlooked. This volume discusses teaching choices and topics on the implementation of a US study abroad business programme in Italy. The authors first have a look at business questions, then at culture through a chapter on the fashion industry. The final section focuses on methods in teaching Italian culture, language, history, and intercultural communication. This volume highlights non-traditional aspects of Italian culture, and focuses on the intercultural dimension of teaching and learning for study abroad students. The points of view found herein should promote a more contextualized and contemporary view of what studying Italy can be about.

Die Donauraumstrategie der Europäischen Union ist Grundlage für vielfältige Initiativen. Im Rahmen des Hochschulprojekts «Interkulturalität und Mehrsprachigkeit in den Schulen im Donauraum» sollten die Studierenden der beteiligten Hochschulen den Donauraum und dessen Wichtigkeit für die Europäische Union verstehen lernen. Dieser Band präsentiert Ergebnisse der Seminare «Medien und Minderheiten im Donauraum» und «Schulen und Minderheiten im Donauraum» sowie von Begegnungen mit Hochschulvertretern in Ostrava und Ludwigsburg. Die Beiträge gliedern sich zur wissenschaftlichen Aufarbeitung des Austauschs in die Themenbereiche Mehrsprachigkeit und Interkulturalität im Allgemeinen, Deutsch als Fremd- und Minderheitensprache im Donauraum und Minderheiten im Donauraum.

How socio-cultural factors influence the development of Intercultural Communication Competence is an essential part of developing the skills to work and interact with a rapidly globalizing world. Building upon the work of Edward Hall, Geert Hofstede and Stella Ting-Toomey, this book explores the role in which experience, family and other social aspects play in creating an individual's ICC skills. In this work, a model of six ICC skills allows for the examination of the impact of Polish national culture on socio-cultural values of Polish students in the three mutually dependent dimensions of politics, education and family. The empirical data present clear conclusions and indications of how specific factors are relevant or irrelevant in helping to construct ICC. These findings bear implications for trainers and researchers in approaching the issue of developing intercultural competences.

Humans need to communicate in order to interact with one another, and culture helps regulate such interaction and communication. The same is true in the world of business since there, too, people interact and communicate with one another. And in today's globalized world, it is inevitable that many such encounters and interactions involve people of diverse cultural background. That is why it is so imperative that business people understand how culture influences human behavior and communication, including their own. This knowledge will provide a better understanding of not just one's own behavior, but also that of one's international business partners, employees, and customers. So who better to explain the influence of culture than some of the leading experts in the field? These contributing authors cover a wide spectrum of topics that range from general principles of intercultural communication to very specific aspects of culture's influence in particular business contexts. These insights should prove to be interesting, perceptive, and useful to many international business transactions and interactions.

In this book, the focus is on post-merger intercultural integration, effective communication between the relevant cultures and the different politeness strategies adopted by them. It is argued that cultural differences are a key issue in misunderstandings and miscommunication, which can affect a smooth post-merger integration, thereby focusing on differences between the Australians, US-Americans, Germans and the Swiss. The research contributes to bridge the gap between pragmatics, sociolinguistics and intercultural management studies. The empirical findings identify a company's social dimensions and execution skills as strategic sources of competitive advantage in cross-border M&A activity.