Cross-cultural Misunderstanding Research Articles

Metalanguage for enabling immigrants and refugees: Relevance of Natural Semantic Metalanguage and Minimal English

We should seek every possible method for educating immigrants and refugees and facilitating communication for them – especially during the current difficult times due to the spread of a killer-pandemic (i.e., Covid-19). To this end, I discuss the role which “metalanguage” could play in this regard, with reference to Natural Semantic Metalanguage/NSM and Minimal English/ME (e.g., Goddard & Wierzbicka, 2007; Goddard & Wierzbicka, 2018). This mainly theoretical contribution will demonstrate how NSM and ME can be powerful pedagogical tools for ethnopragmatic instruction and a mitigator to cross-cultural misunderstanding in intercultural/ international communication. The main merit which I claim is raising awareness about the significance of this well-established project in applied linguistics and demonstrates how it can tie in with the immigrant-and-refugee situation.

A contrastive perspective on Moroccan learners’ (in) directness in their interlanguage requests

This study investigated interlanguage request performance by Moroccan learners of English (MLs) from a contrastive perspective. More specifically, it explored how MLs’ interlanguage requests converged or diverged from English Natives’ (ENs) requests in the use of strategy types and (in) directness. First, a contrastive pragmatic analysis of requests by Moroccan natives (MNs) and ENs is deemed necessary to provide native baseline data and establish MNs’ and ENs’ pragmatic norms of request performance. Second, an interlanguage request analysis is conducted to reveal the pragmatic features of MLs’ requests. The three sets of data for this study were collected via an open questionnaire as it serves the purpose of this investigation. The results revealed that MLs deviated from the ENs’ pragmatic norms of (in) directness, mostly by falling back on their native pragmatic norms, which bears testimony to pragmatic transfer. Requests do not seem to be conceived of in the same way by MNs and ENs, and MLs transferred their native request conception when performing in English. MLs used more direct strategies. The study predicts instances of cross-cultural misunderstanding and pragmatic failure in intercultural encounters between MLs and ENs, which is likely to cause undesirable cross-cultural clichés and stereotypes. The paper suggests some pedagogical implications to alleviate this problem among MLs. .

Transforming whose lives? The portrayal of international sport for development volunteering by UK Higher Education Institutions

ABSTRACT This article critically examines the portrayal of sport for development (SfD) international volunteering by UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Volunteer tourism or ‘voluntourism’ is a popular experience in which individuals combine international travel with voluntary work in a destination typically in the Global South in a bid to offer support to those in need. A body of literature offers an optimistic view of volunteer tourism, suggesting that it can facilitate the development of cross-cultural understanding among volunteers and host communities. However, there is also critical literature which argues that if volunteer tourism programmes are not carefully developed and managed, they can lead to cross-cultural misunderstanding and reinforce negative cultural stereotypes; this latter critique provides both the justification and context for this article. Several studies have acknowledged the centrality of Global Northern volunteers to the delivery of sport-based programmes in the Global South under the banner of SfD [Darnell (2007). Playing with race: Right to play and the production of whiteness in ‘development through sport’. Sport in Society, 10(4), 560–579; Darnell (2011). Identity and learning in international volunteerism: ‘Sport for development and peace’ internships. Development in Practice, 21(7), 974–986; Lucas & Jeanes (2019). Ethnographic reflections of the role of global north volunteers in sport-for-development. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 55(7), 953–974]. However, given the pivotal role that UK HEIs play in marketing and facilitating such opportunities for students, there is a lack of research that critically examines how such volunteer opportunities are portrayed by HEIs. The article draws from a sample of thirteen UK HEIs to examine how they discursively frame SfD international volunteer opportunities. The findings illustrate how student volunteers benefit and even socially transform because of volunteering in poor Global South communities. The article concludes by outlining a series of recommendations for UK HEIs to consider regarding their portrayal of international SfD volunteering.

'Meritocracy' and 'fairness' in medical student selection: Comparing UK and Australia.

A few years ago, at an international conference paper session on student selection, I committed a fatal cross-cultural misunderstanding, which was only corrected some years later. The presenter, from the UK, was talking about widening access programs to medicine for "high-school leavers" versus "university graduates". I thought to myself how activist UK widening access policy must be, to be reaching out to high school dropouts. Of course, my vocabularic faux-pas led to a complete misunderstanding of the point of the paper - in the UK, "high school leavers" are students entering medicine directly from high school and are among the most socially privileged demographic groups in that country.

Lost in translation: anthropologists and Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan

ABSTRACTDrawing upon ethnographic data gathered over a six year period, this paper illustrates how the contrasting worldviews of US Marines and anthropologists frequently led to misunderstandings, frustrations, and garbled interpretations as the two struggled to work together to help resolve conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. I examine three key military domains where cultural experts and Marines attempted to work together to understand the cultural factors at play in both Iraq and Afghanistan: first as interpreters or experts in pre-deployment language and culture training programs; secondly in theater on the Human Terrain Teams; and third as cultural SMEs (experts) in military planning rooms. As the case studies and interviews illustrate, while both sides thought they were working together to understand the foreign cultures where they were operating, the real cross-cultural misunderstanding was ironically between the cultural experts and Marines.

Belarusian Mentality in the Context of Intercultural Communication: Grounds or Pessimism and Optimism

Summary The article is devoted to the consideration of the factors which influence intercultural communication of Belarusians with people who live in the countries bordering Belarus (Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania and Latvia) and some countries where English is used as the first official language (the UK, the USA, Canada, Australia and Ireland). The objectives of the research were: to compare cultures of people living in Belarus, in the bordering countries and in the English-speaking countries; to describe the characteristics of Belarusian mentality which presumably create cultural barriers; and to determine the factors that facilitate intercultural communication of Belarusians with people under consideration. The research was based on the dimensions of power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, long term orientation and indulgence (G. Hofstede). Using these criteria, the characteristics of Belarusian mentality were systematically presented; they include tolerance, collectivism, cautiousness, modesty, restraint, respect for traditions and pragmatism. The reflection of the distinctive features of the Belarusians’ outlook in proverbs and behaviour illustrates the differences which can presumably cause cross-cultural misunderstanding. Also, the factors which promote intercultural communication are highlighted. The results of the research may be used in intercultural training of postgraduate students and in-service specialists in education and business.

On the relationship between acculturation and intercultural understanding: Insight from the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test

Previous research has repeatedly demonstrated the importance of culture and cultural identification to interpersonal understanding. We aimed to apply the ideas from this domain to mental state reasoning, or theory of mind. We thus investigated the relationship between acculturation and inferring the mental states of other people within and across cultures by measuring Caucasian and East Asian participants’ accuracy in inferring the mental states of own- and other-ethnicity targets using the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test. As expected, Caucasian participants showed a significant ingroup advantage in inferring the mental states of own- versus other-ethnicity targets but no variation according to measures of acculturation. More important, East Asian residents of Canada showed greater accuracy for own- versus other-ethnicity targets—and their accuracy for Caucasian targets increased as a function of (i) the time they had lived in Canada, (ii) their experience interacting with Caucasians, (iii) increased endorsement of mainstream Canadian values, and (iv) decreased endorsement of their heritage culture’s values. These results suggest that cross-cultural understanding may be malleable to acculturation and cultural experience, highlighting the importance of further research on how people from different cultural perspectives come to understand each other and subsequently ameliorate cross-cultural misunderstanding.

Cultural Conceptualization and Cross-Cultural Misunderstanding in Iranian English

Cross-cultural Misunderstanding has always been a conundrum for individuals who involve in intercultural communication. Coming from different cultural backgrounds, individuals tend to behave in a way that is appropriate to their own cultural norms which might pose serious problems for them. These cultural norms are what Sharifian (2010) titles cultural conceptualizations. Cultural conceptualizations are conceptual structures such as schemas, categories, and metaphors that come into existence as a result of interactions between members of a cultural group. This study elaborates on a number of important Iranian cultural schemas, such as ‘expressing thankfulness’, ‘making request’ and ‘complimenting’, and explores how these cultural schemas can potentially culminate in cross-cultural misunderstanding when communicating in English. This study argues in favor of enhancing people’s meta-cultural competence, which is a prerequisite for successful communication in contexts in which English operates as an international language.

The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking and the New Gospel of Adoption by Kathryn Joyce

The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking and the New Gospel of Adoption. By Kathryn Joyce. New York: Perseus, 2013. 332 pp. Reviewed by Kim Park Nelson I first became aware of Kathryn Joyce’s book The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking and the New Gospel of Adoption when I heard the author interviewed on public radio just after its release. By the time I had the opportunity to read the book, I had already seen and heard Joyce interviewed by multiple news outlets, and as a result, I read it simultaneously as a member of the news-reading public and as a scholar of adoption. Media coverage of The Child Catchers emphasized Joyce’s perspectives on the influence of evangelical Christianity on the adoption industry; no doubt the book’s publishers, Public Affairs/Perseus, designed the book’s marketing to capitalize both on Joyce’s expertise as an investigative reporter of American evangelical movements and on the recent wave of critical reports about the growing popularity of fundamentalist Christian beliefs in the United States. While The Child Catchers certainly does probe the growing importance of adoption among evangelical Christians in America and the influence of Christian ideologies on the adoption industry, Joyce’s book is just as much about the many forms of corruption that affect contemporary adoption. The Child Catchers is notable as a journalistic foray into global systems of adoption, covering a great deal of literal and figurative territory in a short span of pages. Joyce opens The Child Catchers by drawing a distinction between those who think of “child catching” as child saving, and adoption reformers who think of “child catching” as child snatching. The former group frames adoption as an act of physical and/or spiritual salvation, while the latter sees in adoption an industry that creates demand for “adoptable” children to the detriment of disenfranchised women, their children, and even entire nations. The issue of creating demand for adoption by any means is certainly one that deserves serious critique; in The Child Catchers, Joyce does a thorough job of investigating how the arrogance of good intentions can create human disasters, from the individual to the institutional scale, by subsuming the best interests Adoption & Culture Vol. 4 (2014) 254 of children beneath evangelical Christian mandates to adopt, convert, and assimilate every so-called orphan on earth. In constructing a broad critique of American domestic and international adoption practices, Joyce gives readers an inside view of adoption-oriented ministries along with a brief history of Christian adoption initiatives in the US, including the orphan trains, Indian boarding school and adoption projects, and the beginnings of Korean international adoption under evangelical Christians Harry and Bertha Holt. This history illuminates the growing influence of Christian evangelism in today’s American adoption industry, where the largest and most powerful agencies are overtly evangelical, as are up to half of American agencies. Joyce also covers the current world of churchsponsored unwed mothers’ homes, which use religious mandates to pressure women to surrender children to the adoption industry and are abetted by laws that favor adoptive parents by severely limiting the length of time in which relinquishing parents can change their minds about adoptive placement (a long-standing problem in both domestic and international adoption systems that developed along with the commoditization of adoptable children). Joyce travels to Ethiopia and Liberia to examine current transnational adoption “hot spots,” new sources of adoptable children that have been opened up as other sending nations have attempted to reform or terminate their external adoption programs in response to the seemingly ever-present corruption connected with international adoption from countries in crisis. Joyce describes how Ethiopian communities are exploited by agencies, which purposely use the cross-cultural misunderstanding that transnational adoption is temporary and which obfuscate child identities in order to manufacture “orphans.” These strategies have been employed in several nations before now, and are practically hallmarks of international adoption. A harrowing chapter describing the nightmare of child abuse and adoption disruption in a Christian American adoptive home stands as a warning against blindly catering to the demand for foreign children created by adoptioncentered ministries. Joyce continues her investigation by examining adoption policy reforms that have slowed the...

An overview of the legal and cultural issues for migrant Muslim women of the European union: A focus on domestic violence and Italy

The migration of Muslims into European nations and the intolerance exhibited towards them has been a growing challenge for the members of the European Union. The differences between the religion and cultures from which the Muslim women migrate and the receiving countries of the European Union may hamper the provision of social services to them when they experience domestic violence from their intimate partners. This article examines the potential for cross-cultural misunderstanding by examining domestic abuse in Italy in the context of both the social mores and the legal framework of that country. A comparison is made to the traditional perception of the role of women in Islamic culture. The research available on domestic violence in this context is examined as it relates to Italy and its Muslim migrants. The article suggests that what is needed are multidisciplinary cross-cultural solutions to provide services and meet the needs of Muslim victims of domestic violence in Italy.

Pandemic Influenza Preparedness and Response Among Immigrants and Refugees

Some immigrants and refugees might be more vulnerable than other groups to pandemic influenza because of preexisting health and social disparities, migration history, and living conditions in the United States. Vulnerable populations and their service providers need information to overcome limited resources, inaccessible health services, limited English proficiency and foreign language barriers, cross-cultural misunderstanding, and inexperience applying recommended guidelines. To increase the utility of guidelines, we searched the literature, synthesized relevant findings, and examined their implications for vulnerable populations and stakeholders. Here we summarize advice from an expert panel of public health scientists and service program managers who attended a meeting convened by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, May 1 and 2, 2008, in Atlanta, Georgia.

The Development of Cross-Cultural (Mis)Understanding Through Volunteer Tourism

Volunteer tourism is an increasingly popular activity in which individuals combine travel with voluntary work. On the whole, existing literature has provided an optimistic view of volunteer tourism, suggesting that it represents a more reciprocal form of tourism and facilitates the development of cross-cultural understanding among participants. However, more recently, it has been argued that if volunteer tourism programmes (VTPs) are not carefully managed, they may lead to cross-cultural misunderstanding and the reinforcement of cultural stereotypes. Through conducting an Appreciative Inquiry into a number of volunteer programmes, this research sought to explore these ideas further and, in particular, identify the role that volunteer tourism sending organisations can play in order to ensure that cross-cultural understanding develops through volunteer tourism. The findings from this research suggest that the development of cross-cultural understanding should be perceived as a goal of volunteer tourism rather than a natural result of sending volunteers overseas. This paper argues that sending organisations can play an important role in facilitating the achievement of this goal through pro-active management prior, during, and after their VTPs.

The Development of Cross-Cultural (Mis)Understanding Through Volunteer Tourism

Volunteer tourism is an increasingly popular activity in which individuals combine travel with voluntary work. On the whole, existing literature has provided an optimistic view of volunteer tourism, suggesting that it represents a more reciprocal form of tourism and facilitates the development of cross-cultural understanding among participants. However, more recently, it has been argued that if volunteer tourism programmes (VTPs) are not carefully managed, they may lead to cross-cultural misunderstanding and the reinforcement of cultural stereotypes. Through conducting an Appreciative Inquiry into a number of volunteer programmes, this research sought to explore these ideas further and, in particular, identify the role that volunteer tourism sending organisations can play in order to ensure that cross-cultural understanding develops through volunteer tourism. The findings from this research suggest that the development of cross-cultural understanding should be perceived as a goal of volunteer tourism rather than a natural result of sending volunteers overseas. This paper argues that sending organisations can play an important role in facilitating the achievement of this goal through pro-active management prior, during, and after their VTPs.

Good Teachers Know Where to Scratch When Learners Feel Itchy: Korean Learners' Views of Native-Speaking Teachers of English

Cross-border education has been growing dramatically in both English-speaking countries and non-native English-speaking countries. While more and more students, particularly from Asian countries such as Korea, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan choose to study in English-speaking countries, many native English speakers go to Asian countries to teach English. In this context, cross-cultural misunderstanding and cultural bias between English language learners and native-speaking teachers of English are becoming major issues. This article focuses on 12 Korean adult learners' views about native-speaking teachers of English working in Korea. Korean learners' expectations and needs regarding English language learning and teaching are explored through the investigation and analysis of the learners' views. It aims to provide educators both in non-English and English-speaking countries, including Australia, with insights to inform the development of effective learning and teaching environments not only for Korean students, but also for those in similar cultural contexts.

Zero to hero

Western images of Japan tell a seemingly incongruous story of love, sex and marriage – one full of contradictions and conflicting moral codes. We sometimes hear intriguing stories about the unique sexual culture of Japan – from vending machines that dispense soiled schoolgirl panties (Gerster 143), erotic manga (Ito 70; Newitz 2) to automated love hotels (Kersten 387) available for the discreet quickie. These Western portrayals seem to focus primarily on the unusual and quirky side of Japan’s culture constructing this modern Asian culture as simultaneously traditional and seemingly liberated. But what happens, when Japanese love goes global – when exotic others (Westerners) enter the picture? This article is shaped by an understanding of a new world space where cultural products and national images are becoming increasingly globalised, while at the same time more localised and “fragmented into contestatory enclaves of difference, coalition and resistance” (Wilson, 1). It examines ‘the local’, briefly exploring the racial and gender ideologies that pattern relationships between Western and Japanese adults living in Japan focussing on the unique perspective of Western women living and working in provincial Japan. Our research is based on four month’s ethnographic field work carried out within a small provincial Japanese city (which was home to 130 native English speakers, most of whom are employed as English language teachers) and interviews with 12 key participants.

Hip-Hop Drumming: The Rhyme May Define, but the Groove Makes You Move

In this article, I investigate the use, creation, and manipulation of the drums in hip-hop. In most works on black popular whether referring to rock, jazz, blues, rap, or other genres, little attention is paid to the drummer beyond providing an overview. (1) I hope that this article can begin a dialogue about drumming to compare with that surrounding pianists, vocalists, guitarists, and other instrumentalists. I am not attempting here to uncover the social, diasporic, or cultural significance of the hip-hop genre; that has been and is being done by scholars whose interest and expertise lie in these areas (Gilroy 1991; Lipsitz 1994; Rose 1994); rather, I am concerned with analyzing the use of drums in this music and how that use exemplifies some of the musical attributes defining the hip-hop style in a broad sense. I have chosen musical examples that not only best illustrate my analysis but that also come from artists who are important to the hip-hop genre, such as James Brown and A Tribe Called Quest, whose 1991 album Low End Theory is hailed as a masterpiece of jazz/hip-hop fusion (Werde 1999, 44). My goal is to provide a guideline for deciphering the drums within this whether they come from samples, a drum machine, a live drummer, or a combination. typical description of hip-hop states that the development of this genre was influenced by four distinct elements: (1) break dancing, (2) graffiti art, (3) emcees or tappers, and (4) DJs. Although each of these factors serves as a cultural marker, the lyrics stand out to many scholars and fans as the defining characteristic. Both Robin D. G. Kelley (1996, 186-194) and Tricia Rose (1994, 99-124) give evidence to show how lyrics are used to create real and imagined identities. (2) Greg Dimitriadis (1996, 180) states that [t]he constant search for meaning through rap's vocal content alone has led to much cross-cultural misunderstanding. Furthermore, if what Ingrid Monson (1999, 52) tells us is true--that [h]owever good various types of grooves may make us feel, ... they cannot be presumed to be innocent of power--then we must examine how these grooves are established. Therefore, I will not argue the position of whether the lyrics should carry so much weight; rather, I will discuss the music that supports the lyrics, particularly the groove, as established by the drums. It is essential to examine not only how certain beats are manipulated but where they originated. Olly Wilson's The Heterogeneous Sound Ideal in African-American Music (1992) serves as a point of departure to address this issue. Wilson suggests that to define what constitutes black we need to devise means through which to uncover meaning in black a task that he notes, is made difficult by the fact that the music of black Americans exists within a larger, multicultural social context, like that of all ethnic groups within the United States (327). He develops a concept called the sound ideal, which he defines as the core of underlying conceptions that define African and African-American music, noting that there exists a common approach to music making in which a kaleidoscopic range of dramatically contrasting qualities of sound (timbre) is sought after in both vocal and instrumental music. desirable musical sound texture is one that contains a combination of diverse timbres (329). Wilson presents two ways in which this ideal is practiced that can in turn be related to hip-hop drumming. Wilson's first point is that the heterogeneous sound ideal is reflected in the nature of the 'sound' texture of musical ensembles, [meaning] the relationship of the resultant qualities of sound produced when several instruments perform simultaneously (329). basic drum set consists of three elements--a bell (hi-hat or ride cymbal), a high drum (snare), and a low drum (bass drum or kick drum)--each of which is generally discernible from the others. …

Evaluating Special Education Services for Learners from Ethnically Diverse Groups: Getting it Right

One of the greatest challenges in evaluating special education services for ethnically diverse groups is obtaining accurate, valid, reliable, and relevant information. This can be achieved by the right person asking the right questions of the right people in the right way at the right place and time. These deceptively simple requirements are discussed in the context of research studies evaluating special education services for indigenous Maori children in New Zealand. Examples of cross-cultural misunderstanding and miscommunication are described and strategies to avoid them are discussed.

Sordid Duplicity or Cross-Cultural Misunderstanding?: The Fate of Andrew Carnegie's Gifts for Free Public Libraries in New Zealand

Andrew Carnegie's largesse to local councils throughout the world to enable them to establish public libraries is well-known. He always attached the condition that such libraries should be free. But 'free' can mean different things in different cultures, especially in towns where a penny rate was quite insufficient to support a library service. This article looks at Carnegie's contributions to the development of public libraries in New Zealand, where the idea of allowing the public to enjoy the free borrowing of books was not universally adopted and led to often bitter correspondence with Carnegie. Only three libraries were to establish genuinely free libraries before 1938. Many others took Carnegie's money but unashamedly charged subscriptions to their users. Research on the history of libraries in New Zealand on which this paper is based was funded by Creative New Zealand.

Does computer-mediated conferencing really have a reduced social dimension?

This paper looks at computer-mediated conferencing (CMC) in the international arena, and considers whether culturally influenced behaviour has an effect on communication online. There is consideration of the indicative areas for cross-cultural misunderstanding taken from research into management communication, and also from research into gendered difference in posting styles on newslists and in ‘netiquette’ guidelines. The results from a small sample of questionnaires exemplify the cultural attitudes towards learning of a UK-based group of respondents. Trie question is raised of whether the ‘reduced social dimension’ of CMC allows participants in a conference to overcome social barriers, or whether the lack of social clues present in face-to-face interaction leads to greater confusion.

CiceroFam.5.8 andFam.15.5 in the Light of Modern Politeness Theory

Cicero, like most of us, lived his life subject to certain rules of politeness. What he said and how he behaved were subtly shaped by the circumstances and expectations of the society in which he moved. This fact strikes us most forcefully perhaps in his correspondence, where we can discern at first hand the result of these pressures on aristocratic manners. And yet these letters necessarily challenge our interpretative skills. For we bring to them today views of politeness that may well be very different from those of Cicero himself. The potential for cross-cultural misunderstanding yawns wide.In this article I would like to discuss two letters in particular which seem to me to have fallen victim to cross-cultural confusion:Fam. 5.8 from Cicero to M. Crassus andFam. 15.5 from M. Cato to Cicero. In both cases, misinterpretation arises primarily, I believe, from the form of linguistic politeness used in them. Modern scholars, it is true, often show an awareness that Roman aristocrats possessed their own peculiar norms of politeness; but few have tried to examine these in detail or consider why they took the precise form that they did.