Cultural Rules Research Articles

Research on the application of cultural communication teaching in college English class

This study explores the application of cultural communication method in English classroom teaching, aiming at improving students' intercultural communication ability and English language skills. The cultural communication approach emphasizes the key role of culture in language learning and helps students better understand and use English by teaching cultural background, social etiquette and rules of language use. Through practical application of CIT, this study examines its effectiveness in English teaching and explores students' feedback. The results show that CIT can help improve students' cultural sensitivity and communicative competence, and also promote the improvement of English language skills.

Specification, validation and verification of social, legal, ethical, empathetic and cultural requirements for autonomous agents

Autonomous agents are increasingly being proposed for use in healthcare, assistive care, education, and other applications governed by complex human-centric norms. To ensure compliance with these norms, the rules they induce need to be unambiguously defined, checked for consistency, and used to verify the agent. In this paper, we introduce a framework for formal specification, validation and verification of social, legal, ethical, empathetic and cultural (SLEEC) rules for autonomous agents. Our framework comprises: (i) a language for specifying SLEEC rules and rule defeaters (that is, circumstances in which a rule does not apply or an alternative form of the rule is required); (ii) a formal semantics (defined in the process algebra tock-CSP) for the language; and (iii) methods for detecting conflicts and redundancy within a set of rules, and for verifying the compliance of an autonomous agent with such rules. We show the applicability of our framework for two autonomous agents from different domains: a firefighter UAV, and an assistive-dressing robot.

Formation of human kinship structures depending on population size and cultural mutation rate

How does social complexity depend on population size and cultural transmission? Kinship structures in traditional societies provide a fundamental illustration, where cultural rules between clans determine people's marriage possibilities. Here, we propose a simple model of kinship interactions that considers kin and in-law cooperation and sexual rivalry. In this model, multiple societies compete. Societies consist of multiple families with different cultural traits and mating preferences. These values determine interactions and hence the growth rate of families and are transmitted to offspring with mutations. Through a multilevel evolutionary simulation, family traits and preferences are grouped into multiple clans with interclan mating preferences. It illustrates the emergence of kinship structures as the spontaneous formation of interdependent cultural associations. Emergent kinship structures are characterized by the cycle length of marriage exchange and the number of cycles in society. We numerically and analytically clarify their parameter dependence. The relative importance of cooperation versus rivalry determines whether attraction or repulsion exists between families. Different structures evolve as locally stable attractors. The probabilities of formation and collapse of complex structures depend on the number of families and the mutation rate, showing characteristic scaling relationships. It is now possible to explore macroscopic kinship structures based on microscopic interactions, together with their environmental dependence and the historical causality of their evolution. We propose the basic causal mechanism of the formation of typical human social structures by referring to ethnographic observations and concepts from statistical physics and multilevel evolution. Such interdisciplinary collaboration will unveil universal features in human societies.

Local Cultures of Advice Tie Formation

Abstract Informal social networks and especially advice networks are a key subject of organizational sociological research. The formation of these networks has so far been explained on the basis of universal tie-formation mechanisms. However, recent conceptual contributions suggest that tie formation practices follow cultural rules that may vary across social contexts. In our paper, we substantiate this argument empirically. Based on rich qualitative data, we compare advice tie formation (a) between two entrepreneurial communities and (b) between three research and development departments of large enterprises. We show that both impact and configuration of tie formation mechanisms systematically differ between comparable contexts. Building on our findings, we finally formulate propositions describing which advice network structures can be expected in specific cultures.

Learning Chinese and making meaning – ways to develop intercultural citizenship in the foreign language classroom

Abstract Using Chinese language teaching in an engineering department as an example, this paper explores how language teaching can meet the challenges of globalisation and the advancement of technology by fulfilling its educational function as described in Byram’s model of intercultural communicative competence. By adapting theories and practices from counselling psychology, the proposed curriculum focuses on emotions to help learners uncover emotional barriers that arise when confronted with differences. It will support learners in raising awareness and developing their capacity to negotiate differences, leading to more effective cooperation with others. The paper discusses the use of experiential exercises in the classroom. They include those developed in Chinese language pedagogy, namely the performed culture approach and those developed in humanistic psychotherapy, such as body psychotherapy. The aim is to help learners notice their own feelings, attitudes, and behaviour as well as the otherness of the other in the classroom. This approach is powerful because it is in the here and now. It utilises movements and different senses as well as cognition. It helps uncover barriers to intercultural communication hidden under the surface by making the unconscious conscious. Reflection is a key part of this process. Learners are expected to reflect on their own thinking and feelings and to make sense of the dynamics in the classroom. Learners are expected to develop reflexivity, subjectivity and intersubjective awareness while acquiring linguistic competency and social cultural rules of use.

Cultivating Sustainability: A Cultural Linguistic Study of Minangkabau Environmental Proverbs

The research aims to examine the connection between language, culture, and environment by analyzing the representation of nature in Minangkabau proverbs and its cultural implications and cognitive awareness in traditional Minangkabau society. It is a descriptive study that analyzes meaning and cultural representation through a cultural linguistics approach. The research used 287 proverbs from various written Minangkabau resources, including tambo and books containing Minangkabau proverbs. The study focuses on three sustainability pillars: social, environmental, and economic. The research findings show that Minangkabau proverbs frequently utilize symbolism of nature and the environment to describe and reflect cultural values and rules of Minangkabau customs. The natural representations reveal the close relationship between the Minangkabau people and nature and the cognitive awareness and shared knowledge passed down from generation to generation. The results of this study highlight the need for further research on Minangkabau proverbs to explore cultural values and wisdom that can support program sustainability. Hence, preserving and promoting cultural heritage values are crucial for sustainable development, as it can contribute to socio-economic development and create new values for future generations.

Social, Legal, Ethical, Empathetic, and Cultural Rules: Compilation and Reasoning

The rise of AI-based and autonomous systems is raising concerns and apprehension due to potential negative repercussions arising from their behavior or decisions. These systems must be designed to comply with the human contexts in which they will operate. To this extent, Townsend et al. (2022) introduce the concept of SLEEC (social, legal, ethical, empathetic, or cultural) rules that aim to facilitate the formulation, verification, and enforcement of the rules AI-based and autonomous systems should obey. They lay out a methodology to elicit them and to let philosophers, lawyers, domain experts, and others to formulate them in natural language. To enable their effective use in AI systems, it is necessary to translate these rules systematically into a formal language that supports automated reasoning. In this study, we first conduct a linguistic analysis of the SLEEC rules pattern, which justifies the translation of SLEEC rules into classical logic. Then we investigate the computational complexity of reasoning about SLEEC rules and show how logical programming frameworks can be employed to implement SLEEC rules in practical scenarios. the result is a readily applicable strategy for implementing AI systems that conform to norms expressed as SLEEC rules.

Displays of anger in Turkish political discourse: a hard choice between cultural norms and political performance of anger

Abstract This paper examines the influence of cultural display rules on how high-status individuals, such as political leaders, publicly express anger. Specifically, it focuses on Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has been the Turkish leader since 2003. The study aims to understand the extent to which Erdoğan’s expression of anger is influenced by cultural display rules, the religious context stemming from his conservative electoral support, and his position as a long-term populist political leader. Using extended conceptual metaphor theory (ECMT) supported by corpus-assisted discourse analysis, the paper seeks to identify the contextual factors that shape anger expressions (both direct and metaphorical) in the political discourse of a populist leader in a collectivist culture. By comparing the conceptualization of ascribed anger and inscribed anger expressions, the analysis reveals that Erdoğan’s discourse presents two distinct scenarios for expressing anger toward ‘us’ and ‘others’. Additionally, it demonstrates how anger is strategically employed in culture-specific ways to navigate the challenges posed by conflicting contextual factors.

Stylistically Marked Names of Office Workers in German Language

The research of the linguistic image of an office worker, their behavior and character is an understudied area of linguistic science. The importance of the corporate, business and professional culture of corporate employees is increasing
 due to the ongoing processes of globalization in world economy and the increase in the number of joint ventures with foreign companies, as well as the importance of optimizing intercultural communication in the business sphere.
 The norms of behavior, ethical code, priorities and ideas of the national and social experience of native speakers of certain languages are recorded in the vocabulary of the language under study. Knowledge of the norms and values of another culture plays an important role in demonstrating adequate behavior and achieving successful communication when speaking a foreign language. Such cultural values, norms and rules are
 often identified through the analysis of their violation, including the process of collective labour activity. When faced with various kinds of violations, the employee expresses their
 attitude towards these negative occurrences. Thus, the anthropological picture of the world and its priorities are actually reflected through the prism of violations of norms
 and rules of etiquette surrounding the employee at their workplace.
 The article deals with the semantics and structure of stylistically marked lexemes that negatively nominate various office workers (a boss, a secretary, an employee) and their intercommunication. Most of the analyzed lexemes occur as a result of metaphorical reinterpretation, have a negative assessment and are composites.
 The research of the problem under study in a comparative aspect is proposed as a direction for future research.

Memeplex-based memetic algorithm for the multi-objective optimal design of composite structures

Hybrid construction is proposed to decrease costs in lightweight structures using fiber-reinforced plastics (FRP) composite materials. Minimum weight, minimum strain energy (stiffness), and minimum energy variability of the structural system response are the objectives of the robust design optimization approach applied to composite shell structures with stiffeners. The trade-off depends on given stress, displacement, and buckling constraints imposed on composite structures considering non-linear geometric behavior. The design variables are ply angles and ply thicknesses of shell laminates, the cross-section dimensions of stiffeners, and the variables related to the selection of materials and their distribution at the laminate level and subsequently of the laminates along the structure. A Multi-Objective Memetic Algorithm (MOMA) applies multiple learning procedures exploring the synergy of different cultural transmission rules. An enlarged virtual population with a dual age-dominance nature captures and updates the Pareto curve. The concept of memeplex controls the meme selection and their propagation along the hybrid genetic and cultural evolution path. The success of memetic learning procedures is analyzed by measuring each meme's relative and absolute success events according to different approaches, depending on the reference time used in evolutionary history. Results show that MOMA is promising in multi-objective optimization of composite hybrid structures.

The Role of Actionless Action in Generating Quantum Social Change: Forum on Snapshots from Home

This article considers an alternative paradigm for responding to the climate emergency. Drawing on Fierke’s ideas on quantum complementarity and wuwei, or actionless action, it considers what quantum social science and Eastern philosophies can offer to a fragmenting, polarized world where responses to climate change appear to be limited and ineffective. The wisdom of actionless action involves engaging differently with difference, emphasizing a spontaneous and ethical quality of agency that both disrupts the patterns that maintain the drivers of climate change and contributes to social and cultural norms, rules, regulations, and institutions that are equitable and sustainable. In contrast to doing nothing, actionless action may one of the keys to generating quantum social change.

‘Water, asylum, metamorphosis, freak show’: flourishing through streaming karaoke play in China

ABSTRACT Karaoke has long been understood as an imitative musical practice, popular among the working class in western society. While scholars have noticed the communicative significance of karaoke in generating interpretive creativity and social interaction, they also point out the tendency of offline karaoke practices to strengthen cultural rules and social hierarchies. For this reason, this paper examines vibrant Chinese streaming karaoke practices and explores how Chinese streaming karaoke, as the originator of cultural and social enclave, offers hope for resistance against cultural censorship and social restriction. Through the lens of the theoretical concepts of tactics, affect and human flourishing, the analysis reveals that the karaoke enclave generates an affective field for vernacular creativities that foster personal wellbeing and social publicness in everyday life, through four playful tactics: to ‘water’ the vibrancy of life, to build ‘asylum’ so as to seek more intensified experiential connections and connect with total strangers, to ‘morph’ into unknown spontaneity and set up non-monetary values, and to perform ‘freak show’ to voice political affect and resonate with the most unlikely of people. The emancipatory power of streaming karaoke play, lies in the interdependence and interconnection of those tactics and they as a whole contribute to the human flourishing.

The role of social reinforcement in norm transmission and cultural evolution

Work on cultural evolution, especially that of Boyd, Richerson, and Henrich, has said little about the role of reinforcement in cultural learning. This is surprising, for reinforcement is an old system, it is found across a diverse array of organisms, and it is a successful concept in various scientific disciplines. The main claim of this paper is that social forms of reinforcement play a role in cultural evolution. More specifically, I argue that starting early in human history, social approval and disapproval of behavior function as reinforcers and punishers; approval and disapproval thereby start a process whereby norms are transmitted. After giving arguments for these claims, I discuss work on social learning strategies—cultural rules specifying who to learn from and how to learn from them (Heyes in Philos Trans R Soc 371(1693):1–8, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2015.0369). I suggest that the account I develop here can help explain the connection between these learning rules and cultural evolution. I illustrate this point with recent work on divination practices (Hong and Henrich in Hum Nat 32:622–651, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-021-09408-6). My account proposes that forms of social reinforcement can explain the spread and persistence of divination practices. Besides addressing the central question (a role for reinforcement in cultural evolution), my account indirectly touches on developing themes in cultural evolution, namely, normative psychology (Heyes in Perspect Psychol Sci, 2023; Birch Biol Philos 36:4, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-020-09777-9).

Effects of household composition on infant feeding and mother-infant health in northern Kenya.

Households with alloparents, individuals other than the mother who care for an infant, can shift members' roles and affect mother-infant health. To investigate how household composition relates to infant feeding and infectious disease risk in mother-infant dyads, the team utilized data from breastfeeding dyads (n 208) surveyed during a prolonged drought and food scarcity in northern Kenya. Households were classified by the presence/absence of potential alloparents, distinguishing non-siblings and siblings of the infant. Regression models for breastfeeding frequency, complementary feeding status, and recent infections (n 83) evaluated these outcomes' associations with household type while accounting for food insecurity, adjusted for infant age, infant sex, and maternal age. Household type was unassociated with breastfeeding frequency, but the presence of non-sibling alloparents interacted with food insecurity, predicting increasing breastfeeding frequency as food insecurity intensified among dyads living with non-sibling alloparents. Households with non-sibling alloparents were also inversely associated with complementary feeding but had no association with infection. Households with siblings were inversely associated with (protective against) infant and maternal infection. Further research is needed to understand the interactive influence of household social and food ecologies on mother-infant diet and health under diverse cultural rules and norms for alloparenting.

Sign Names in Yucatec Maya Sign Language

Abstract: This article analyzes the construction of sign names in an emerging sign language from Mexico, the Yucatec Maya Sign Language (YMSL). Data comes from elicited interviews as well as natural interactions collected by the authors and signers from two different villages, Chicán and Nohkop. Despite YMSL being an isolate language, sign name construction displays tendencies common in other sign languages, such as being based on descriptions of people's appearance and/or behavior. YMSL sign names also exhibit less common features, such as the extensive use of generic names, names by (kinship) association, and nonmanual sign names. Crucially, name construction in YMSL seems to follow the cultural naming rules of the surrounding Yucatec Maya community. A total of ninety-seven sign names were collected in the two communities: forty-two signs in Nohkop and fifty-five in Chicán. This article explores how the cultural setting can shape the development of sign names in an emerging sign language.

The intentional variability of Lapita pottery fabrics

Results from petrographic and chemical analysis of decorated Lapita pottery from Vao, Vanuatu show that the majority was manufactured locally but that several variations of local raw materials were used. This indicates that temper material was collected from a range of settings, most of them accessible locally on Malakula. Two samples have temper corresponding with raw materials expected from the island of Efate in central Vanuatu where other significant Lapita sites are located. This pattern of fabric variability parallels recurrent practices documented at other founder Lapita sites, including Teouma on Efate. We propose that mobility and experimentation are not the only explanations available to justify the greater initial variability in raw materials used for pottery manufacturing at founder Lapita settlements. We argue that the variability of raw material results from a purposeful strategy guided by cultural norms or rules similar to those directing other behaviors associated with decorated Lapita pots, such as decorative motifs, paint application, vessel forms, and deliberate burial.

Ethical Issues of Human Information Behaviour and Human Information Interactions

Abstract The objectives of the study are to determine the main ethical factors related to human information interactions. The main research question was: What is the perception of ethical issues of information work and future topics of information ethics in digital environment? A brief analysis of related ethical issues of information is presented. The main applied methodology was a Delphi study on information ethics with selected experts from Slovakia and Czech Republic. The data were analysed with the use of mixed methods of discourse and content analyses and conceptual modelling. We present results of the discourse analyses (first round, 19 experts; discussion, 6 experts). Results are interpreted with regard to the ethical issues of work with digital information, main ethical dilemmas of the use of advanced technologies, and values of information. Results are visualised in three conceptual maps. A final conceptual model represents the epistemic consensus of experts, including social and cultural rules, value tensions between man and technologies, and utility, truth, and objectivity of information. We propose to include the identified ethical factors into models of human information behaviour. Recommendations for practice focus on value-sensitive design of digital services and products in the intercultural contexts of information literacy, education, science, workplaces, and everyday information use.

Literature and Modern Japanese Urbanism: Features of the Traditional Worldview in a Modern Space.

This article was aimed to study the demonstration of urban images as topographic or background effects for depicting the social reality of life in large megacities. The research considered four literary works of Japanese and Chinese writers, namely the manga 'Hanzawa Naoki' (2020) by Jun Ikeido, the novel 'Convenience Store Woman' (2016) by Sayaka Murata, the manga 'Tokyo Ghoul' (2011)by Sui Ishida, and the Chinese novel 'Northern Girls' (2004) by Sheng Keyi. It was found that each literary work demonstrated the symbolism of the urban platform, on which specific cultural and social rules were formed (in the Japanese sense, the term 'joshiki' was used). So, there was a certain transformation of the Japanese traditional worldview to a mutually beneficial life activity, which can lead to marginalization. The study results also showed that the folklore images of Japanese yokai have transformed in the fantasy genre as metaphorical social roles that lack a sense of tolerance and liberality in the context of modern society.

Yucatec Maya Children’s Responding to Emotional Challenge

While the field of affective science has seen increased interest in and representation of the role of culture in emotion, prior research has disproportionately centered on Western, English-speaking, industrialized, and/or economically developed nations. We investigated the extent to which emotional experiences and responding may be shaped by cultural display rule understanding among Yucatec Maya children, an indigenous population residing in small-scale communities in remote areas of Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula. Data were collected from forty-two 6- and 10-year-old Yucatec children who completed a resting baseline and a structured disappointing gift task. Children were asked about whether specific emotions are better to show or to hide from others and self-reported the intensity of their discrete positive and negative emotional experiences. We observed and coded expressive positive and negative affective behavior during and after the disappointing gift task, and continuously acquired physiological measures of autonomic nervous system function. These multi-method indices of emotional responding enable us to provide a nuanced description of children’s observable and unobservable affective experiences. Results generally indicated that children’s understanding of and adherence to cultural display rules (i.e., to suppress negative emotions but openly show positive ones) was evidenced across indices of emotion, as predicted. The current study is a step toward the future of affective science, which lies in the pursuit of more diverse and equitable representation in study samples, increased use of concurrent multimethod approaches to studying emotion, and increased exploration of how emotional processes develop.

The Help-Seeking Paradox: Gender and the Consequences of Using Career Reentry Assistance

This article examines how penalizing men who “do gender” in nonstereotypical ways ultimately maintains the gender system. Leveraging data from an online survey experiment conducted with hiring decision-makers, I develop and test a theory of a help-seeking paradox whereby managers are less likely to interview and hire fathers who used career reentry assistance (CRA) relative to fathers who did not. However, this penalty does not emerge for mothers. A second online survey experiment reveals that two years of full-time employment after reentry diminishes the negative effects of CRA for fathers. Nonetheless, lingering stigma from having previously left paid work for childcare continues to disadvantage fathers relative to mothers, with perceptions of competence and commitment mediating long-term effects. These studies demonstrate how the reinforcement of cultural gender rules punishes both mothers and fathers seeking more equitable career coordination while providing novel insight into the boundaries of penalties for men who violate gender stereotypes.