Foreign Context Research Articles

Personality Traits as Predictors of Pro-Environmental Behavior: Evidence from the Philippines

One of the objectives within the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development set by the United Nations General Assembly is to enhance global awareness about sustainable development by disseminating precise information to people worldwide and encouraging lifestyles that harmonize with nature. Pope Francis's Laudato Si' is considered by many as a landmark document urging major change because it criticizes the consumer-centered way of life and argues that protecting the Earth requires a complete shift in our priorities. It is believed that pro-environmental behaviors play an important role in achieving the goals of the SDGs, UNESCO, and Laudato Si'. Previous studies have shown relationships between pro-environmental behavior and personality traits. However, these studies were conducted in foreign contexts, and to the best of the researcher's knowledge, there was no published local study that explains the connection between personality traits and pro-environmental behavior among Filipinos, particularly those in the workforce. This is the gap that this study aimed to address. This study determined the link between personality traits and pro-environmental behavior of Filipino workers in the National Capital Region (NCR). This utilized a cross-sectional predictive design. The participants were comprised of 644 Filipino workers from the NCR. In terms of gender, there were 256 (39.8%) males, 374 (58.1%) females, and 14 (2.2%) undisclosed. Two sets of self-report questionnaires were administered online: the Brief HEXACO Inventory and the adapted General Ecological Behavior Scale. Results of the main analysis suggest that only Extraversion, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience as personality traits positively predict pro-environmental behavior; while Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, and Agreeableness did not. This may suggest that individuals who score high on these personality dimensions are more likely to engage in behaviors that benefit the environment. Therefore, strategic interventions aimed at developing these qualities could potentially contribute to a significant shift towards sustainability among Filipino workers.

Translation as image rewriting: the case of Chinese red novels

ABSTRACT Following its founding in 1949, the People’s Republic of China embarked on a large-scale endeavour to translate red novels into English. Remarkably, these translations often underwent rewritings, suggesting the state’s considerable influence. Drawing on André Lefevere’s rewriting theory, this article examines why and how these works were rewritten in English. It first offers an overview of the domestic and foreign contexts of red novel translation, and then presents how these novels were translated, including the involvement of translators in the translation process and the rewriting of characters’ images. It is found that red novels were translated not only for cultural exchange but also for social-political and publicity reasons. To this end, the positive and negative characters of red novels are frequently modified, although following different paths: positive characters are generally improved or idealised for a more perfect representation, whereas negative characters are typically degraded or worsened to justify the struggle against them. Nonetheless, both trajectories ultimately serve the same purpose – to reshape the state’s national image.

“Willing to go the extra mile”: an exploration of antecedents of assigned expatriates' work engagement

PurposeThe expatriation literature (a substantial domain of the International HRM literature) has not paid sufficient attention to the phenomenon of work engagement, which is essential for expatriate success. Equally, research on work engagement in Organizational Behavior, although extensive and mature, has neglected the context of expatriation. Our study bridges the two literature streams to examine the antecedents of expatriates’ work engagement within the distinct context of international assignments.Design/methodology/approachThrough e-interviews with 27 Nordic assigned expatriates in 16 host countries, we delineate and organize antecedents of assigned expatriates’ work engagement in a framework.FindingsWe identify two clusters of antecedents – general and specific – characteristic of expatriate settings (e.g. distance to headquarters, pride in being chosen, culture, fewer distractions, success in a foreign context, adjustment, location, and language). We decompose each cluster into contextual and job-related antecedents leading to absorption, dedication, and vigor as three components of work engagement. We depict and organize the relationships in a framework.Originality/valueOur qualitative study connects two bodies of literature that have remained largely independent of each other. In doing this, we contribute to the expatriate literature by presenting a comprehensive picture of antecedents to work engagement and the engagement literature by exploring engagement in a new occupational work setting, namely international assignments.

Conceptual Approach to Understanding the Social Aspects of the Educational Potential of the Islamic Studies

The relevance of the research theme, lies in its importance for the effective formation of a harmoniously developed personality and society, as well as maintaining the cultural, social and economic prosperity of the modern society. The purpose of this article is to study the social aspects of the educational potential within the framework of Islamic studies, as well as to reveal the conceptual approach to its understanding. The publication materials are the information from scientific and practical disciplines, highlighting the implementation of social aspects of the educational potential of the Islamic studies in its natural environment and in a foreign context, as well as monographic works on the topic and sources that are a fixation of research observations in the field of modernization of the educational and social systems of the society life. The following concepts are the result of its study: fixing the problem under study as a composite and inseparable and a large-scale system; determination of its leading categories; establishing the relationship between its components; the authors’ interpretation of this topic as a panoramic phenomenon interconnected with many other spheres of society. The practical significance of the work was revealed in its novelty, relevance and demand among representatives of the leading areas of scientific thought and activity such as history and sociology; ethics and religious studies; cultural studies and economics; pedagogy and psychology. The prospect of the problem under consideration lies in the need to observe, fix and study its reflection and relevance in the life of modern society, as well as in the importance of expanding and enriching the boundaries of “Islamic studies” as a scientific direction that promotes awareness of the role of spiritual principle in the formation of personality, as well as in saving the ethnic groups for their prosperity and progress.

Correction: The changing face of HR professionals’ expectations amidst COVID-19: a comparison in between Sri Lanka and foreign context

Correction: The changing face of HR professionals’ expectations amidst COVID-19: a comparison in between Sri Lanka and foreign context

Visualization Analysis of Foreign Negotiated Interaction Research Based on CiteSpace

This paper conducts a visual analysis of negotiation-related research in foreign English-language core journals from 2013 to 2022, totaling 83 articles, using the Web of Science core collection as the database and the bibliometric tool CiteSpace 6.1.R6 software. The aim is to illustrate the annual publication volume, main countries (regions) and institutions involved, high-impact literature, and research hotspots. The results of the visual analysis show that the publication volume of foreign negotiation research is generally increasing. The United States and Spain are the main countries conducting negotiation research. The research hotspots in foreign negotiation mainly focus on the influence of various factors (learner proficiency, task, age, interaction modes, etc.) on the nature, strategies, and patterns of negotiation, with particular attention to the semantics and forms of negotiation, interaction and second language acquisition, and feedback during the negotiation process. The findings contribute to understanding the knowledge structure and development trajectory of negotiation research in foreign contexts.

Students’ Perception of the Enforcement Model Approach towards Radicalism Movement in Malaysia Higher Learning Institutions (HLI’s)

Radicalism among undergraduates in a higher learning institution (is an HLI’s) thing that is already synonymous in most countries, especially in developing nations. The radicalism brought about by the student movement is not triggered, but it is often influenced by the issue of statehood, which is a factor in social change and the formation of community values. However, the involvement of students in higher learning institutions (HLI’s) in Malaysia is now not as intense and aggressive as in the foreign context. Based on scientific studies, student participation in Malaysia lack awareness and concern about the current political issues and problems around them. The enforcement of the University College University Act (AUKU) 1971 in Malaysia, which prohibits students from engaging in politics for five decades, has caused some passivity and paralysis in the students’ interest in political activities. Therefore, this study’s main objective is to develop a resilience model in preventing radicalism in a more student-friendly scenario that does not constrain students’ rights in Malaysia, like the Universities and University Colleges Act (AUKU), by benchmarking the good practices in Indonesia’s Higher Learning Institution (HLI’s) using the Altbach’s theoretical framework. Thus, questionnaires were conducted among students in three HLI’s – UTM, UKM and UM to understand students’ perception of AUKU from the technical and social sciences backgrounds. The study found that students’ perception of the AUKU enforcement model was poorly satisfactory and required a review, as universities function not as controlled factories but as generators of knowledge for producing great and intellectual national leaders regardless of their calibre and performance.

Перевод литературы абсурда как пример культурного трансфера («Случаи» Даниила Хармса на корейском языке)

The article explores the semiotic aspects of the theory of cultural transfer, translation, and (non)translation, with a specific focus on the translator's comment. It unravels discur­sive and interpretative concepts that illuminate the transformation of an original text into a secondary text, encompassing reception, interpretation, cultural transfer, and literary trans­lation, showcasing their interdependence and connection. The analysis centres on the literary translation of texts by Daniil Kharms, portraying it as a process where the social and aesthetic practices of both the translator and the reader manifest in the creation and perception of a secondary text. The study scrutinizes literary translation as a linguistic and creative endeav­our, illustrating the meticulous approach of the translator Kim Jung A in authentically repre­senting the author's ideology and aesthetics. Furthermore, the article, for the first time, un­veils the ways in which the aesthetics of the absurd are culturally transferred into a foreign context, specifically in the translations of stories and "cases" by Kharms into Korean. It delves into the implementation of translation transcreativity, providing concrete examples of translation solutions in the Russian-Korean language pair. The research not only analyzes the real implementation but also explores possible avenues for transferring the aesthetics of ab­surd literature in contemporary translation practices.

The selected ancient and biblical characters in Ukrainian neoclassical poetic discourse (Maksym Rylsky, Mykola Zerov, etc.) in comparison with the reception of Lesya Ukrainka

The article offers a comparative analysis on the example of the work of Lesya Ukrainka and the „Kyiv neoclassicals” („the five bunch”). The paper emphasizes not only on the main characters of the works, but also on secondary characters. The research assumes that some images-characters of Lesya Ukrainka could have been developed by individual neoclassicals and used as implications, taking into account the reference point to the elitarian reader. The connection between Ukrainian neo-romanticism and neoclassicism has been allocated. The feminine aspect of the analysed works is emphasised. Selected ancient and biblical images (characters) in the dramatic texts of Ukrainian neo-romanticism and the lyrics of neoclassicals are taken into account. The attention is paid to the foreign context – as the image of Salomé, inspired by the eponymous tragedy by Oscar Wilde. Comparative, textual, archetypal (Jungian), mythological, bibleistic, genderological, etymological analysis are used.

Телесное в современных социальных театральных практиках: проекты 2020-х годов

The active turn of modern theatre towards democratization and social forms of existence took place in a foreign context in the early 1990s and was associated with the desire to change the usual ways of producing art, as well as with the cultural policy of neoliberal states aimed at supporting artists whose efforts make social problems visible. In Russia, similar processes began in the 2010s, when the documentary trend provoked the interest of theatre in the oppressed, and together with that, inclusion and the idea of diversity — cultural, social, and bodily — began to develop. At the same time, contemporary dance makes a turn from strong author’s choreography to practices that are more minimalistic and focused on a specific body in its vulnerability. In the field of theater as a whole, a performative turn is taking place — its influence affects the work with the categories of presence, everyday life, procedurality and multidisciplinarity. All this is accompanied by a trend towards the social in contemporary art. We understand the social as an umbrella term, which implies different types of work with citizens, the community, and representatives of excluded groups in the forms of theatre or produced with the help of theatre tools. The social is also a quality immanent to theatre and signifying the desire of artists to overcome the alienation project that dominates the world and poses a threat to the future. Though the practices described in the article encompass different things, they all converge in their interest in an engaging, that is social, way of communication. From this point of view, these works are performatives in the classical sense, when the gesture is real, the spoken word is equal to the action, and the participants’ co-creative work either directly affects their lives or changes the viewer’s lens.

Intercultural Friendships with International Students in China: Examining the Role of Intergroup Contact, Intercultural Communication Competence, Host Country Nationals' Attitudes, and Perceived Intergroup Threats.

International students studying and living in a foreign context often complain about difficulties establishing friendships with host nationals. This study investigates host country nationals' (HCNs) willingness to develop intercultural friendships with international students who are sojourning in China by exploring the effects of face-to-face and online intergroup contact, HCNs' attitudes, intercultural communication competence (ICC), and perceived intergroup threats. Survey data from 469 HCNs indicate that (a) face-to-face and online contact are indirectly and positively related to their willingness to form intercultural friendships, (b) face-to-face contact can moderate the relationships of online contact with HCNs' intergroup attitudes and perceived intergroup threats, and (c) both ICC and intergroup attitudes can positively predict friendship formation whereas perceived intergroup threats act as a negative predictor. The implications of our findings for future research and practice are presented.

EZRA POUND’S ENGLISH TRANSLATION PRACTICE OF LI BAI’S POEMS IN CATHAY BASED ON PIERRE BOURDIEU’S SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

Pound’s Cathay is a vivid case of cultural exchange between China and English-speaking countries. The most translated Li Bai’s poems in Cathay not only promoted better reception of Li Bai’s poems in a foreign context, but also injected powerful vitality into the Western literary world. This paper investigated Pound’s translation practice of Li Bai’s poems in Cathay and specifically interpreted Pound’s internal and external motivations in the selection of source text, textual features formed through translation strategies and the reception of English translation of Li Bai’s poems by drawing on three main concepts: field, capital, and habitus in Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological theory. It was found that Pound’s selection of Li Bai’s poems was made under the influence of the combined force of utilitarian American sinology field and flashy literary field, which conformed to the mentality of the people in war, harmonized with his Imagist principles and reflected his emotional empathy with Li Bai. Pound’s habitus with cosmopolitanism and historicism shaped by American sinology and literary fields in a specific social background initiated his translation idea of “translation as creation”, which further formed such main translation strategies as the ideogramic method by image juxtaposition, formal freedom by using modern English in free verse etc., language energy by deletion or expansion, etc. Finally, Pound, with his wide social network and authoritative literary status carried great social, cultural, and symbolic capital, promoting better reception of Cathay, especially Li Bai’s poems. These results revealed the powerful interpretation of Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological theory in literary translation and shed light on the communication of Chinese translated literature overseas.

Fūdo in Foreign Language Learning in Japan and Finland

While the Japanese education system and policy have been studied extensively, Japanese philosophy and thoughts have rarely served as a theoretical and methodological resource in the field of comparative and international education. Resonating with a current scholarly attempt to explore the possibilities and limitations of using Japan as an epistemic resource, I have experimented with drawing upon Japanese philosophical thinking, namely Watsuji Tetsurō’s (1889-1960) comparative phenomenological study, to analyse the current foreign language education reforms in Japan. In this paper, I tell the story of my thought experiment in which I explore autoethnographically how my epistemic mindset has changed during my PhD journey through a slow dialogue with Watsuji’s study on milieu, relationality and ontological inquiry into human beings. Aiming to multiply the epistemological resources for educational research, I analyse reflexively on the way in which I was destabilised by Japanese philosophy in (un)learning educational practices in Japanese contexts. In so doing, I explore how ‘foreign’ educational comparativists might be able to move beyond the storyteller role in foreign contexts or the expert role in home contexts and, accordingly, contribute to promoting a pluralistic knowledge production.

Students' Perception of the Enforcement Model Approach Towards Radicalism Movement In Malaysia Higher Learning Institutions (HLI's)

Radicalism among undergraduates in a higher learning institution (is an HLI's) thing that is already synonymous in most countries of the world, especially in developing nations. The radicalism brought about by the student movement is not triggered, but it is often influenced by the issue of statehood which is a factor in social change and the formation of community values. The student body movement has enormous potential to influence and shape the country's political landscape as it also indirectly acts as most people's voice. However, the involvement of students in higher learning institutions (HLI's) in Malaysia is now not as intense and aggressive as in the foreign context. Based on scientific studies, student participation in Malaysia is deficient and deteriorating through their involvement in partisan politics, especially in the early 20th century. In other words, the students lack awareness and concern about the current political issues and problems around them. The function of students once upon a time as community spokespeople are now eroding in Malaysia. Now, students are no longer agents of change, not anymore voicing public groans, and not thus far sensitive to issues outside the campus. The enforcement of the University College University Act (AUKU) 1971 in Malaysia, which prohibits students from engaging in politics for five decades, has caused some passivity and paralysis in the students' interest in political activities. Therefore, this study focuses on three (3) primary objectives. First, to identify the development of radicalism among students in three HLI's in Malaysia. Second, to analyze the Student's perception and satisfaction with the enforcement model of the University College University Act (AUKU) 1971. Thirdly, is to develop a resiliencemodel in preventing radicalism in a more student-friendly scenario that does not constrain students' rights in Malaysia, like the Universities and University Colleges Act (AUKU), by benchmarking the good practices in Indonesia's Higher Learning Institution (HLI's) using the Altbach's theoretical framework. Thus, this study uses quantitative methods to analyze the questionnaire accurately. Three HLI's – UTM, UKM and UM are involved in this study and selected according to the required elements. The findings showed that the reliability value of the study instrument was α = 0.906. The questionnaire data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software version 20.0. The study found that students' perception of the AUKU enforcement model was poorly satisfactory and required a review. Although the enforcement of AUKU aimed at ensuring harmony in creating a conducive campus learning environment, its more worrying adverse effects must be overcome as universities function not to be controlled factories but also as repositories and generators of knowledge for producing great and intellectual national leaders regardless of their calibre and performance.

Tone Deafness in Music Does Not Preclude Distributional Learning of Nonnative Tonal Languages in Individuals With Congenital Amusia.

Previous studies have shown that individuals with congenital amusia exhibit deficient pitch processing across music and language domains. This study investigated whether adult Chinese-speaking listeners with amusia were still able to learn Thai lexical tones based on stimulus frequency of statistical distribution via distributional learning, despite their degraded lexical tone perception. Following a pretest-training-posttest design, 21 amusics and 23 typical, musically intact listeners were assigned into bimodal and unimodal distribution conditions. Listeners were asked to discriminate minimal pairs of Thai mid-level tone and falling tone superimposed on variable base syllables and uttered by different speakers. The perceptual accuracy for each test session and improvement from pretest to posttest were collected and analyzed between the two groups using generalized mixed-effects models. When discriminating Thai lexical tones, amusics were less accurate than typical listeners. Nonetheless, similarly to control listeners, perceptual gains from pretest to posttest were observed in bimodally rather than unimodally trained amusics, as evidenced by both trained and nontrained test words. Amusics are able to learn lexical tones in a second or foreign context of speech. This extends previous research by showing that amusics' distributional learning of linguistic pitch remains largely preserved despite their degraded pitch processing. It is thus likely that manifestations of amusia in speech could not result from their abnormal statistical learning mechanism. This study meanwhile provides a heuristic approach for future studies to apply this paradigm into amusics' treatment to mitigate their pitch-processing disorder.

Membership intermediaries: a study of pluri-generational mixed-status families in Italy and France

Insider family citizens—that is, people who, according to their nationality/legal status and the possession of crucial resources for the settlement of their relatives in a foreign context—occupy an especially important place within a wide and diversified set of family relationships. Drawing on qualitative interviews with migrant women and children in mixed-status families in Italy and France, we argue that they can act as ‘membership intermediaries’ towards migrant spouses and a wider set of kin. First, facilitating non-citizen relatives’ formal incorporation in receiving countries through the provision of specially privileged forms of legality. Second, providing various resources for migrants’ informal incorporation, including housing ownership, additional income, emotional, and cultural capital. Nonetheless, the ambivalent dependencies these processes trigger can become sources of contention, heightening gender and intergenerational power imbalances in the household.

Vlad the Impaler, the Truth Behind the Myth: His Youth and Fight Against the Ottoman Empire

Vlad Țepeș “the Impaler” is the most famous figure of the Romanian Middle Ages. Sadly, his world fame is due to Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel. For over 120 years, imagination proved to be stronger for the public at large than historical truth. We do not wish to get into an argument regarding the myth of the cruel, bloodthirsty or even vampiric prince. It is neither the place nor our role to venture onto such moving sands. What we have been concerned with is the openness with which Romanian specialists have dealt with this hero of the Middle Ages, whom they have thoroughly explored. Still, the enthusiasm and willingness to turn Vlad the Impaler into a hero, into a man of moral probity beyond his epoch, have made historians treat the first part of his life tersely and even insufficiently interpret aspects of his glorious moments, i.e. the confrontations with the Ottoman Empire. His period is therefore a puzzle whose pieces must still be arranged. That is what we are going to do in this study, namely to bring forward some additional facts of his tumultuous existence by reviewing some of the most important hypotheses issued in historiography and by permanently relating to the foreign context of his policy.

Tracing Linguistic Evidence of Cultural Diversity: A Corpus-based Study

Various factors, including culture, indigenous languages, and social norms, shape English being spoken and written in a foreign context. To trace the influence of these various factors, several registers/ genres can be investigated. However, the newspaper register is the most suitable as it is close to everyday events to study how the language has undergone a change. This study seeks to investigate the influence of these factors on the English used in a foreign context and explores the patterns of linguistic variation in the corpus of Cultural news from South Asian countries. A corpus from South Asian countries was compiled. Biber's (1988) multidimensional model was used. ANOVA was applied to find the statistically significant differences. The results indicate that Cultural press reportage of all the countries varies in producing explicit, non-argumentative and abstract discourse. The results indicate that as the cultural press reportage of every country is different, English used in a foreign context differs in producing newspaper discourse.

On the Study of Chinese Puns in English Translation from a Rhetorical Perspective: A Case Study on Xi You Ji and its Two English Translations

From a rhetorical perspective, the article takes the puns in Xi You Ji (Journey to the West) and its two English translations as the object of study and divides the puns into three categories: homonymy, homophony, and paronomasia puns respectively. The two translations deal with the three types of puns in very different ways. Yu’s translation deals with the puns in the original by the strategy of direct translation or phonetic translation with annotations, which largely compensates for the lack of puns when they are transformed in a foreign context. While Jenner’s translation mostly adopts the direct translation strategy, and only a few puns have been translated with annotations. The translations of the typical puns in the original text are comparable between the two translations, and both of them try to achieve phonetic, meaning, and morphological equivalence with the original text. However, from an overall perspective, the richness of translation and compensation in Jenner’s translation is much inferior to those in Yu’s translation.

Representations of culture, race and gender in English language textbooks

In order to investigate and understand the relations between different social groups participating in copious Anglophone settings, this paper sets out to present and discuss the findings of a quantitative analysis of culture, race and gender in nine English language textbooks for first-year secondary school students in Croatia. The first section of the paper offers a theoretical background of the three previously mentioned social phenomena in the light of the importance of English in modern education, frequently associated with various systems of social inequality. What follows are the results of the content analysis of sampled English language textbooks. The results of the study indicated significant differences regarding the representation of specific social groups as well as the intersections between gender and employment status. Thus, an inherent partisanship towards specific social groups was revealed, indicating a subliminal reproduction of social power through education. Such results align with numerous other studies on the topic, both in the Croatian and the foreign contexts.