Subject: intercultural communication

dear colleagues ! some time ( or rather a long time ) ago , i posted a query to the list asking for information on research activities regarding intercultural communication . please excuse me for writing this summary so late , but two kids have been keeping me rather busy . i would like to thank all respondants for the valuable information that was supplied to me . as almost everyone expressed their wish to get into contact with others working in this area , i have included your e-mail addresses in the following summary . anne barron < abarron @ ollamh . ucd . ie > ( university college dublin , ireland ) is doing a phd , studying the effects of a year abroad on the development of pragmatic competence among second language learners of german and is interested in the development of pragmatic competence in general . sangeeta bagga - gupta < sangeeta . bagga-gupta @ hoe . se > ( university of linkping , sweden ) has done an ethnographic description of the communication environment at the ngo , where women from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds are employed . christine anthonissen < canthoni @ artsn . uwc . acz > ( university of western cape , south africa ) is co-author of a book titled " communication across cultures in south - africa - toward a critical language awareness " , which she uses to teach undergraduates . laura chao - chih liao < ccliao @ fcusqnt . fcn . edu . tw > ( feng chia university , taiwan ) has published several books and articles on different aspects of intercultural communication , contrastive pragmatics , discourse analysis and gender differences , all related to chinese and american english . peter kistler < pkbdg @ ibm . net > ( universitas padjadjaran , bandung , indonesia ) applies ethnomethodological conversation analysis to german - indonesian conversations . he is especially interested in " critical incidents " and discourse structure . tom koole < tom . koole @ let . ruu . nl > ( utrecht institute of linguistics , netherlands ) has published articles relating to intercultural communication in team discourse and business negotiations . susan meredith burt < burt @ vaxa . cis . uwosh . edu > ( university of wisconsin oshkosh , usa ) is working in the area of native / non-native interaction , particularly on issues of linguistic accomodation by native speakers to non-native speakers . hannes kniffka < ssp01 @ rs1 . rrz . uni - koeln . de > has published a book titled " elements of culture - contrastive linguistics " , which summarizes empirical and practical consequences for analyses of intercultural communication , especially related to the cultures of saudi - arabia , china and maroc . laura hartley < hartleyl @ pilot . msu . edu > ( michigan state university , usa ) focusses on linguistic details of politeness in the speech act situation of complaints . sally hunt < lish @ warthog . ru . ac . za > ( rhodes university , south africa ) has completed an ma thesis on interaction in small group teaching at university , focussing on gender and culture , and how these two factors affect the amount and kind of participation of the various students . alain dawson < orfqe @ nordnet . fr > ( university of paris , france ) is doing research on the mutual intelligibility of slavic languages , especially on " how russians understand texts written in other slavic languages without having learnt them . " shikaripur n . sridhar < ssridhar @ ccmail . sunysb . edu > ( state university of new york at stony brook ) will be happy to provide information on " international varieties of english " and " non - native intitutionalized varieties of english " . melanie siegel < siegel @ dfki . uni-sb . de > ( deutsches forschungsinstitut fuer kuenstliche intelligenz , saarbruecken , germany ) did a phd thesis on translation mismatches in japanese - german translations . anita fetzer < anita . fetzer @ po . uni-stuttgart . de > ( universiteat stuttgart , germany ) has written her phd thesis on negative interactions . she has developed a model which explains linguistic preferences regarding refusals , and she has tried to apply this model to second language teaching . patricia haegman < fte . haegeman . p @ alpha . ufsia . ac . be > ( university of antwerp , belgium ) teaches courses in intercultural communication , both in interpersonal and business talk . she has written her phd on " business english in flanders , a study of lingua franca telephone interaction . " bernd mueller - jacquier < mue-jac @ phil . tu-chemnitz . de > ( technische universitaet chemnitz , germany ) is head of the department for intercultural communication at technische universitaet chemnitz , where several courses on different aspects of intercultural communication are being tought . you can visit their homepage , which also includes an interesting bibliography at http : / / www . tu-chemnitz . de / phil / ikk / myself , i completed my phd " english as a medium of intercultural communication : an analysis of non - native - / non - native speaker discourse " in 1995 . i analysed discourse structural ( topic development , turn-taking etc . ) and politeness phenomena . currently , i am doing two projects both in the area of intercultural communication . one investigates gender and culture as possible factors influencing the ability to successfully communicate in intercultural situations . this study focusses on japanese , korean and german speakers using english as a lingua franca and examines discourse structural as well as politeness phenomena . in a second project , a japanese colleague ( yuko sugita < yuko @ phil-fak . uni-duesseldorf . de > ) and myself take a look at more formal situations , i . e . intercultural interaction in japanese companies . we hope to find out about the linguistic differences between japanese and german business communication and the way these influence japanese and german speakers ' use of english as a communication tool . i hope to be able to update this list from time to time . so , if you happen to know anybody , who wants to share her / his knowledge on intercultural communication with others , please ask her / him to send me an e-mail . this list will also be accessibly via my homepage ( http : / / www-public . rz . uni-duesseldorf . de / + meierkor ) in about a month . best wishes to everybody dr . christiane meierkord heinrich - heine - universitaet duesseldorf modernes japan universitaetsstr . 1 40225 duesseldorf tel . : + 49 ( 0 ) 211 - 81-14709 e-mail : meierkor @ uni-duesseldorf . de
