 Description:
Misunderstandings among speakers from different cultural backgrounds, or even different sub-cultures or genders, sometimes result from conflicting norms for appropriate ways of speaking, including voice volume, pitch, speed, amounts of speech and silence, patterns of turn-taking, degrees of directness, and ways of expressing politeness. Moreover, such misunderstandings are often fueled by stereotypes about communication styles, for example, that Japanese speakers are always indirect, whereas English speakers express their feelings directly, or that men tend to interrupt other speakers more than women do. In the most serious cases, unfair judgments of the other speaker's intentions, personality, or integrity may be formed. This class will explore the causes and consequences of such misunderstandings, along with possible solutions.
 Objective:
The lecture will present an overview of research comparing communication styles and politeness strategies across cultures and genders. In addition to understanding the basic concepts and issues, students will be asked to reflect on their own habitual ways of communicating and consider strategies for avoiding potential misunderstandings when they enter discussions or negotiations with members of another culture, sub-culture and/or gender.
 Recommended Readings:
Rinnert, C. "Culturally Influenced Communication Patterns: Overview, Implications and Applications." In K. Kitao (Ed.) Culture and Communication (pp. 3-17), Kyoto: Yamaguchi Shoten (1995).
Name:Carol RINNERT
Present Post and Title: Professor, Faculty of International Studies, Hiroshima City University
Final Education: State University of New York at Buffalo, Ph.D.
Specialized Field Linguistics, Sociolinguistics, and Intercultural Pragmatics
Recent Publications:
*"Task response and text construction across L1 and L2 writing,"
Journal of Second Language Writing, 17 (2008): 7-29.
*"Variation in Complaint Strategies in Three Regions," JALT2002 at Shizuoka, Conference Proceedings (2003), CD-ROM.
*"Coping with High Imposition Requests: High vs. Low Proficiency EFL
Students in Japan," in Martinez Flor, Uso Juan, & Fernandez Guerra
(eds.), Pragmatic Competence and Foreign Language Teaching. Castello de la Plana, Spain: Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume, 2003, pp.161-84.
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| I was raised in North Hollywood, California, U.S.A. and graduated from Occidental College in Los Angeles, with a B.A. in French after having spent my junior year in Paris. I returned to France to pursue graduate studies in linguistics at the University of Grenoble for one year before transferring to the State University of New York at Buffalo, where I earned a Ph.D. degree in linguistics. I taught linguistics, English as a Second Language and English composition at Boise State University in Idaho, spending two of those years as a senior Fulbright lecturer at Sana�fa University in North Yemen. After coming to Japan, I taught English for 9 months at the Language Institute of Japan (LIOJ) in Odawara and linguistics and English for 7 years at Hiroshima University before moving to Hiroshima City University. Besides research and travel, my personal interests include middle eastern dance, pocket billiards (pool), NBA basketball, mystery stories and films. |
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