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Because of its ambiguous function and usage, silence is a major source of intercultural miscommunication, which frequently leads to negative judgments, and breeds stereotypes. Grounded in a cross-cultural and interactive framework, I conducted a five-month descriptive qualitative study, which explored silence perceptions among Chinese, Korean, Russian, Colombian and Iranian ESL speakers, and Canadian native-speakers of English (NS). Multiple perspectives were investigated using stimulated recall, in a context of intercultural mentoring sessions and interviews. Eight ESL 'silence producer' participants were asked to explain their silence use, and their interpretations were compared with the functions attributed to these silences by other participants, one from the same cultural background as the 'silence producer', and a NS. Participants' silence perceptions were described, and most negatively-interpreted silences were identified. Analysis revealed intra-cultural acrimony, that high language proficiency perceptions increase negative silence attributions, cross-cultural differences in attitudes towards fillers, and the systematic silencing of ESL speakers.

Because of its ambiguous function and usage, silence is a major source of intercultural miscommunication, which frequently leads to negative judgments, and breeds stereotypes. Grounded in a cross-cultural and interactive framework, I conducted a five-month descriptive qualitative study, which explored silence perceptions among Chinese, Korean, Russian, Colombian and Iranian ESL speakers, and Canadian native-speakers of English (NS). Multiple perspectives were investigated using stimulated recall, in a context of intercultural mentoring sessions and interviews. Eight ESL 'silence producer' participants were asked to explain their silence use, and their interpretations were compared with the functions attributed to these silences by other participants, one from the same cultural background as the 'silence producer', and a NS. Participants' silence perceptions were described, and most negatively-interpreted silences were identified. Analysis revealed intra-cultural acrimony, that high language proficiency perceptions increase negative silence attributions, cross-cultural differences in attitudes towards fillers, and the systematic silencing of ESL speakers.

This thesis examines the relationship between narrative and meaning in young people’s dramatised stories and how social meaning is generated in community performance. It is an investigation into drama performance projects with culturally diverse teenagers in an inner city secondary school in Melbourne between 2004 and 2006. The methodological approach is reflective practitioner and case study research involving field based data collection. The study investigates the relationship between narrative content and socio-cultural meaning, the dynamics between performers and audience and the power relations between the teacher-artists and young people. / I conceptualise the drama workshop as an intracultural ‘third space’ (Bhabha, 1994) in which young people explored their emergent, hybrid cultural identities. This space was generated through a dialogic pedagogy based on Freire’s theory (1998) and an analysis of power structures underlying the work. / The centre of this thesis is an analysis of young people’s use of narrative to construct and negotiate the meanings of their dramatised stories. I have used narrative theory to inform and develop a drama process, drawing on the work of Bruner (1996) and Winston (1998). This approach enabled young people to develop complex, local meanings in their plays. / The young people used character to experiment with their personal narratives of identity and to develop dramatised stories containing moral messages that both reflected and commented on their local context, critiquing both their school subculture and the wider society. The plays were eclectic in form and reflected young people’s aesthetics and sense of ‘reality’. / In performance, audiences saw the performers simultaneously as fictional characters and as themselves. This complex dual awareness led audiences to infer a relationship between the dramatised story and the performers, generating ‘performative reflexivity’ (Turner, 1986) a state in which both audience and performers entered into deep reflection on social values.

<p>El siguiente estudio tiene como finalidad revelar la presencia de la cosmovisión mapuche de lo onírico en la poesía etnocultural escrita por mujeres. La propuesta es que la función que los sueños cumplen dentro de la cultura y religiosidad mapuche está claramente reflejada en el dis-curso poético de las autoras investigadas. Las teorías que sustentan esta hipótesis defienden la estrecha relación que existe entre el texto litera-rio y la cultura en que éste ha sido generado. El estudio pretende, ade-más, identificar las distintas funciones de los sueños en la cultura pre-sentes en el corpus seleccionado, y de tal manera poder plasmar esta correspondencia.</p>

Wir haben uns in der Afrikanistik bislang vor allem mit der Sprache im engeren Sinn beschaftigt, weniger mit dem Sprecher und mit dem, was Jespersen (1924:313) eine `bestimmte Geisteshaltung des Sprechers bezogen auf den Inhalt des Satzes` nannte In den folgenden Uberlegungen beschiiftige ich mich in diesem Sinne mit Sprechereinstellungen in konkreten Kontexten und dem was aus bestimmten Ausserungen fur zwischenmenschliche Beziehungen intrakultureller und vor allem interkultureller Art folgt Solche Ansatze haben heutzutage einen etwas modischen Charakter Wenn wir allerdings die zunehmende Aggressivitat in alien Bereichen der Kommunikation bedenken, bekommen sie doch eine besondere Relevanz.

El siguiente estudio tiene como finalidad revelar la presencia de la cosmovisión mapuche de lo onírico en la poesía etnocultural escrita por mujeres. La propuesta es que la función que los sueños cumplen dentro de la cultura y religiosidad mapuche está claramente reflejada en el dis-curso poético de las autoras investigadas. Las teorías que sustentan esta hipótesis defienden la estrecha relación que existe entre el texto litera-rio y la cultura en que éste ha sido generado. El estudio pretende, ade-más, identificar las distintas funciones de los sueños en la cultura pre-sentes en el corpus seleccionado, y de tal manera poder plasmar esta correspondencia.

In an increasingly globalized workplace, the ability to communicate effectively across cultures is critical. We propose that the quality of communication experienced by individuals plays a significant role in the outcomes of intercultural interactions, such as cross-border negotiations. In four studies, we developed and validated a multidimensional conceptualization of Quality of Communication Experience (QCE) and examined its consequences in intracultural versus intercultural business negotiation. We proposed and found three dimensions of QCE, namely Clarity, Responsiveness, and Comfort. Findings from intercultural and same-cultural negotiations supported the hypotheses that QCE is lower in intercultural than intracultural negotiation; and that a higher degree of QCE leads to better negotiation outcomes. Moreover, we found evidence that the beneficial effects of higher QCE on negotiation outcomes are more pronounced in intercultural than intracultural negotiation. We propose an agenda for future research and identify implications for practice.

Diploma thesis " Approaches to children in multicultural Nursery and Primary schools. It deals with the current approaches to children in Nursery and Primary schools, both in Czech schools and foreign schools located in the Czech Republic. First this thesis tries to find some historical context and understanding of the situation that Czech and foreign schools are faced with. Further attempts to map out the involvement of multicultural education into the curricula and teaching practice in the selected schools. Primarily it creates a comparison of approaches to multicultural education in selected schools in the Czech Republic. The thesis is trying to find inspiration for working with multicultural education in Czech schools, which do not pay much attention to multicultural education. Thesis should highlight the importance of multicultural education in schools and the benefits and positive impact of integrating this education into the curriculum of schools.

Wir haben uns in der Afrikanistik bislang vor allem mit der Sprache im engeren Sinn beschaftigt, weniger mit dem Sprecher und mit dem, was Jespersen (1924:313) eine `bestimmte Geisteshaltung des Sprechers bezogen auf den Inhalt des Satzes` nannte In den folgenden Uberlegungen beschiiftige ich mich in diesem Sinne mit Sprechereinstellungen in konkreten Kontexten und dem was aus bestimmten Ausserungen fur zwischenmenschliche Beziehungen intrakultureller und vor allem interkultureller Art folgt Solche Ansatze haben heutzutage einen etwas modischen Charakter Wenn wir allerdings die zunehmende Aggressivitat in alien Bereichen der Kommunikation bedenken, bekommen sie doch eine besondere Relevanz.