This study looks into the field of intercultural miscommunication and misunderstandings on small multicultural Non Profit Organization (NPO) seen from the expats point of view. It is a study based on a qualitative method-design, including a micro-ethnographic study and qualitative interviews on a small NPO on Bali, Indonesia called Project Clean Uluwatu (PCU) that contain volunteers from all over the world. These misunderstandings and miscommunications that occurred on PCU was mostly between local people born on Bali and foreign people working on PCU, due to many reasons, starting with the rapid pace of globalization and that culture don’t evolve in the same speed. Plausible explanations for this, that are raised in this thesis, is that people make sense of events in different ways, especially if the individuals within a misunderstanding belong to both a high context culture and a low context culture and aby that communicate in different ways. This thesis also explain them through Karl Wieck’s sensemaking perspective by applying 7 properties that describes how individuals make sense out of miscommunication by perceiving the event in different ways due to individuals former knowledge, their intentions and own identity.

TITLE: Developing activity and creativity in teaching fractions in grades 6 to 7 AUTHOR: Bc. Lenka Svobodová DEPARTMENT: Department of Mathematics and Mathematical Education SUPERVISOR: Mgr. Marie Tichá, CSc. ABSTRACT: The thesis consists of a theoretical and an empirical part. The theoretical part looks at the cognitive process of pupils and possible ways of their motivation during fractions teaching. Furthermore, it outlines causes of lack of understanding of fractions and re-education interventions. The empirical part is based on a qualitative research whose main objective was to determine how the pupils are able to solve fractions exercises independently and creatively and what mistakes they make. Various methods of data collection were used, such as interview with teachers on issues of fractions teaching in elementary schools, non- standardised test with fractions exercises and additional interview with the tested pupils. This part also describes the preparation of the research, the research itself and its results KEYWORDS: fractions, interpretations, representations, models, misunderstandings, mistakes, teaching approaches

This thesis aims to explore the area of communication and its links to anxiety. The methods used are interviews in conjunction with a grounded theory approach. We found that there are several different types of misunderstandings that can occur between management and employees, which also cause the level of anxiety felt among the employees to rise. Important aspects to consider for management seem to be to use several communication channels and choose the appropriate channel depending on the content of the message. It is also necessary for management to convey information on the same knowledge level as the employees and to take the interests of the employees into account when deciding what information to give them. To create a positive attitude and to avoid ambiguous messages will also improve communication and lessen the anxiety felt. / Denna uppsats avser att undersöka ämnet kommunikation och dess länkar till oro. Den använda metoden är intervjuer i samband med en grounded theory ansats. Vi fann att det är en antal olika typer av missförstånd som kan uppkomma mellan ledningen och de anställda, vilka även leder till att den upplevda oron hos de anställda stiger. Viktiga aspekter för ledningen att tänka på är att använda flera kommunikations kanaler och att välja kanal beroende av meddelandets innehåll. Det är också nödvändigt för ledningen att förmedla information på de anställdas kunskapsnivå och att tänka på vad de anställda kan förväntas vara intresserade av. Att skapa en positiv attityd och att undvika tvetydiga meddelanden kan också förbättra kommunikationen och minska den upplevda oron.

<p>This thesis aims to explore the area of communication and its links to anxiety. The methods used are interviews in conjunction with a grounded theory approach. We found that there are several different types of misunderstandings that can occur between management and employees, which also cause the level of anxiety felt among the employees to rise. Important aspects to consider for management seem to be to use several communication channels and choose the appropriate channel depending on the content of the message. It is also necessary for management to convey information on the same knowledge level as the employees and to take the interests of the employees into account when deciding what information to give them. To create a positive attitude and to avoid ambiguous messages will also improve communication and lessen the anxiety felt.</p> / <p>Denna uppsats avser att undersöka ämnet kommunikation och dess länkar till oro. Den använda metoden är intervjuer i samband med en grounded theory ansats. Vi fann att det är en antal olika typer av missförstånd som kan uppkomma mellan ledningen och de anställda, vilka även leder till att den upplevda oron hos de anställda stiger. Viktiga aspekter för ledningen att tänka på är att använda flera kommunikations kanaler och att välja kanal beroende av meddelandets innehåll. Det är också nödvändigt för ledningen att förmedla information på de anställdas kunskapsnivå och att tänka på vad de anställda kan förväntas vara intresserade av. Att skapa en positiv attityd och att undvika tvetydiga meddelanden kan också förbättra kommunikationen och minska den upplevda oron.</p>

This study deals with cultural differences, intercultural misunderstandings, and coping strategies in the context of two specific cultures: German and Taiwanese. Using content analysis of in-depth interviews conducted with 31 German and Taiwanese co-workers in Taiwan (superiors-subordinates and peers), this study attempts to accomplish two goals: (a) Analyze which intercultural misunderstandings are commonly encountered by German and Taiwanese co-workers in their work relationships and examine the nature of these misunderstandings; (b) Explore how German and Taiwanese co-workers cope with these intercultural misunderstandings and determine whether there are cultural differences in coping responses used by Germans and Taiwanese. The coding and content analysis revealed intercultural misunderstandings and conflicts in four areas: Language and Communication, Business Practices: Quality / Thoroughness vs. Speed / Flexibility, Conflict Management: Dealing with Problems and Mistakes, and Leadership and Management Styles: Roles of Managers and Employees. Regarding coping strategies, this study found that Taiwanese co-workers used more emotion-focused coping strategies, in particular acceptance (passive-adaptive coping) and seeking emotional support, whereas Germans used more problem-focused and avoidance coping. The ultimate purpose of this study is to increase awareness of possible problem areas and coping responses and help German and Taiwanese co-workers to collaborate and communicate more effectively. For example, the data provided in this study can be used for designing culture-specific intercultural training modules for the German-Taiwanese business context.

Traveling salespeople usually play an integral part in exporting firms’ strategy. However, the Covid-19 pandemic and travel restrictions have forced many businesses to rely on digital communication technologies for communication with distant customers and partners they usually would meet with in person. For collaborative relationships to function well, both parties must be able to understand and make sense of each other, which is why the sensemaking process has been a topic of interest. An aspect laid forth by research as a potentially prominent issue in inter-cultural relationships is ambiguity and misunderstandings, for which previous research has underlined two main mechanisms to mitigate ambiguity and misunderstandings, formalization, and socialization. However, this research has been conducted in a context where both in-person and digital communication has been available options. This qualitative study aims to examine export sellers' perception of sensemaking, misunderstandings, and ambiguity when relying on digital communication through semi-structured interviews. This paper's result suggests that digital communication tended to be more formal than in-person communication and that relying solely on digital communication has imposed significant challenges for establishing a new relationship while being less problematic to maintaining relationships.

Submitted by Micheli Gomes de Souza null (souza.micheli@hotmail.com) on 2016-10-05T20:37:56Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2016_TESE DOUTORADO COMPLETA_MICHELI GOMES DE SOUZA.pdf: 2868964 bytes, checksum: dd0690721195f804df4271541bd64f28 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Ana Paula Grisoto (grisotoana@reitoria.unesp.br) on 2016-10-06T13:19:03Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 souza_mg_dr_sjrp.pdf: 2868964 bytes, checksum: dd0690721195f804df4271541bd64f28 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-10-06T13:19:03Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 souza_mg_dr_sjrp.pdf: 2868964 bytes, checksum: dd0690721195f804df4271541bd64f28 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-08-17 / Esta tese insere-se no campo de pesquisas sobre comunicação intercultural, mais especificamente, no contexto do projeto guarda-chuva Teletandem: Transculturalidade na interação online em línguas estrangeiras por webcam. O projeto Teletandem promove parcerias institucionais entre aprendizes de línguas de diferentes universidades, via ferramentas de comunicação como o Skype. Em encontros regulares, pares de aprendizes de português como língua estrangeira fluentes em inglês e aprendizes de inglês fluentes em português, realizam interações colaborativas nas quais um ajuda o outro a praticar a língua estrangeira alvo. O objetivo deste estudo é analisar o processo de negociação de sentidos, permeados, predominantemente, por questões linguísticas, discursivas e sociais e a emergência de mal-entendidos nas interações entre esses aprendizes em parcerias português-inglês realizadas no primeiro semestre de 2012 entre uma universidade brasileira e uma universidade norte-americana. A sessão oral em teletandem é observada, neste trabalho, por uma perspectiva do processo de construção partilhada de significados e sentidos na interação entre os aprendizes, por meio da mobilização do conhecimento sistêmico, de mundo e textual de cada interagente e que permite a eles se posicionarem no mundo e envolverem seus pares na interação. Nesse processo, mal-entendido é considerado como uma ocorrência intrínseca à comunicação. Ele pode se materializar por questões linguísticas, discursivas, compartilhamento de informações equivocadas ou por outras ocorrências que podem gerar falhas na compreensão, incompreensão, desconfortos, situações de riso etc. Tal fenômeno complexo pode, também, não ser percebido e negociado pelos interagentes. Para estudá-lo, adotei, como eixo principal, a perspectiva teórico-metodológica da Análise Crítica do Discurso, a qual me permitiu explorar as características da comunicação intercultural no contexto teletandem. O corpus de análise é composto por transcrições de um total de 9 sessões orais e por perfis escritos de duas duplas focais que realizaram as interações na modalidade de teletandem institucional integrado (caso da universidade estrangeira) e na modalidade institucional não-integrado (caso da universidade brasileira), em uma parceria do primeiro semestre de 2012. Além disso, também são analisadas narrativas sobre mal-entendidos de 13 brasileiros praticantes de teletandem que realizaram interações com diferentes universidades norte-americanas no primeiro semestre de 2014. A análise dos dados traz contribuições para o contexto da mediação em teletandem, a partir do mapeamento dos aspectos que circundam as interações entre os aprendizes. Dentre os principais resultados, constatei que: (a) os mal-entendidos tendem a ser pouco ou superficialmente negociados, sem consideração dos aspectos sócio-discursivos que os constituem; e (b) eles podem, também, estar relacionados ao conceito de cultura, a conceitos adjacentes (não-entendimento, falha discursiva, desacordo, comunicação malsucedida, dentre outros). Além desses resultados, ao observar os impactos dos mal-entendidos na relação colaborativa de aprendizagem em teletandem, constatei outros: (a) que as negociações de sentidos dos interagentes são permeadas por mecanismos de proteção da face; e (b) quando são evidenciados, pelo menos nos dados do presente estudo, os mal-entendidos desempenharam um papel secundário e não comprometeram a parceria, devido ao princípio de colaboração. A colaboração, característica inerente ao contexto teletandem, relaciona-se aos princípios de reciprocidade, autonomia e uso separado das línguas e define-se pela própria concepção do contexto teletandem no qual os aprendizes são envolvidos em uma parceria de troca mútua e construção colaborativa da aprendizagem de ambos. / This thesis is located within the research field of intercultural communication. More specifically, within the context of a broader project entitled Teletandem: Transculturality in online interactions in foreign languages through webcam. The Teletandem project promotes institutional partnerships between language learners from different universities, via communication tools such as Skype. During regular meetings, pairs of learners of Portuguese as a foreign language who are fluent in English and learners of English who are fluent in Portuguese engage into collaborative interactions by helping the partner practice the target foreign language. The aim of this study is to analyze the process of negotiation of meaning, permeated, predominantly, by linguistic, discursive and social issues, and the emergence of misunderstandings during the interactions between students of Portuguese and students of English as foreign languages. These one-to-one student partnerships were carried out in the first half of 2012 within the contexts of a Brazilian and an American university. In this thesis, the oral session in teletandem is observed from the perspective of the shared process of meaning construction during the interaction between learners. This process includes the mobilization of each interactant’s systems, world and textual knowledge. Such mobilization allows them to position themselves in the world and engage their peers in the interaction. In this process, misunderstanding is considered an intrinsic phenomenon to communication. It can be realized by linguistic and discoursive issues, by misleading information sharing or other occurrences that may cause failure in understanding, misunderstanding, uneaseness, or even laughing situations. This complex phenomenon may neither be understood nor negotiated by the interactants. To study it, I adopted the theoretical and methodological perspective of Critical Discourse Analysis, which allowed me to explore the characteristics of intercultural communication within the context teletandem. The analysis corpus consists of transcriptions of a total of 9 oral sessions in addition to written profiles of two focal pairs of participants who interacted in the mode of integrated institutional teletandem (in the case of the foreign university) and non-integrated institutional mode (in the case of the Brazilian university), from a collaborative partnership in the first half of 2012. In addition, I analyzed narratives about misunderstandings written by 13 Brazilian practitioners of teletandem who underwent interactions with different American universities in the first half of 2014. The analysis of data brings contributions to the context of teletandem mediation through the mapping of the aspects surrounding the interactions between the learners. Among the main results, I found that: (a) misunderstandings tend to be superficially negotiated, without deep consideration of the socio-discursive aspects that constitute them; and (b) they may also be related to the concept of culture, and to adjacent concepts (non-understanding, discursive failure, disagreement, failed communication, among others). In addition to these results, as I observed the impacts of misunderstandings within the collaborative learning relationship of teletandem, I found other results: (a) the negotiations of meanings of the interactants are permeated by face protection mechanisms; and (b) whenever they are shown, at least in the present study data, misunderstandings had a secondary role in the interaction and, because of the principle of collaboration, they did not compromise the partnerships. Collaboration, a characteristic inherent to the context teletandem, is related to the principles of reciprocity, autonomy and separate use of languages and is defined by the conception of the teletandem context itself, in which learners are involved in a mutual exchange and collaborative construction of learning.

Submitted by Fabio Sobreira Campos da Costa (fabio.sobreira@ufpe.br) on 2016-09-13T14:15:56Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) Tese_MariaAldenora-BC.pdf: 4848750 bytes, checksum: 66970c914842392fa73e7041085a4593 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-09-13T14:15:56Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) Tese_MariaAldenora-BC.pdf: 4848750 bytes, checksum: 66970c914842392fa73e7041085a4593 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-03-10 / Este estudo tem por objetivo analisar os efeitos do duplo estranhamento em relatos de participantes-aprendizes de inglês como língua estrangeira em contexto formal no Brasil. Tais relatos se organizam sobre a forma de amostras representativas de sequências discursivas advindas de diários reflexivos e de textos de opinião escritos em 2008 por sujeitos-aprendizes matriculados no Curso de Graduação de Letras de duas instituições superiores da cidade de Recife: Universidade Federal de Pernambuco e Faculdade São Miguel. Para a consecução do objetivo proposto, destacamos os seguintes questionamentos: (a) que configurações de identificações permeiam a (não)inscrição de sujeitos-aprendizes na língua inglesa? (b) que estratégias discursivas se tornam visíveis nas produções escritas de maneira a gerar estranhamentos? (c) o que fica interditado para esse sujeito na relação entre a LM e LE? Para a obtenção das respostas a estas indagações, inserimos a pesquisa na perspectiva teórica interpretativa que se encontra no espaço – conflituoso e tenso – entre as teorias da Análise do Discurso pêcheutiano, da Psicanálise lacaniana e da Desconstrução Filosófica derrideana, para refletir sobre a divisão incontornável do sujeito na sua relação com as línguas materna e estrangeira. Os resultados interpretativos apontam três pontos importantes. Primeiro, que os participantes em sua posição de sujeitos-aprendizes de inglês são todos atravessados por certo estranhamento naquela que consideram a língua do outro-estrangeiro, sem que se apercebam que o estranho é constitutivo da familiaridade com a suposta língua materna. Neste caso, é possível observar que somos, inevitavelmente, estrangeiros dentro do que nomeamos de “língua materna”, que não é propriedade de ninguém, a não ser pelas regras políticas e sociais que o ser humano inventa para (de)marcar fronteiras, fixar o instável, marcar o seu poder, submetendo outros à sua arbitrariedade, à sua lei; ou então pelas regras dos esquecimentos que criam a ilusão de que podemos ser originais ao atingir a completude do dizer. O segundo ponto interpretativo é que a língua estrangeira é marcada pelo confronto, pelo equívoco entre o que lhe foi instaurado pela língua materna (o desejo de unicidade, representante daquilo que já está inscrito no sujeito) e o que foi instaurado pela língua da desestabilização psíquica (o desejo de ver o estranho na forma do diferente, do não sentido, do não-comum e do incompleto). É neste contexto conflituoso que observamos surgirem estratégias inconscientes de arranjos e rearranjos para os processos de identificação como forma ou de apagar o estranho, ou de aproximá-lo do materno, ou de recusá-lo. O terceiro ponto é que, face ao estranho, discursos emergem através de diferentes movimentos de identificação do aprendiz: de dominação, de resistência ao outro, de adaptação, de não despersonalização, de não reconhecimento. / This study aims to analyze the effects of double estrangement in reports of English learners as a foreign language in formal context in Brazil. These reports are organized in the form of representative samples of discursive sequences arising from reflexive journals and opinion texts written in 2008 by subject-learners registered in Graduation Course of Lettres of two higher education institutions in the city of Recife: Universidade Federal de Pernambuco and Faculdade São Miguel. For this purpose, we put the following questions: (a) What are the identification settings that permeate the enrollment or not enrollment of learners in the English language? (b) What are the discursive strategies that become visible in the written productions so as to engender the strangeness? (c) What are the interdictions to this learner in the relation between mother tongue and foreign language? For answers to these questions, we insert the research in the interpretative theoretical perspective that is in space – conflictual and tense – among the theories of Pêcheux’s Discourse Analysis, of Lacan’s Psychoanalysis, and of Derrida’s Philosophical Deconstruction, to reflect on the inevitable division of learner in his/her relation with the mother tongue and foreign language. The interpretive results show us three important points. First, participants in their position of English learners are traversed by a certain estrangement within the language that they regard as the foreigner other, without that they become aware that the Unheimlich is constitutive of familiarity with the supposed mother tongue. In this case, we can see that we are inevitably foreigner within that we named of "mother tongue", which is not the property of anyone, except for the political and social rules that human beings invented to demarcate their frontiers, fix the unstable, mark their power, subjecting others to their arbitrariness, their law; or otherwise by the rules of oblivion that create the illusion that we can be originals to achieve completeness of say. The second interpretive point is that the foreign language is marked by confrontation, by misunderstanding between that which was established by mother tongue (the desire for unity, representative of what is already inscribed in the subject) and which was established by the psychic destabilization language (the desire to see the Unheimlich in the forms of different, no-sense, no-common, and incomplete). In this conflictual context, we observe arise unconscious strategies of arrangements and rearrangements to the identification process as a way or erase the Unheimlich, or approximate it to the mother, or refuse it. The third point is that, given the Unheimlich, discourses emerge through the learner's different identification movements: of domination, of resistance to the other, of adaptation, of not depersonalization, and of lack of recognition.

This project can be seen as a collection of architectural explorations that originate from the concept of misunderstanding. The misunderstanding involves an unconscious transformation that can create something new and unexpected and is therefore an important element both in history and in an individual design process. Five examples of misunderstanding from the history of architecture are described in short texts. From each text a drawing is selected that becomes the starting point for a process where translation between alternating digital and analog representation techniques transform the original object, in multiple steps. For each transformation, a text follows, in which the story is reinterpreted and distorted. The last step in this process is a larger physical object that no longer resembles the original drawing, and which, by its ambiguity begins to live its own life. One theme that emerged during the process has been the relationship between architecture and figures or bodies. / Detta projekt kan ses som en samling arkitektoniska betraktelser som tar sin utgångspunkt ur begreppet missförstånd. Missförståndet innebär en omedveten transformation som kan skapa något nytt och oväntat och är därför ett viktigt inslag både i historien och i en individuell designprocess. Fem exempel på missförstånd ur arkitekturhistorien beskrivs i korta texter. Utifrån dessa väljs ett antal ritningar som blir utgångspunkt för en process där översättningen mellan omväxlande digitala och analoga representationstekniker förvandlar det ursprungliga objektet i flera steg. För varje transformation följer en text där berättelsen omtolkas och förvrids. Det sista steget i denna process är ett fysiskt objekt i större skala vars gestalt är svår att härleda till den ursprungliga ritningen och som genom sin tvetydighet börjar leva sitt eget eget liv. Ett tema som utkristalliserat sig under processen har varit relationen mellan arkitektur och figurer eller kroppar.

Les personnes sans-domicile présentent de manière générale un état de santé dégradé et leur espérance de vie est de loin inférieure à celle de la population logée. Leurs interactions avec les soignants sont traversées de nombreux malentendus qui portent sur leurs rapports au corps, à la santé et au temps. La relation de soin est ainsi problématique et risque de déboucher sur des conflits que chacun tente pourtant d’éviter via des processus de négociation. Notre recherche développe ce paradoxe : alors que les négociations cherchent à pallier les difficultés créées par les nombreux malentendus entre soignants et soignés sans-domicile, le compromis qu’ils mettent au point consiste précisément à maintenir ces malentendus. Notre thèse conjugue une approche compréhensive et interactionniste. Elle se fonde sur un travail de terrain par observations et entretiens, menés à la fois avec des soignants et des soignés sans-domicile. / Homeless people commonly have poor health status and their life expectancy is much shorter than the general population. Their interaction with healthcare professionals is characterised by various misunderstandings, which deal with the different relationships that these actors have with body, health and time. Their interaction is thus problematic and may lead to conflict. However, they are both trying to avoid conflict through negotiation. The aim of this thesis is to develop this paradox: while those negotiations try to prevent the difficulties created by their misunderstandings, the compromise they build consists precisely in maintaining those misunderstandings. This thesis uses a comprehensive and interactionist approach. It is grounded on data collected through observations and interviews held with both homeless people and healthcare workers.