A textbook for students in Japanese, communication, or international studies, assuming no previous background in Japanese language or culture. Donahue (Japanese studies, Nagoya Gakuin U., Japan) first surveys the perceptual barriers to communicating between Japan and North America, then examines the Japanese communication style, differences in discourse, and images of the Japanese in the mass media. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Representing a refereed selection of papers from the 1994 JALT Kansai Conference, this collection of 25 papers contains formal presentations, teaching experiences, research projects, and ideas for effective teaching. The papers and their authors are, as follows: (1) "Culturally Influenced Communication Patterns: Overview, Implications and Applications" (Carol Rinnert); (2) "Giving Cultural Concepts Depth and Validity" (Barbara Fujiwara); (3) "The Problem of Japanology" (Hitoshi Mabuchi); (4) "'I Didn't Know I Knew That'!: Collaborative Invention for Learners and Written Communication" (Jack Kimball); (5) "Internationalisation--As If It Mattered" (John Dougill); (6) "Investigating the English Competence of Students Returned from Overseas" (Yuzo Kimura); (7) "The Communication Competence of the Japanese Observed by American Students Staying in Japan" (Masao Nakabayashi and Motoko Nagao); (8) "Conversational Analysis: Connectives in Simplified Speech" (Masatoshi Tabuki and Hiroshi Shimatani); (9) "Cross-Cultural Training in the Classroom" (Maidy Giber Kiji and Yasuharu Kiji); (10) "Role Expectations of Japanese EFL Students" (John Rockelman); (11) "How Can Learning Strategies Instruction Improve Oral Communication Skills of Japanese Students?" (Jill Robbins); (12) "Balancing Responsibility and Spontaneity in the Teaching of Language" (Joan Headrick Miller); (13) "New Attitudes among Japanese Learners of English" (Yoshiyuki Nakata); (14) "Rock and Roleplay" (John Dougill); (15) "Organizing a CAI Contest" (Kenji Kitao); (16) "Culture and Language through TV Commercials" (Michael Furmanovsky); (17) "Using Music to Enhance Listening and Speaking ESL Learning Activities" (Bret Spencer); (18) "Analyzing Students' Reading Miscues: A Case Study Using First Language Grammar and Cultural Background to Understand a Student's Miscues" (Kelly E. Quinn); (19) "Cultural Aspects of 'Oral Communication A' Textbooks" (Kiyotada Fujita); (20) "Accessible Pronunciation" (Mayumi Hamada and Lee Vogt); (21) "Communicative Competence: The Case of Functions" (S. Kathleen Kitao); (22) "Making the Most of Prescribed Texts" (Scott H. Rule); (23) "Innocents Abroad: Training Japanese for Travel" (Eugene Trabich); (24) "Self-Directed Learning: The Learning Process of the Future" (Johann Junge and Damien Andrews); and (25) "Teaching the English Newspaper Effectively" (Kenji Kitao). (NKA)

This book has the chapters from the Handbook of International and Intercultural Communication, Second Edition relating to the structure and growth of cross-cultural and intercultural communication. With an expanded forward by William Gudykunst it is an invaluable resource for students and lecturers of communications studies

Today, students are more familiar with other cultures than ever before because of the media, Internet, local diversity, and their own travels abroad. Using a social constructionist framework, Inter/Cultural Communication provides today's students with a rich understanding of how culture and communication affect and effect each other. Weaving multiple approaches together to provide a comprehensive understanding of and appreciation for the diversity of cultural and intercultural communication, this text helps students become more aware of their own identities and how powerful their identities can be in facilitating change—both in their own lives and in the lives of others.

Japan is heterogeneous and culturally diverse, both historically through ancient waves of immigration and in recent years due to its foreign relations and internationalization. However, Japan has socially, culturally, politically, and intellectually constructed a distinct and homogeneous identity. More recently, this identity construction has been rightfully questioned and challenged by Japan’s culturally diverse groups. This book explores the discursive systems of cultural identities that regenerate the illusion of Japan as a homogeneous nation. Contributors from a variety of disciplines and methodological approaches investigate the ways in which Japan’s homogenizing discourses are challenged and modified by counter-homogeneous message systems. They examine the discursive push-and-pull between homogenizing and heterogenizing vectors, found in domestic and transnational contexts and mobilized by various identity politics, such as gender, sexuality, ethnicity, foreign status, nationality, multiculturalism, and internationalization. After offering a careful and critical analysis, the book calls for a complicating of Japan’s homogenizing discourses in nuanced and contextual ways, with an explicit goal of working towards a culturally diverse Japan. Taking a critical intercultural communication perspective, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of Japanese Studies, Japanese Culture and Japanese Society.

Provides multiple viewpoints and pathways of adopting mindful communication methodologies that would promote sustainable development goals.

Globalisation makes our world appear smaller: it is easier to connect, communicate and do business with people all over the world. But cultural differences remain and challenge globalized knowledge communication and transfer. This book examines cross-cultural management within multinational enterprises (MNEs), focusing in particular on how cultural differences influence the transfer of knowledge between different units within individual corporations. Based on detailed empirical analysis of 267 companies in Germany and Japan, it considers the relative effectiveness of inter-cultural and intra-cultural knowledge transfer; identifies the factors that inhibit or facilitate successful knowledge transfer; and suggests how management processes of MNEs can be improved. It demonstrates that although cultural differences do not necessarily influence the selection and transmission of knowledge overseas, they do have a strong impact on how that knowledge is received, integrated and put into practice locally. The book shows how knowledge is accepted differently in Europe and Asia and which factors have the strongest impact on efficient knowledge transfer. It suggests that to improve cross-cultural management MNEs should focus less on upgrading the technology that allows knowledge transfer, and more on the capabilities and beliefs of individual employees.

Knowledge translation is a relatively new research topic originating in fields of health sciences and economic development. It is of great interest to knowledge management researchers and practitioners.

This fascinating book is an insightful exploration of Western perceptions and representations of Japanese culture and society, drawing on social and cultural psychological ideas around stereotypes and intercultural relations. Hinton considers how the West views the Japanese as an ideologically different “other”, and proposes a cultural theory of stereotypes from which to explore Western observations of the Japanese. The book explores Western socio-cultural representations of the Japanese alongside Edward Said’s well-known theory of Orientalism. It examines the West’s intercultural relationship with Japan, and how this has changed over time, to show how the Japanese have been represented in the Western mind throughout history, to the present day. Hinton argues that our view of other cultures is based on our own cultural expectations, which involve complex issues of meaning-making and perceived cultural differences. This book foregrounds the research through accounts of Westerners about the Japanese, to reveal how cultural representations can influence the ways in which people from different cultures communicate in interaction, and how intercultural understanding or misunderstanding can arise. By reflecting on the changing Western representations of the Japanese, and how and why these have emerged, this book will be of interest to students, academics and general readers interested in stereotypes, cultural psychology, intercultural communication, anthropology and Japanese culture and history.