The relevance of the problems stated in the article is determined by the fact that with the expansion of relations between the nations all over the world, the problems caused by misunderstanding, religion differences, and lack of cultural tolerance, have become more vital than ever. In this regard, this article is aimed at studying the conditions…

To understand the challenges and their causes in interactions between Western supervisors and international doctoral students, we conducted a self-study of our experiences as a Chinese international student and her Dutch supervisor during her doctoral research project. We found the supervisor and the student to differ in their expectations of the…

Although the characters speak English, Anne Bronte's "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" explores interactions among representatives of different speech communities. The protagonist, Helen Graham, moves through communities differing enough from hers to create misunderstandings. Her difficulties can be clarified through Hymes' model of the speech…

This study looked at ESL adult speakers' use of coping strategies in their conversations with native speakers in the United States, as a counter-discourse. More specifically, the discursive negotiation strategies used by 6 ESL adult speakers of varied ethnicities and linguistic backgrounds were analyzed, both inside and outside ESL classrooms. The…

Humour is a universal phenomenon and has been studied in many fields of research such as literature, linguistics, psychology, sociology and philosophy. Humour is often expressed through language and it is little wonder that failure to understand humorous language causes breakdowns in communication. What is humorous might be culturally defined, and…

The international mobility of knowledge workers, as reflected in the vast numbers of international (or immigrant) scholars, help provide the intellectual infrastructure of several higher institutions of learning and research across the world. Although the large numbers involved reflect an apparent success of this phenomenon, there are hidden…

To a large extent education can be thought of as a communication process among the participants. This article focuses on distance education, which has both the general communication processes that in-person education venues possess, and also communication specific to the technologies that mediate the teaching and learning taking place at a…

We report a study that uses retrospective analysis to understand the relationships between American and Chinese participants' utterances during a conversation and the moment-by-moment feelings and reactions they subsequently described. Intercultural and intracultural pairs of Chinese and American participants talked about a fictional crime story…

Today there is a strong tendency to involve local citizens in community work, and to mobilize social forces in poor urban districts. We will focus on one specific method used to educate and help immigrant parents raise and foster their children. This method is described as part of a wider ambition to integrate and involve immigrants in Swedish…

The main purpose of this descriptive research is to explore the fact that why students are less motivated towards English language learning at undergraduate level. It also throws light upon the very facts of motivation with regard to the factors like student-teacher relationship, class room environment, self esteem or self respect, and willingness…

It is often observed that most international students are less likely to express their opinions in class. The lack of communicative engagement has negative impacts on students' academic performance. The objective of this article was to explore a range of possible explanations for international students' lack of engagement in class discussions and…

Intercultural miscommunication occurs when there is a breakdown in communication between speakers of two different cultures and languages due to cultural differences and/or sociolinguistic transfer. Intercultural miscommunication has tremendous impact on ESOL students' academic learning at North American schools. This paper examines the nature of…

African American youth have been disciplined and dismissed from classrooms for engaging in culturally-based communication practices that teachers misinterpret and perceive as disruptive. Teachers have significant power in how they communicate with their students. White teachers should be especially aware of this power because misunderstandings…

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (2004) mandates that schools facilitate parent participation in planning the Individual Education Program (IEP). However, culturally and linguistically diverse parents are less likely to feel fully included in the IEP process. In this article we examine three sources of cross-cultural…

There are now significant numbers of children who speak a language other than English when they enter the formal school system in Australia. Many of these children come from a language background that is entirely different from the school language. Many Indigenous children, however, come from creole-speaking backgrounds where their home language…