In Japanese society, it is inevitable to use polite expressions in public. Adult Japanese must use polite expressions whenever they meet anybody for the first time. Hence, it is possible to say that all adult Japanese know the usage of politeness vaguely, but not clearly. It is because they learn it through socializing with others. An examination…

This paper considers fundamental questions raised in the current debate about Afrocentric research methods in the social sciences. The discussion covers feminist, critical theory, radical humanist, radical structuralist, ethnographic, naturalistic inquiry, constructivism, and phenomenological inquiry approaches to research. The working definition…

A discussion of the differences between the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), an American test battery, and the Cambridge English Examinations (Cambridge), a British battery, focuses on the different approaches to language test development embodied in the tests as the source of difficulty in translating between them for individual…

This paper argues that instructors of child development should use literature to supplement theory and research in their courses. It is argued that literature elucidates psychological concepts with real life examples while deepening students' appreciation for the complexity and diversity of human development. Particularly effective in achieving…

A number of cross-cultural researchers have proposed that the most important dimension of cross-cultural variation is that of individualism-collectivism. It seems likely that general cultural dimensions such as individualism and collectivism might be expressed in ideas about potential mates. The purpose of this study was to directly compare the…

This paper is an account of Russian and American educators exploring the use of experiential education in schools and organizations. The goal of experiential education is to find harmony between the individual and the group. In August of 1988, 18 students and 2 professors from the Soviet Union came to Dartmouth (New Hampshire) as part of a…

Comparisons of British English and American English in the past have concentrated on similarities and differences at the phonetic, semantic, and syntactic level, while overlooking variation at the socio-cultural level. This paper examines how cultural differences are reflected in five speech acts: requesting, thanking, apologizing, complimenting,…

Learning to read and write effectively is a challenging task for many adults, particularly for those who are deaf or hard-of-hearing. In spite of concerted efforts by educators to facilitate the development of literacy skills in deaf individuals, most deaf high school graduates read English at roughly a third or fourth grade level as determined by…

A junior-senior level course in listening focuses on a 2- to 3-day unit on examining communication and cultural diversity. In this unit, the primary element is an activity involving student participation, and the major theme of this activity is cultural values and norms. Attribution training, a technique designed to teach persons from one culture…

This document is a collection of three lessons to assist high school teachers in introducing the Arab world to their classrooms. The intended purpose of the lessons is to promote greater cross cultural awareness, understanding of the interdependence of peoples and nations, and appreciation for the different approaches other cultures may choose in…

The place to begin curricular change (in response to changing demography and cultural diversity) is with establishing general learning goals that the changes will be designed to address. The first criteria for any curricular decisions for a basic speech communication course should be: change must provide an opportunity for learning that is…

This paper is concerned with a discourse-based approach to lexis and, in particular, the discourse role of lexical patterns or lexicalized sequences which are completely or partially preassembled and more or less fixed in form. Lexical patterns, their function in a community's codes, and the cultural differences that may arise in their use, are…

A doctoral student's interest in self-culture connections led her to observe an English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) writing class focused on autobiography and read all the students' papers. Autobiographical writing not only gives ESL students a chance to write about what matters to them, but the teacher can capitalize on students' cultural…

One professional translator's experiences in teaching a course on the problems of English/Spanish literary translation, using a number of Spanish and Russian poems and short stories and their different kinds of translations for texts are discussed. The process of analyzing the literature for translation difficulties is outlined, as well as…

Cultural values affect both the quality and equality of women's lives on individual and social levels. Values about women's roles vary cross-culturally. This study investigated adolescents' values about women's roles in the Phillipines and the United States. A tri-method study was conducted with adolescents aged 11 to 17 who attended schools in…