Intercultural Communication and Collaboration within and across Sociolinguistic Environments

Sun Mar 8 14:27:38 UTC 2009

Intercultural Communication and Collaboration within and across
Sociolinguistic Environments

Call for Papers

The 15th International Conference on Cross-Cultural Communication

September 18-20, 2009
Kumamoto Gakuen University, Japan

The continuing globalization of the world brings ever-increasing
opportunities to share knowledge and ideas across sociolinguistic
boundaries. This is not simply a matter of the world becoming smaller
or more alike—on the contrary, recognition and respect of diversity
have become prerequisites in face of the need to understand and get
along with each other. Moreover, intercultural sensitivity and
accommodation are necessary for successful collaboration towards
exchange and resolution of global issues.

The importance of effective communication across different
environments has long been recognized; however, it is becoming more
apparent that the need for enhanced communication skills to share
ideas effectively even within the same sociolinguistic environment is
posing an ever increasing challenge. This is at least partly due to
the relative decrease in face-to-face communication that has become a
dangerous side-effect of the bewildering increase in methods of global
communication and the speed of change in the environment itself. The
challenge of successful cooperation not only across but also within
sociolinguistic and cultural boundaries, then, remains in the
limelight today.

This year’s conference aims to bring together experts in
cross-cultural communication studies with a focus on recognition of
the changing communicative environment in which we live and work, with
the hope that new ideas and opportunities for collaboration will
result. As an interdisciplinary conference on human communication
across cultures, the suggested paper topics, therefore, cover a wide
range of communication related themes.

The following are potential paper topics.
· Approaches to intercultural communication study
· Business communication across cultures
· Communication accommodation
· Communication and globalization
· Communication education
· Computer mediated communication
· Conflict and negotiation
· Crisis management
· Cross-cultural adaptation
· Cultural and linguistic diversity
· Cultural identity and globalization
· Digital communication
· Ethnicity and communication
· Group or organizational communication across cultures
· Harmony and diversity
· Health communication across cultures
· Information technology and culture
· Interpersonal/intercultural communication
· Intercultural / global communication competence
· Language and cultural education
· Language and media
· Language and society
· Language attitude
· Language change and language stability
· Language policy
· Media and culture
· Media literacy
· Rhetoric studies
· Risk communication across cultures
· Theory of intercultural communication from different perspectives
· Research methodology in intercultural communication studies
· Translation theory
· Verbal and nonverbal communication across cultures
· Interpersonal communication across cultures

Guidelines for Submission
Categories: Abstracts and panel proposals may be submitted.
· Abstract, 150-200 words in English, including affiliations, email
addresses and mailing addresses for all authors. See the sample format
of the abstract below.
· Panel proposal reflecting the conference theme may be submitted. All
panel proposals should provide a 100-word rationale and 150 word
abstract of each panelist's paper, mailing addresses and email
addresses of all panelists.

Deadline: Please submit the abstracts and the complete panel proposals
online as an MS Word attachment by May 15, 2009. Completed paper
should be done by the time of the conference. Authors will be informed
at the conference where to send the completed paper and when the
deadline is for the consideration of being published in one of the two
issues of the IAICS journal, Intercultural Communication Studies,
which will be devoted to conference papers. All submissions will be
carefully reviewed.

Conference language: International English
Organizational website:
http://www2.kumagaku.ac.jp/teacher/~judy/cgi/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=IAICS2009.Homepage
http://www.uri.edu/iaics/
Submission to: Judy Yoneoka and/or Yuko Takeshita at iaics2009 at kumagaku.ac.jp

Sample Abstract

The Development and Validation of the Intercultural Sensitivity Scale
Guo-Ming Chen, Ph.D.
Department of Communication Studies
University of Rhode Island
Kingston, RI 02881, USA
Tel: (401) 874-4731
Email: gmchen at uri.edu
William J. Starosta, Ph.D.
Department of Communication
Howard University
Washington, D. C. 20059
Tel: (202) 806-4039
Email: wstarosta at fac.howard.edu

Keywords: Intercultural Sensitivity Scale, reliability, validity,
intercultural communication

The present study developed and assessed reliability and validity of a
new instrument, the Intercultural Sensitivity Scale (ISS). Based on a
review of the literature, 44 items thought to be important for
intercultural sensitivity were generated. A sample of 414 college
students rated these items and generated a 24-item final version of
the instrument which contains five factors. An assessment of
concurrent validity from 162 participants indicated that the ISS was
significantly correlated with other related scales, including
interaction attentiveness, impression rewarding, self-esteem,
self-monitoring, and perspective taking. In addition, the predicted
validity test from 174 participants showed that individuals with high
ISS scores also scored high in intercultural effectiveness and
intercultural communication attitude scales. Potential limitations and
future direction of the study were discussed as well.

-- 
David Boromisza-Habashi, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Communication
University of Colorado
270 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0270, USA

office location: Hellems 78
work phone: +1 (303) 735 5076
work fax: +1 (303) 492 8411

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