Using systemic functional linguistics as method in identifying semogenic strategies in intercultural communication: A study of the collocation of “time” and “different” by Swedish managers with international management experiences

Theoretical foundations to intercultural communication (ICC) are integrative and interdisciplinary but few have studied ICC from a systemic linguistics perspective. Viewing communication as a dialogic process, this study takes a systemic functional linguistics (SFL) view of language as a social semiotic where semogenesis (meaning making) is both construed and construed by context of situation which in turn is construed by culture. Using interview data collected from Swedish managers who have extensive international management experiences, this study aims to illustrate how SFL can be used as an adaptive theory and framework of discourse analysis in uncovering semogenic strategies in ICC processes.     

When in Rome… A longitudinal investigation of the predictors and the development of student sojourners’ host cultural behavioral engagement

International educational mobility is an important instrument for immersing multicultural diversity into the thinking, feeling, and acting of young global citizens. Yet, little is known about the development of students’ host-cultural behavioral engagement during a stay abroad and the individual characteristics that predict it. We adapted the theory of planned behavior to investigate the dynamic longitudinal interplay between individual predictors and students’ host-cultural behavioral engagement over the course of the stay abroad. Data come from the first four waves of the project Mobility and acculturation experiences of students (MAPS; N = 1,225). Results confirmed the influence of acculturation attitudes, subjective norms, and multicultural self-efficacy on host-cultural behavioral engagement over time. Simultaneously, host-cultural behavioral engagement was identified as a relevant predictor of adolescents’ individual development abroad.     

Does teachers’ ethnic bias stress them out? The role of teachers’ implicit attitudes toward and expectations of ethnic minority students in teachers’ burnout

Research on diversity-related burnout has led to a variety of mixed findings. Several factors have been investigated that may come into play in this relationship (e.g., ethnic school composition). In this study, the hypothesis is that the experience of burnout may result from teachers’ own implicit attitudes and expectations towards ethnic minority students, which are usually negative, rather than explicit prejudices, which are found to be positive Two different implicit measures (Implicit Association Test and Relational Responding Task) and a scale to assess ethnic prejudices have been used. Implicit attitudes toward ethnic minority students and implicit expectations of students’ performance were both negative, but only implicit attitudes predicted teachers’ burnout. Explicit prejudice was low and did not predict burnout. These results highlight the role of teachers’ ethnic implicit attitudes towards ethnic minority students in their own well-being. Future research should further investigate this relationship to get a better understanding of how implicit aspects are involved in the development of burnout.     

A More Perfect European Union?: The Transnational Networks of the European Union’s Embassy Open House in Washington,D.C.

Annually, the Delegation of the European Union (EU) in Washington, D.C., holds an embassy open house day for its 27 member nations to celebrate European culture and educate tourists on the functions of EU politics and international relations. Amidst an ongoing debt crisis and a continuing exploration of its identity as a supranational entity, “Embassy Day” affords an opportunity to see the EU as a spatial network uneasily caught in the tensions between the often nostalgic nationalism of its constituent countries and the future-oriented technocratic transnationalism of its composite alliance. By analyzing the cultural artifacts of Embassy Day from its handouts, maps, speeches, architecture, and performances, I treat Embassy Day as a “rhetorical experience” and the EU embassies as a transnational network imposed over the city space of Washington, D.C. In the process, I argue that the very fragmented nature of the open house’s complex simulation of Europe mirrors the fragmented nature of European identity itself, and thus displays the anxiety around how the EU places itself and its power vis-à-vis the global community.