Digital consumer culture and digital acculturation

The advent of digital technology has significantly transformed human lives and added new dimensions to our consumption behaviours. Responding to these constant changes in socio-cultural dynamics, this commentary defines and theorises digital consumer culture and explains how digital consumer culture facilitates digital acculturation. We pioneer a conceptual framework that explains the reciprocal, iterative and dynamic inter-relationships between digital consumer culture and digital acculturation and spells out the three inherence characteristics of digital consumer culture. These include consumer empowerment, reciprocity between online and offline worlds and decompartmentalisation of identities; together they make digital consumer culture unique. Finally, by identifying and discussing three outcomes of digital acculturation: digital integration, digital separation and digital deprivation, we make further contribution to theories, with the view of generating debates in studying acculturation in the digital age.     

文化移入与二语习得——文化学习的原则与策略

语言表达、体现和象征文化现实。外语学习过程实际上就是一个语言学习与文化体验的统一体。外语学习过程中的文化学习直接关系语言学习的最终结果。要在二语习得过程中顺利实现文化移入,学习者必须遵循语言学习与文化体验相结合、语义学习与语用学习相结合以及跨文化差异对比的原则。文化学习的有效策略包括教师在课堂教学活动中的指导性干预、习惯性的广泛课外阅读以及跨文化交际实践。只有在语言意识与文化意识同时培养的基础上,学习者才能学好目标语言,并在实践中自如地运用。     

少数民族大学生的文化适应与民族认同——以云南民族大学为例

随着我国民族高等教育事业的发展,少数民族大学生在学校教育中的文化适应逐渐受到研究者的关注.当少数民族大学生脱离自己的母体文化群体进入大学校园后,必然要面临着来自与原来的生活环境和文化环境有较大差异的主流文化的考验和民族认同的困境.通过对云南民族大学少数民族大学生文化适应与民族认同的调查分析,提出引导少数民族大学生尽快适应大学生活和加强民族认同的对策.     

Research on the Survival Environment and Acculturation of Zhuang＇s Wielding Lions

作为入选首批广西壮族自治区级非物质文化遗产名录的＂壮族舞狮＂,其本身具有浓厚的民族色彩和文化底蕴,需要世代相承。通过运用文献资料、访谈、田野调查等方法,从人类学、社会学的视角,对＂壮族舞狮＂的生存环境和文化适应进行关联性研究,进而提出旨在改变其命运的策略和行动的科学依据。     

跨文化交际中的文化认知因素

学习第二语言,势必要学习该语言所承载的文化。影响外语学习的文化认知因素可以概括为文化定式、二语习得态度、文化认知图式、文化适应和社会距离等。这些因素在语言学习过程中往往互相交织,不可分割,他们在外语学习和跨文化交际中会对学习和交际效果产生多重影响,只有充分考虑到各方面的因素,并且最大可能地发挥各因素的积极作用,减少各因素的消极影响,才能使外语学习取得更好的效果,使跨文化交际顺利进行。     

Isolationism,exceptionalism, and acculturation: the internationalisation of Mormon education in Mexico

Faiths have long used education as a means to preserve and transmit cultural values from one generation to the next. However, they have also employed education to unite people of different cultures and proselytise others to their worldview. Over the last two centuries, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Latter-day Saint, LDS, or Mormon) has exercised these same patterns in its educational programmes, especially internationally, as it has sought to expand around the world. Using Mormonism's Juárez Academy in northern Mexico as a historical case study, our paper demonstrates how transnationally governed religion-led school systems can confront the challenge of exceptionalism by embracing local culture and customs while maintaining the heritage of their faith tradition. The study advances the field of international education, highlighting the issues of globalisation, cultural transfer, and transnational educational governance.     

论礼仪教育与城市新移民子女的亚文化跨越

城市新移民子女的亚文化跨越要经历文化适应、社会融入、文化融合三个阶段。礼仪教育能够帮助城市新移民子女达成亚文化跨越各阶段的多数任务。在文化适应阶段,礼仪教育可以引导城市新移民子女与城市原住民子女实现和平共处,帮助他们理解、接受城市主流文化的核心价值观,并养成城市社会认同和推崇的良好行为习惯;在社会融入阶段,礼仪教育不仅可以为他们融入城市原住民及其子女社交圈提供中介或桥梁,融洽他们与城市原住民子女的关系,还可以帮助他们形成交往意识、礼仪行为和交往技能;在文化融合阶段,礼仪教育既可以减少乡村文化、“城中村”亚文化对他们的不良影响,促进他们认同、接受城市文化,实现同化,而且也可以促成他们与城市原住民子女的双向影响,从而实现文化融合。因此,礼仪教育应当成为我国城市新移民子女教育的重要模式。     

英汉言语行为中的称赞语及应答模式

称赞是普遍的社会语言现象,其句法、语义结构和应答模式都受其文化背景的影响,呈现出各自的特点。提出礼貌原则的各项准则有明显不同的侧重,这与东西方"礼"的传统价值观念、"礼貌"言语行为的认识层面和东西方所具有的谦虚原则与合作原则有着密切的联系,而同时不同的语言表达习惯将随时代发展逐渐趋同。     

The development of the Khmer acculturation scale

The purpose of this investigation was to develop a multidimensional, culture-specific acculturation measure, the Khmer acculturation scale (KAS), for use with Cambodians living in the United States. The KAS development was guided by Berry's [W. H. Holtzman, T. Z. Bornemann (Eds.), (1990) Mental health of immigrants and refugees, Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, Austin, TX, pp. 90–102] framework and involved two studies. The first study involved the derivation of 130 questionnaire items and demonstration of content validity using 22 expert informants and judges, relevant literature on Cambodian and American cultures, and existing acculturation scales that had been developed for other ethnic groups. Items were created for two KAS subscales written in both English and Khmer, the Khmer orientation scale (KOS) and Anglo-American orientation scale (AOS). The second study inspected reliability and validity of KAS scores obtained from 410 Cambodian participants living in nine states. The two subscales were reduced in length via factor analyses and were found to have high internal consistency and stability reliability. Criterion validity was supported by a modest significant correlation between the KAS and scores on the Suinn–Lew Asian self-identity acculturation scale [Suinn, Rikard-Figueroa, Lew, & Vigil, Educ. Psychol. Meas. 47 (1987) 401]. Construct validity evidence for the KAS was indicated by its factor structure and support for the following predictions derived from Berry's acculturation framework: (1) Those who were in the higher SES and educational levels, of a younger generation, and employed were more acculturated compared to their counterparts; (2) Lower psychological distress as measured by the Hopkins Symptom Checklist-25 [Mollica, Wyshak, de Marneffe, Khuon, & Lavelle, Am. J. Psych. 144(4) (1987b) 497] was associated with greater acculturation; (3) Those who acculturate in the integration mode, on average, scored in the normal range on the HSCL-25, while those in the separation mode scored, on average, in the clinical range.     

Changing times in the classroom: teaching as a ‘crowded profession’

Abstract

This article reports on a study of teachers in New South Wales (Australia) and their practices surrounding outcomes assessment and reporting, which took place in 2003 and 2004 as a follow-up to a major study in 1995. The study explored whether the main focus of a teacher's work involves planning, teaching, assessing, rewarding and sharing in their classroom and with colleagues, and whether this focus suffered many distractions in the flurry of reforms of the past decade. One example of ‘changing times’ in the classroom has been the devolution of school management, which caused a number of diversions of energy and time away from teaching and learning. Yet even in the area of curriculum schools were struggling with a range of issues, many brought on by the advent of outcomes-based curricula. In seeking to change what happens in schools, teachers argued that they needed clear and well-argued reasons to change. This article thus provides an update on the relevant research, beginning with national and international experiences, before a discussion of workload, the place of parents and school organizational effects. One finding is that alongside a ‘crowded curriculum’, teaching has become a ‘crowded profession’. The article concludes with reflections on how changing times in the classroom mean social reform as well as educational reform, in which teaching and learning shape effects and consequences from educational events so that knowledge grows through experiences, measuring possibilities not outcomes.