外语教学中加强大学生的跨文化非语言交际能力

跨文化交际是一门涉及多重因素的综合艺术。非语言交际作为交际的一项重要内容,是一种语义非常丰富的交际手段和重要媒介,它贯穿于整个交际过程之中。相比较语言交际而言,它更能反映一个人的真实态度、心理活动和价值观念,直接关系到交际成功与否。文章分析了大学生在跨文化交际中增强非语言交际的重要意义,并就跨文化非语言交际在外语教学中的内容和训练途径进行了初步探讨。     

Intercultural Competence Teaching

It is widely realized that cultural competence is playing an increasingly important role in language teaching because of the close associations between culture and language. To enhance the efficiency o...     

Cultivating critical global citizens through secondary EFL education: a case study of mainland China

This paper examines the enactment of critical literacy pedagogy in secondary English language teaching in the face of globalisation. This qualitative case study signals that global citizenship education (GCE) and English as a foreign language (EFL) teaching can converge through offering equitable and globally contextualised learning opportunities. The overarching themes presented here challenge the dominance of instrumentalist orientations of EFL education in mainland China today while mobilising pedagogical choices that affirm students' local and lived experiences in relation to international socio-political issues. Findings provide EFL educators nuanced insights into how critical global literacies are extended through critical understandings of literacies, interconnections from a personal to a global level, and opportunities for social actions on multicultural issues, thus fostering globally competent and bilingual learners who critically engage with the contested terrain of an increasingly globalised world.     

Forensic child sexual abuse evaluations: assessing subjectivity and bias in professional judgements

Objectives

Evaluators examining the same evidence often arrive at substantially different conclusions in forensic assessments of child sexual abuse (CSA). This study attempts to identify and quantify subjective factors that contribute to such disagreements so that interventions can be devised to improve the reliability of case decisions.

Methods

Participants included 1106 professionals in the field of child maltreatment representing a range of professional positions or job titles and years of experience. Each completed the Child Forensic Attitude Scale (CFAS), a 28-item survey assessing 3 forensic attitudes believed to influence professional judgments about CSA allegations: emphasis-on-sensitivity (i.e., a focus on minimizing false negatives or errors of undercalling abuse); emphasis-on-specificity (i.e., a focus on minimizing false positives or errors of overcalling abuse); and skepticism toward child and adolescent reports of CSA. A subset of 605 professionals also participated in 1 of 3 diverse decision exercises to assess the influence of the 3 forensic attitudes on ratings of case credibility.

Results

Exploratory factor analysis identified 4 factors or attitude subscales that corresponded closely with the original CFAS scales: 2 subscales for emphasis-on-sensitivity and 1 each for emphasis-on-specificity and skepticism. Attitude subscale scores differed significantly by sample source (in-state trainings vs. national conferences), gender, years of experience, and professional position, with Child Protective Service workers unexpectedly more concerned about overcalling abuse and more skeptical of child disclosures than other professionals—a pattern of scores associated with an increased probability of disbelieving CSA allegations. The 3 decision exercises offered validation of the attitude subscales as predictors of professional ratings of case credibility, with adjusted R²s for the three exercises ranging from .06 to .24, suggesting highly variable effect sizes.

Conclusions

Evaluator disagreements about CSA allegations can be explained, in part, by individual differences in 3 attitudes related to forensic decision-making: emphasis-on-sensitivity, emphasis-on-specificity, and skepticism toward child reports of abuse. These attitudes operate as predispositions or biases toward viewing CSA allegations as likely true or likely false. Several strategies for curbing the influence of subjective factors are highlighted including self-awareness of personal biases and team approaches to assessment.     

Measuring scientific contributions with modified fractional counting

We develop and propose a new counting method at the aggregate level for contributions to scientific publications called modified fractional counting (MFC). We show that, compared to traditional complete-normalized fractional counting, it eliminates the extreme differences in contributions over time that otherwise occur between scientists that mainly publish alone or in small groups and those that publish with large groups of co-authors. As an extra benefit we find that scientists in different areas of research turn out to have comparable average contributions to scientific articles. We test the method on scientists at Norway’s largest universities and find that, at an aggregate level, it indeed supports comparability across different co-authorship practices as well as between areas of research. MFC is thereby useful whenever the research output from institutions with different research profiles are compared, as e.g., in the Leiden Ranking. Finally, as MFC is actually a family of indicators, depending on a sensitivity parameter, it can be adapted to the circumstances.     

Adept through adaptation: Third culture individuals’ interpersonal sensitivity

This study evaluated the interpersonal sensitivity of third culture individuals, defined as people who lived in a country other than that of their nationality during their developmental years, by comparing them to mono-cultured individuals. While the notion that third culture individuals develop enhanced perceptual skills as a result of intercultural adaptation is widely accepted in popular and professional literature, this assertion has not been empirically tested. Previous research on intercultural communication competence and adaptation has almost exclusively focused on intercultural exposure among adults. This study collected data from 142 individuals using web-based surveys. The instruments measured two aspects of participants’ interpersonal sensitivity: social and emotional sensitivity. Results showed that third culture individuals have significantly higher social sensitivity than mono-cultured individuals, while mono-cultured individuals reported higher emotional sensitivity. Additionally, no significant correlation was found between greater intercultural experience and increased interpersonal sensitivity.     

An Interpretation of the Intercultural Sensitivity

Intercultural sensitivity is one of the dimensions of intercultural communication competence,which has been widely studied. This paper mainly reviews and interprets studies of intercultural sensitivity, including the concept, application of it and directions for future research.     

跨文化交际视阈下的客家之和合文化价值观

和合文化是中华民族价值观的重要特征,作为中华民族一支系的客家民系,和合文化也是客家价值观的重要特征。本文将通过以跨文化交际研究的视阈,从客家"显形文化"中的建筑、楹联、山歌、方言及民俗风情等方面探寻其"隐形文化"中的"和合"文化价值观,弘扬中华文化,实现"中国梦"。     

结构动力修改在集装箱装卸桥上的应用

结构动态设计中 ,关键问题是使结构达到要求的或预定的动态设计目标。本论文以HT15 0集装箱装卸桥为研究对象 ,用灵敏度分析法对结构进行动力修改 ,并提出结构改进方案 ,最后得到一个具有良好动态特性的桥吊结构