Cultures in Conversation introduces readers to the ethnographic study of intercultural and social interactions through the analysis of conversations in which various cultural orientations are operating. Author Donal Carbaugh presents his original research on conversation practices in England, Finland, Russia, Blackfeet County, and the United States, demonstrating how each is distinctive in its communication codes--particularly in its use of symbolic meanings, forms of interaction, norms, and motivational themes. Examining conversation in this way demonstrates how cultural lives are active in conversations and shows how conversation is a principal medium for the coding of selves, social relationships, and societies. Representing 20 years of research, this volume offers unique insights into the ways social interactions not only gain shape from, but also are formative of cultures. It makes a significant contribution to communication scholarship, and will be illuminating reading in courses focusing on cultural communication, language and social interaction, intercultural pragmatics, and linguistics.

The eleven essays in this collection address various aspects of cross-cultural studies. Contributors were visiting scholars at the Center for Cultural Research at Aarhus University in Denmark. The clarity provided by their reflections concerning both the rewards and limitations of cross-cultural studies will be increasingly important now that we've entered the pluralistic world of the new millennium.

This book proposes a radical shift in the way the world thinks about itself by highlighting the significance of Cross-Cultural Conversations. Moving beyond conventional boundaries, it examines the language in which histories are written; analyzes how scientific technology is changing the idea of identity; and highlights the need for a larger identity across nationality, race, religion, gender, ethnicity and class. It asks for a concerted effort to engage each other in open conversational forums on a range of contemporary global issues, alter our attitudes toward self and the other, and unlearn prejudices that perpetuate the practice of divisive identities. The book also explores critical themes such as political actions, solidarity-in-diversity, clash of social identities, tensions between nationalism and globalism, the quest for global peace and authentic meeting of world religions. Further, it discusses the evolving connection between science and religion, focusing on key philosophical ideas that have permeated the Indian cultural soil. The book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of philosophy, religious studies, science and technology studies, and cultural studies.

Accessible and lively introduction to the management of cross-cultural communication for undergraduate and postgraduate business students. Drawing on the latest research and incorporating the author's own extensive experience of working in different cultural settings, it addresses the core theory and practice. An essential course companion.

Peter Gibian explores the key role played by Oliver Wendell Holmes in what was known as America's 'Age of Conversation'. He was both a model and an analyst of the dynamic conversational form, which became central to many areas of mid-nineteenth-century life. Holmes' multivoiced writings can serve as a key to open up the closed interiors of Victorian America, whether in saloons or salons, parlours or clubs, hotels or boarding-houses, schoolrooms or doctors' offices. Combining social, intellectual, medical, legal and literary history with close textual analysis, and setting Holmes in dialogue with Emerson, Hawthorne, Melville, Fuller, Alcott and finally with his son, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Junior, Gibian radically redefines the context for our understanding of the major literary works of the American Renaissance.

This interdisciplinary study examines the impact of cultural values on discourse.

Diploma Thesis from the year 2007 in the subject Business economics - Offline Marketing and Online Marketing, grade: 1, Berlin School of Economics, language: English, abstract: The purpose of the present thesis is to examine if and to which extent cultures converge in an international business environment and if intercultural competence has a bearing on it. Therefore, theoretical and practical insights in the subject of culture, its implicit and explicit differences, as well as its measurements will be provided. Due to the fact that communication - as a major cultural attribute - is the most obvious level on which cultural differences are recognized, insights in the topic of cross-cultural and intercultural communication will be given. A thorough discussion of the concept of culture and communication is beyond the scope of this paper, but in what follows, an adequate overview of recognized and well-known researchers? theories and findings will be provided. Besides giving theoretical background knowledge, it will be examined whether the internationally defined soft skills of intercultural competence can be seen as an approach towards a universal interculture, likewise a universal communication. The topic of the present thesis will be illustrated by a case study, as well as researched and evaluated by a field study conducted at one of the most culturally diverse organization - the United Nations. Findings should only expose tendencies to confirm or disprove previous research findings in the field of cross-cultural comparative research and intercultural communication. It is not intended to present new empirical findings.