Videoconferencing and community of practice interaction. Semantic, pragmatic and intercultural aspects of students' communication in English language classes.

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Authors

HRADILOVÁ Alena KATRŇÁKOVÁ Hana MORGAN John ŠTĚPÁNEK Libor

Year of publication 2011
Type Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source Discourse and Interaction
MU Faculty or unit

Language Centre

Citation
Field Linguistics
Keywords video-conferencing; intercultural communication; sources of misunderstanding
Attached files
Description This paper explores samples of community of practice communication in multicultural videoconferencing (VC) classes between English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and English for Specific Purposes (ESP) students at Masaryk University and their conterparts at Aberystwyth University. It comments on a number of pragmatic and semantic issues that have arisen during the videoconferences in addition to situations baused by a lack of intercultural awareness. Examples of students' performances show hoe face-threatening acts are percieved to have been produced by non-native speakers of English. Differences in the reactions of native and non-native speakers of English are then exemplified. The paper further examines the difficulties in distinguishing the levels of formality, directness and politeness and the misunderstandings which arise from the use of certain loaded expressions or metphors without knowledge of cultural differences and sensitivities. To conclude, the authors suggest the importance of teaching pragmatics and raising intercultural sensitivity in international professional communication, where English is used as lingua franca.
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