Abstract
Training programmes and materials that aim to enable professionals to function effectively in international contexts often draw on Hofstedian approaches to intercultural communication (ICC); in other words, they employ an essentialist framework which puts nationality at the core of conceptions of culture (Piller, Intercultural Communication: A Critical Introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011). While seductive, they arguably draw on and reinforce stereotypes, and may damage rather than facilitate ICC (Handford, The Language of Business Meetings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010; Piller 2011). This chapter outlines an alternative approach to ICC training, developed over several years with an engineering multinational based in Japan. The core aim of the training was to change the organisational discourse around ‘internationalisation’. Trainees were introduced to the concepts of discourse, Discourse (Gee, 2005) and stereotypes (Bar-Tal, 1997), and were encouraged to critically apply them to their demanding work contexts.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bar-Tal, D. (1997). Formation and Change of Ethnic and National Stereotypes: An Integrative Model. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 20, 341–370.
Baskerville, R. (2003). Hofstede Never Studied Culture. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 28(1), 1–14.
Bauman, Z. (2007). Liquid Times. Living in an Age of Uncertainty. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Befu, H. (2001). Hegemony of Homogeneity. Portland: Trans Pacific Press.
Byram, M. (1997). Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Cameron, D., Fraser, E., Harvey, P., Rampton, B., & Richardson, K. (1993). Ethics, Advocacy and Empowerment: Issues of Method in Researching Language. Language and Communication, 13(2), 81–94.
Davis, K. (1992). Validity and Reliability in Qualitative Research on Second Language Acquisition and Teaching. TESOL Quarterly, 26(3), 605–608.
Emmett, S., & Gorse, C. (2003). Construction Communication. Oxford: Blackwell.
Fiske, S. (2002). What We Know Now About Bias and Intergroup Conflict, the Problem of the Century. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11(4), 123–128.
Gee, J. P. (2005). An Introduction to Discourse Analysis. Abingdon: Routledge.
Gelman, S. (2003). The Essential Child: Origins of Essentialism in Everyday Thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Global Engineering Excellence Initiative. (2006). In Search of Global Engineering Excellence: Educating the Next Generation of Engineers for the Global Workplace, Final Report. Hanover, Germany: Continental AG. Retrieved from www.cont-online.com.
Handford, M. (2010). The Language of Business Meetings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Handford, M., Lisboa, M., Koester, A., & Pitt, A. (2011). Business Advantage: Upper Intermediate. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Handford, M., van Maele, J., Matous, P., & Maemura, Y. (2019). Which Culture? A Critical Analysis of Intercultural Communication in Engineering Education. Journal of Engineering Education, 108, 161–177.
Hinton, P. (2002). Stereotypes, Cognition and Culture. Hove: Psychology Press.
Hiramatsu, Y. (2001). Kyoiku Kenshu Kooka no Sokutei to Hyouka no Shikata (Measurement and Evaluation of Training Effect). Tokyo: Interwork Publication.
Hofstede, G. (2001). Culture’s Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions, and Organizations across Nations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Holliday, A., Kullman, M., & Hyde, J. (2017). Intercultural Communication. An Advanced Resource Book for Students (3rd ed.). London: Routledge.
Kahlemann, D. (2011). Thinking Fast and Slow. London: Penguin.
Kirkpatrick, D. L. (1994). Evaluating Training Programs: The Four Levels. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler.
Long, M. (2005). Methodological Issues in Learner Needs Analysis. In M. Long (Ed.), Second Language Needs Analysis (pp. 19–76). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McSweeney, B. (2002). The Essentials of Scholarship: A Reply to Hofstede. Human Relations, 55(11), 1363–1372.
MLIT (Ministry of Land Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism). (2010). Kokusai Tenkai Kanmin Renkei Bun’ya (Report of the Division for International Expansion and Public Private Linkages). Retrieved from http://www.mlit.go.jp/common/000115371.pdf.
Mor Barak, M. E., & Travis, D. (2009). Diversity and Organizational Performance. In Y. Hansfeld (Ed.), Human Services as Complex Organizations (2nd ed., pp. 341–378). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Piller, I. (2011). Intercultural Communication: A Critical Introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Pucel, D. (2001). Developing and Evaluating Performance-based Instruction. St. Paul: Performance Training Systems, Inc..
Sarangi, S. (1994). Intercultural or Not? Beyond Celebration of Cultural Differences in Miscommunication Analysis. Pragmatics, 4(3), 409–427.
Sarangi, S., & Roberts, C. (1999). The Dynamics of Interactional and Institutional Orders in Work-Related Settings. In S. Sarangi & C. Roberts (Eds.), Talk, Work and the Institutional Order (pp. 2–57). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Scollon, R., Scollon, S., & Jones, R. (2012). Intercultural Communication: A Discourse Approach. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Seidlhofer, B. (2011). Understanding English as a Lingua Franca. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Spencer-Oatey, H., & Franklin, P. (2009). Intercultural Interaction: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Intercultural Communication. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Street, B. (1993). Culture Is a Verb: Anthropological Aspects of Language and Cultural Process. In D. Graddol, L. Thompson, & M. Byram (Eds.), Language and Culture. Clevedon: BAAL and Multilingual Matters.
Sugimoto, Y. (2015). An Introduction to Japanese Society (4th ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sunaoshi, Y. (2005). Historical Context and Intercultural Communication: Interactions between Japanese and American Factory Workers in the American South. Language in Society, 34, 185–217.
Tanaka, H., & Handford, M. (2008). Sanka Suru: Eigo no Meeting (Discursive Strategies in Business Meetings). Tokyo: Cosmopier.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Handford, M. (2020). Training ‘International Engineers’ in Japan: discourse, Discourse and Stereotypes. In: Mullany, L. (eds) Professional Communication. Communicating in Professions and Organizations. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41668-3_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41668-3_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-41667-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-41668-3
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)