Document Actions

MC//"Exploring Contemporary Approaches to Intercultural Communication" with Prof. Ulrike Schröder (Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil)

When

Dec 19, 2024 from 02:00 to 06:00 (Europe/Berlin / UTC100)

Where

SR 109, GCSC, Otto-Behaghel Str.12, Gießen

Contact Name

Add event to calendar

iCal

 

Abstract

The discourse surrounding ‘culture’ and ‘intercultural communication’ has undergone significant evolution and debate over time. Beginning with a focus on nation-bound perspectives during the 19th-century Romanticism era, the discourse shifted towards more conceptually oriented approaches in anthropology, ethnology, linguistics, and psychology from the 1920s onwards. This evolution culminated in a series of pivotal turns since the 1970s, including linguistic, performative, postcolonial, translational, reflexive, spatial, iconic, and cognitive turns, collectively forming what may be termed a ‘critical approach’. This approach views culture through the lens of power dynamics and ideological struggles (Schröder, Adami & Dailey O’Cain, 2023).

In a concise overview of current research trajectories, Ten Thije (2020) identifies five prominent perspectives: (a) a contrastive approach rooted in early anthropology, linguistics, and cross-cultural psychology; (b) a representation approach originating from literature, media, and cultural studies, focusing on interlocutors’ self-representations and perceptions of others; (c) an interactive approach, initially addressing intercultural breakdowns but increasingly focusing on the successful co-construction of interculture, predominantly situated in pragmatics; (d) a multilingual and linguistic diversity approach emerging from applied linguistics, tackling inclusive multilingualism, English as a lingua franca, and interlanguage phenomena; and (e) a transfer and intercultural competence approach associated with education and international business studies.

This masterclass aims to:

  1. Introduce each line of research.
  2. Provide exercises involving empirical data from each field to offer nuanced insights into how each perspective illuminates intercultural phenomena.
  3. Facilitate panel discussions on the strengths and limitations of each approach.
  4. Engage participants in analyzing specific video sequences of intercultural interactions, exploring overlaps between research strands and their reflection in real-world intercultural encounters.

Target group

Graduate students from all courses. No previous knowledge is necessary.

Course language

English

Biographical note

Ulrike Schröder is a Full Professor of Linguistics in the graduate program and German Studies in the undergraduate program at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil. She earned her MA degree in Communication Studies, German Studies, and Psychology, and later completed her PhD and Venia Legendi in Communication Studies at the University of Duisburg-Essen. Her research interests span across various fields, including intercultural communication and pragmatics, cognitive and cultural linguistics, as well as gesture studies and interactional linguistics. Recent publications include Metaphorical Conceptualizations: (Inter)Cultural Perspectives (ed. with M. Mendes de Oliveira and A. M. Tenuta, 2022, De Gruyter) and Multimodal Communication in Intercultural Interaction (ed. with E. Adami and J. Dailey-O’Cain, Routledge, 2023). Her monograph titled Co-constructing Intercultural Space: An Embodied Approach is set to appear in the Mouton Series of Pragmatics at De Gruyter by the end of 2024.

 

StudiIP Registration here