Intercultural Communication and Translation News

Picture it: the CEO of a pharmaceutical company is brainstorming with his staff, and the idea of gift certificates is tossed around. One employee, an accountant and a recent immigrant from Romania, has never heard of a gift certificate, because although she’s fluent in English, gift certificates don’t exist in Romania. She asks, “What’s a gift certificate?” and everyone looks at her like it’s the stupidest question they’ve ever heard.

Unfortunately, this is a true story. It’s just one example cited in Recruiting, Retaining and Promoting Culturally Different Employees by Canadian cross-cultural specialists Don Rutherford and Lionel Laroche.

Although cross-cultural challenges exist in Canadian workplaces, entrepreneurs can employ tactics that help minimize the difficulties to ensure they retain and capitalize on the ideas and skills that culturally diverse employees bring.

Read more: Recruiting, Retaining and Promoting Culturally Different Employees

GMAC will offer a complimentary “Webinar” presentation that will explore the intricate aspects of doing business and living in the Republic of Singapore. Titled, “Singapore: Doing Business with This Unique Island City-State,” the Webinar will be held Tuesday, August 7 at 10:00 a.m. Eastern time.

The Webinar will: — Provide an overview and explanation of life in Singapore. — Discuss common stereotypes and perceptions of Singapore nationals. — Analyze business and social protocol “do’s and don’ts” for interacting and working in Singapore. — Provide a framework for comparing and contrasting cultural differences found in Singapore with participants’ own cultures, to enable them to identify and resolve challenges in their own communication. — Suggest communication strategies for bridging cultural differences between personal, national and the target cultures.
Participation in the Webinar is free and limited to the first 100 registrants.

To register, click here.

Think you haven’t got the aptitude to learn a foreign language? New research led by Northwestern University neuroscientists suggests that the problem, quite literally, could be in your head.

“Our study links brain anatomy to the ability to learn a second language in adulthood,” said neuroscientist Patrick Wong, assistant professor of communication sciences and disorders at Northwestern and lead author of a study appearing online today (July 25) at , in Cerebral Cortex.

Based on the size of Heschl’s Gyrus (HG), a brain structure that typically accounts for no more than 0.2 percent of entire brain volume, the researchers found they could predict — even before exposing study participants to an invented language — which participants would be more successful in learning 18 words in the “pseudo” language.

Read more: Language 

Americans are quite proud of their melting-pot ideals and unorthodox business practices, but in the international business world, “we tend to stand out wherever we go,” says Dana Persia, owner of DP Image Consulting.

But in most countries, she cautions, your career can depend on your ability to go native.

“Awareness of cultural traditions can make or break deals or relationships,” says Judith Bowman, president and founder of Protocol Consultants International.

Something as simple as exposing the soles of your shoes can spell disaster, as it almost did for the president of a cable TV company. He learned the hard way when, during an important business meeting with a Japanese counterpart, his lawyer put his feet on the desk, exposing the bottom of his shoes. Needless to say, follow-up calls went unreturned for a year.

Read more: J. Bowman 

Most Americans believe their fellow citizens hold strong biases against minorities, according to a landmark poll by Zogby International commissioned by GSN. The survey of 10,387 American adults, one of the most comprehensive ever conducted on prejudice, according to Zogby, explores attitudes about race, religion, age, sexual orientation, gender, physical appearance, and politics. The poll’s margin of error is +/- 1 percentage point.

The “Report Card on American Prejudice” is part of a wide-ranging effort by GSN to spur a national dialogue on intolerance and bigotry. The survey’s release provides a powerful follow-up to the July 17th premiere of the groundbreaking new television series, “Without Prejudice?” which airs Tuesdays at 9 pm (EST) on GSN — the network for games.

Read more: Zogby