Intercultural Communication and Translation News

Air Force leadership recognizes that the cross-cultural performance of Air Force members now plays a greater role in mission success than ever before. AF/A1D therefore asked RAND to assist in developing a comprehensive program for preparing members of the Air Force in crosscultural skills.

To better understand the behaviors that the Air Force hoped to develop and improve through this program, we reviewed existing literature on cross-cultural job performance and discussed cross-cultural training needs with various Air Force personnel. We found that there is no clearly established description of the behaviors required to perform in a foreign country and that the opinions of Air Force personnel differ about what should be included in the training for such performance. Given these differences of opinion and the fact that no taxonomy covering all relevant aspects of cross-cultural performance had yet been established, RAND was given the goal of creating the taxonomy.
To accomplish this goal, we began with three main questions:

What is cross-cultural 1. performance, or behavior?
2. Which cross-cultural behaviors do Air Force members, or airmen, identify as important to their deployed jobs?
3. Do all airmen, regardless of job requirements, need the same type and/or amount of cross-cultural training?

We then developed a framework of 14 cross-cultural behavior categories that could be used to address these three main questions.

Nine of the 14 categories encompass behaviors that are considered enabling—i.e., they help facilitate a variety of day-to-day activities and are likely to be needed in a variety of jobs. These categories are foreign language skills; verbal and nonverbal communication; applying appropriate social etiquette; managing stress in an unfamiliar cultural setting; changing behavior to fit cultural context; gathering and interpreting observed information; applying regional knowledge; self-initiated learning; respecting cultural differences. The other five categories encompass behaviors that are considered goal oriented—i.e., they are associated with specific mission-related activities and are likely to be needed only by individuals working in certain Air Force Specialty Codes (AFSCs) or for certain job tasks. These categories are establishing authority; influencing others; negotiating with others; establishing credibility, trust, and respect; resolving conflict.

The importance of the 14 behavior categories for deployed performance was evaluated by surveying approximately 21,000 previously deployed airmen. The survey respondents generally rated enabling behaviors as more important than goal-oriented behaviors; they also rated skill in the language of the country of deployment as less important than half of the other categories. (See pp. 18–20.) We also examined the importance ratings within each AFSC and the differences across AFSCs. For example, Pilots tended to view the 14 behavior categories as unimportant to their deployed jobs, whereas Special Investigations, International Affairs/Foreign Area Office, and Security Forces personnel tended to have the opposite view. (See pp. 20–23.) Overall, the results show that at least some airmen view each category of cross-cultural behavior as important (see pp. 18–27), suggesting that the Air Force should include all 14 in a comprehensive training program. Based on the survey findings, we recommend three graduated levels of training in each of the categories. All airmen would receive a low level of training throughout their career and just prior to deployment. Airmen in AFSCs that indicated the 14 categories were, on average, moderately important would also receive medium-level, in-depth training. And airmen in AFSCs that rated certain categories highly important would also receive high-level—specialized, expert-level—training. (See pp. 20–23.)

Other suggestions for next steps in designing a comprehensive cross-cultural training program include evaluating existing Air Force cross-cultural training, designing new curricula to address the 14 behavior categories where necessary, developing assessment tools for measuring skills in the 14 categories, setting standards for cross-cultural performance expectations, and tracking the skills and training received. (See pp. 41–47.)

Read the > Full Report

I recently attended the 11th annual Families in Global Transition (FIGT) conference – an idea which was first planned at a kitchen table in Indianapolis.

That kitchen table belonged to author and Cross-Culture Kid (CCK) expert, Ruth van Reken. The first conference attracted 80 delegates but this year’s boasted over 200.

Almost half were first-timers, drawn from a mix of military, corporate, missionary, education and diplomatic backgrounds. Many were in the business of providing relocation services and support to transitioning families. Many were part of those families.

FIGT is always an uplifting experience and this year, though the conference was in Houston, Texas, it was testament to the global reach of the organisation that each of the plenary sessions included one person living in Europe. The three-day conference also offered more than 40 break-out sessions to choose from.

Child psychologist Doug Ota, who heads up a world-leading transitions programme at the American School of The Hague (ASH), opened the conference with a keynote speech focusing on how grief impacts on the lives of those who roam the globe.

“Grief is a messy, backward and forward process,” he explained, as he shared his experience of growing up with a Japanese father and British-origin mother in California. He spoke of his loss of identity; the loss of his colleagues, friends, and even his brother, during the 16 years he has lived in the Netherlands with his Dutch wife.

Read more > Telegraph

One of the greatest challenges for any enterprise, large or small, is recruiting and retaining workers, a situation that is certain to escalate as baby boomers move into retirement.

One way to meet the challenge, experts say, is to strengthen the recruitment of visible minorities. In fact, major corporations are fostering diversity in the workplace as good business sense, not only to reflect changing customer bases today, but as a strategy for the long term.

Business is increasingly international in nature and having people on staff fluent in foreign languages and cultural savvy can prove a tremendous asset. Then there is the need to have an organization reflect the communities it serves — it just makes sound branding sense.

The challenge for many companies, however, is how to get started, and then how to recruit and retain visible minorities on staff.

Read more > Thinking Globally

Prompted by technology in the 21 st century, economic pressures are shrinking space, time, the variety of life styles, and cultural variation into a networked global society. Demands of globalization today continue to increase pressure on educators and educational leaders to change curriculum and learning in order to educate our children to become global citizens who preserve the variety and vitality of life. Leaders of educational multimedia design and applications have a special role in the shared leadership necessary for this change in education as emphasized by recent calls for cultural studies in instructional design (Rose, 2005).

There are many aspects of becoming a global citizen, and one of the most important areas of becoming a global citizen is an awareness and understanding of the variety and relevance of all cultures. In addition, there is an increasing need for intercultural competence to be able to survive in a networked global society. The issue of teaching and acquiring intercultural competence is becoming a major concern in schools, in teacher education (Leeman & Ledoux, 2003), and therefore in the preparation of future faculty and designers of multimedia enhanced curricula.

Interculturalized education requires critical understanding of connections among the each educator’s self, school, home, and culture, and it has to deal with sociopolitical realities about ethnic and cultural diversity within society and schools (Nieto, 2000). Thus, in order to prepare the next generation to be confident in diverse cultures, educators need to gain intercultural competencies that will allow them to be actively involved in preparation of interculturalized curricula and teaching. Moreover, the design and application of technology to support and model intercultural education becomes a critical issue in the increasingly digitized society of the 21st century.

Download: PDF Ebook Intercultural Competence for Future Leaders of Educational Technology And Its Evaluation

Assuming things about other cultures before knowing the information is one way to develop misunderstanding. Learn how to improve intercultural sensitivity from a professional speaker and communications instructor in this free education video.

By: Tracy Goodwin

Allo’ Expat Sdn Bhd, a Malaysia headquartered online publisher and most visited expatriate social portal worldwide (www.AlloExpat.com). Launched eight years ago, with now more than 40,000 visitors daily, AlloExpat.com is becoming the preferred online media for advertisers in the “expat industry” around the world.

AlloExpat.com is addressing a permanently increasing expatriate community worldwide. With communities throughout the five continents, over 170 users’ nationalities, 145 countries covered, AlloExpat.com has not only become the leading expatriate one-stop information centre, but it also succeeds in becoming the meeting point between the expat communities audience and professional expatriate service providers in various fields such as relocation services, real-estate, insurance and financial planning, leisure, lifestyle, etc…

Through an efficient and very affordable online advertising space offer and a number of dedicated advertisement packages under its “Expat Best” recommended section, AlloExpat.com provides its advertisers with the right expatriate exposure. Advertisers can also direct their ad campaign nationally, regionally and even globally under one unique website.

“Targeting a permanently moving customer target is a challenge by itself. Expat families and individuals are very hard to spot and understand for most media specialists, mostly due to the diversity of the expatriate audience itself: Where are they? What is their favourite hangout, magazine, spending habits? Furthermore, at the difference of the usual more expensive expatriate’s printing media, AlloExpat.com enables advertisers to interact directly with their audience and get the necessary instant feedback and market feel they really need. With the growing numbers of AlloExpat.com advertisers and the everyday feedback we receive from all of them we are able to continuously develop and improve our advertising platform to serve them better,” said co-founder and Public Relations Director Theresa Giovagnoli.

Read more > Press Release

For those sites that uses Google Friend Connect and its comment widget, Google has just rolled out a novel new feature called: comment translation. With the gadget, users can now unify the language of any comment thread, translating any and all comments easily into their native language.

Once the comment widget plugged into Google Translate, enables readers to translate comments left in foreign languages. This means that if you have one post in Mandarin, another in Spanish, and yet another in Russian, you can click an option to read them all in the same language.

Within the gadget, there is a translate button in the lower left-hand corner. The way it functions is the comment widget has a “Translate” link which then pops up a menu of languages to choose from. Once you have selected your language, all comments that are not in this language will be translated and highlighted in yellow.

However, there is a safe side as well if ever anything goes wrong, you always have the option to revert back to the original text if you wish to do so. Simply select “No Translation” from the same menu.

Read more > Google

TED — a collection of events and media properties owned the nonprofit Sapling Foundation — has gone to the trouble of translating its archive of thought-leader talks in various languages.

Sponsored by Nokia, the TED Open Translation Project bolsters so-called TED Talks with subtitles, time-coded transcripts, and the ability for volunteers to translate any talk into any language.

The project was also designed to enhance the accessibility of the talks for both the hearing-impaired, and search engines, which can now index the full transcript of a talk.

For example, searching on Google for “green roof” will ultimately lead you to the moment in architect William McDonough’s talk when he discusses his green roof project for Ford’s River Rouge plant, and also the moment in Majora Carter”s talk when she speaks of her green roof   project in the South Bronx. Transcripts will index in all available languages.

Founded as a conference in 1984, TED — which stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design — was acquired by Chris Anderson’s Sapling Foundation in 2001, and has since expanded to include an international conference, and various media initiatives, including TED.com.

More than 200 volunteer translators have already contributed, allowing the site to launch with 300 translations in 40 languages.

Small and medium-sized enterprises in Europe are losing business due to a lack of “linguistic and intercultural skills” among their employees, EU Multilingualism Commissioner Leonard Orban told business representatives this week.

English ‘not business lingua franca’

“Sometimes people think that English is the lingua franca for business, but this is not true,” Commissioner Orban told participants in a roundtable discussion on the importance of language skills for SMEs, held as part of the EU’s SME Weekexternal .

“In terms of communication, English might be the lingua franca, but in addressing consumers everywhere in Europe and outside the EU, of course the company should […] develop linguistic and intercultural strategies,” Orban said.

The commissioner was addressing a roundtable which focused on “practical tools” to help small countries improve their work with languages. Discussions focused on possible shortcuts to better multilingual communication, reaching out to new customers abroad, and “making better strategic use of language skills”.

Read more > Business

A Buddhist preacher in Thailand has announced plans for new guidelines aimed at curbing the flamboyant behaviour of gay and transgender monks.

The “good manners” curriculum - the country’s first - is being introduced in the northern province of Chiang Rai.

The senior monk told the BBC he was particularly concerned by effeminate activities among novices such as the wearing of make-up and tight robes.

More than 90% of the Thai population are followers of Buddhism.

Tales of monks behaving badly are nothing new in Thailand.

In recent years, they have been accused of abuses of their exalted position in society that range from amassing dozens of luxury cars, to running fake amulet scams, to violating their vows of celibacy, our correspondent says.

Read more > Thailand