Glossary

The process of cultural change that results from ongoing contact between two or more culturally different groups.

A communication technique that requires that the listener fully concentrate, understand, respond and then remember what is being said.

Mostly unconscious nonverbal actions that satisfy physiological or psychological needs, such as scratching an itch.

A unit of conversation that contains an exchange of one turn each by two speakers.

Third stage of culture shock, in which people actively seek out effective problem-solving and conflict resolution strategies.

Non-verbal presentations of emotion, primarily communicated through facial expressions.

A process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations, especially by a computer.

Situation when two are more languages are used interchangedly and seeminlgy randomly by an individual or in a community.

Theory by W. Gudykunst to define how humans effectively communicate based on their balance of anxiety and uncertainty in social situations

A secret language used by a group to prevent outsiders from understanding [from French argot, meaning slang].

Identity given to a person by others.

Used here in the sense of cultural assimilation - the process by which a person or a group's language and/or culture come to resemble those of another group.

Mode of acculturation in which an individual takes on the behaviors and language of the host culture while relinquishing ties with the native culture.

A person who has left their home country as a political refugee and is seeking asylum in another.

How a person perceives his or her own self.

Emphasizes the role of environmental factors in learning (rather than innate factors); learning involves conditioning through repeated stimulus and response.

Adaptations to the terrestrial environment, including architecture, housing, lighting, and landscaping.

Form of interpreting in which the interpreter stands or sits alongside a small target audience and whispers a simultaneous interpretation of what’s being said; the term chuchotage is French for whispering.

Ordinary citizens reporting through the Internet on events or issues of local importance, often using social media.

A group of people that are not part of the dominant structure of society; use of the term emphasizes the lack of power and control in comparison to the mainstream culture.

Alternating between two or more languages or varieties of language in conversation.

A word having the same linguistic derivation as another; from the same original word or root.

A psychological theory that proposes that humans are motivated by inconsistencies and a desire to change them.

Cultural orientation where the group is the primary unit of culture; group goals take precedence over individual goals.

The frequent juxtaposition of a particular word with another word or words with a frequency greater than chance.

Theory developed by H. Giles which explores the various reasons why individuals emphasize or minimize the social differences between themselves and their interlocutors through verbal and nonverbal communication.

The fear or anxiety associated with either real or anticipated communication with another person or group of persons.

Theory developed by Michael Hecht that identities are constructed through social situations and communication.

Language learning pedagogy which stresses meaningful and real communication in interactions among learners and the use of authentic texts.

Branch of historical linguistics concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness.

Also known as complex dynamic systems; a framework for understanding phenomena that are composed of many variables and subsystems.

Favorable social impression that a person wants others to have of him or her.

Commonly understood cultural association of a word, rather than its literal meaning (denotation).

Theory by Gordon Allport that under appropriate conditions interpersonal contact is one of the most effective ways to reduce prejudice between majority and minority group members.

The process through which an individual shifts his or her speech patterns in interaction so that they more closely resemble the speech patterns of speech partners.

Collected sets of texts that are systematically collected and organized and linguistically tagged.

Moral view of the individual as having an allegiances and personal responsibility to the world.

Full-fledged language that originated from a pidgin or combination of other languages.

Approach to the field that focuses on issues of power, context, socio-economic relations and historical/structural forces as they play out in culture and intercultural communication encounters, relationships, and contexts Culture: An accumulated pattern of values, beliefs, and behaviors shared by an identifiable group of people with a common history and verbal and nonverbal symbol system. (from Jim Neuliep)

Willingness to examine in a serious way ones values and beliefs so as to be able to deal fairly and equitably with the values and beliefs of others.

The adoption or use of the elements of one culture by members of another culture.

Identity based on cultural membership; one's identification with and perceived acceptance into a larger culture group.

The familiar and pre-acquainted knowledge one uses when entering a familiar situation in his/her own culture.

The familiar and pre-acquainted knowledge one uses when entering a familiar situation in his/her own culture.

Particular set of behaviors and language used conventionally in a culture within a certain context.

An accumulated pattern of values, beliefs, and behaviors shared by an identifiable group of people with a common history and verbal and nonverbal symbol system. (from Jim Neuliep)

The effects associated with the tension and anxiety of entering a new culture, combined with the sensations of loss, confusion, and powerlessness resulting from the forfeiture of cultural norms and social rituals.

A set of historically developed, socially accepted norms and behavior for participation in speech communities such as online discussion forums. (from Steve Thorne)

Shifting from an established center or focus; especially to disconnect from practical or theoretical assumptions of origin, priority, or essence.

A word's explicit or literal meaning.

the study of the grammar, classification, and arrangement of the features of a language at a given time, without reference to the history of the language or comparison with other languages.

A language variety associated with a particular region or social group.

A scattered population whose origin lies is in a smaller geographic area.

Inequalities related to the access and use of information and communication technologies.

The idea that all human languages follow a simple logical principle, according to which a limited set of elements are combined to produce an infinite range of potentially meaningful expressions.

Situation in which two languages or dialects are regularly spoken in a community.

Manner of speaking where one employs overt expressions of intention.

Conventionally, the use of words to exchange thoughts and ideas; in postmodern terms, a mode of organizing knowledge, ideas, or experience that is rooted in language and its concrete contexts.

A general term for a number of approaches to analyze language use, usually involving breaking down conversations into individual units, which are studied for their meaning and context.

A linguistic strategy whereby a member of a speech community accentuates the linguistic differences between his or herself and his interlocutor.

Distinctive variety of English spoken by African Americans, which most linguists refer to as African American Vernacular English.

A cultural context wherein the speakers of a language have a variety of linguistic options open to them in order to explicitly communicate their intent via verbal messages.

The omission of one or more words from a clause without affecting the meaning.

Primarily hand gestures that have a direct verbal translation; can be used to repeat or to substitute for verbal communication.

In anthropology and other social sciences, emic refers to characteristics derived from inside a social group (from the perspective of the subject) and etic from outside(from the perspective of the observer)

The imaginary participation in another person’s experience, including emotional and intellectual dimensions, by imagining his or her perspective. (James Bennett)

A language that is at risk of falling out of use as its speakers die out or shift to speaking another language.

The practice of marrying only within one's local community, clan, or tribe.

A belief that things have a set of characteristics that make them what they are; in intercultural communication, characterizing cultures by a set of contrasting features, such as individualism versus collectivism.

The systematic forced removal of ethnic or religious groups from a given territory by a majority group.

Classification of people based on combinations of shared characteristics such as nationality, geographic origin, language, religion, ancestral customs, and tradition.

Favoring the ethnic group you belong to over all others.

The scientific description of the customs of individual peoples and cultures.

The study of music in its cultural context.

The practice of marrying outside of one's group or community.

A person who lives outside their native country.

The act of looking directly into one another's eyes.

Favorable social impression that a person wants others to have of him or her.

Theory first postulated by stella ting-toomey to explain how different cultures manage conflict.

Behaviors or messages (verbal or non-verbal) that maintain, restore, or save face.

An applied area that collects data on little-studied languages, particularly those with few speakers that are in danger of dying out.

Describes a personalized search in which a website algorithm selectively guesses what information a user would like to see based on information about the user.

Space bounded by immovable or permanent fixtures, such as walls.

Refers to the loss of progress in the acquisition of a L2 following a period where learning occurred, despite regular exposure to and interaction with the L2.

A linguistic theory that sees grammar as a system of rules that generates combinations of words that form grammatical sentences in a given language (originated by Noam Chomsky).

A process of interaction and integration among the people, companies, and governments of different nations, a process driven by international trade and investment and aided by information technology.

A process of interaction and integration among the people, companies, and governments of different nations, a process driven by international trade and investment and aided by information technology.

Non-verbal communication through physical contact or touch.

Dominance, especially by one country or social group over others.

Cultural orientation where meanings are gleaned from the physical, social, and psychological contexts.

A situation with a high information rate.

Study of the origins, development and relationships of various languages.

i.e., "love of the same", is the tendency of individuals to associate and bond with similar others.

A system of ideas and ideals, especially one that forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy.

Primarily hand and arm movements that function to accent or complement speech.

Concept coined by Benedict Anderson referring to a community not based on face-to-face interactions; for example, Anderson believes that a nation is a socially constructed community, imagined by the people who perceive themselves as part of that group.

Person who comes to live permanently in a foreign country.

The attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner, especially in relation to other people.

A group to which we belong.

A pattern of favoring members of one's in-group over out-group members.

Manner of speaking wherein the intentions of the speakers are hidden or only hinted at during interaction.

Cultural orientation where the individual is unique and individual goals are emphasized over group goals.

A large language family of related languages and dialects originating in Eurasia, with the most widely spoken languages being Spanish, English, Hindi, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, Persian, and Punjabi.

Space defined by the movement of the interactants.

The amount of information contained or perceived in the physical environment per some unit of time.

Mode of acculturation in which the individual develops a kind of bicultural orientation that successfully blends and synthesizes cultural dimensions from both groups while maintaining an identity in each group.

Unwillingness to accept views, beliefs, or behavior that differ from one's own.

The international phonetic alphabet, a set of symbols and diacritics representing phonemes of the world's languages.

A set of words/terms that are shared by those with a common profession or experience.

General category of body motion, including emblems, illustrators, affect displays, and adaptors.

Language with no known relationship with other languages or membership in a language family

Gradual development of skills and behaviors in expected ways of speaking and acting through participation in social interactions.

The way a particular group of people uses language.

Method of teaching foreign language stressing the understanding and production of lexical phrases as chunks.

Acronym that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer; sometimes LGBT+ is used to encompass spectrums of sexuality and gender.

Common language used by speakers of different languages.

The hypothesis that the differences among languages are reflected in the differences in the worldviews of their speakers.

The visibility and salience of languages on public and commercial signs in a given territory or region.

Theory that the way one thinks is determined by the language one speaks.

Cultural orientation where meanings are encoded in the verbal code.

A situation with a low information rate.

Mode of acculturation in which one belongs neither to the dominant culture nor wholly to one's native culture.

An identifiable group of people who share a set of values, beliefs, and behaviors and who possess a common history and a verbal and nonverbal symbol system that is similar to but systematically varies from the larger, often dominant cultural milieu.

Being attentive, sensitively conscious, non-judgmental, ready to respond and interact appropriately (Ting-Toomey).

A minority group whose members are perceived to achieve a higher degree of socioeconomic success than the population average.

Time as linear, progressive, and being capable of being compartmentalized.

A person who only speaks one language.

Branch of linguistics with a focus on morphemes, the basic unit of meaning within a language.

Microcultures whose members are forced to express themselves (e.g., speak, write) within the dominant mode of expression.

Respect and dignity of the group as a whole (primary interest in collectivistic cultures).

A newly coined word or phrase.

A set of social conventions that facilitate interaction over networks.

Theory that posits that people hold expectations about the nonverbal behavior of others. When these expectations are violated, people evaluate the violation positively or negatively, depending on the source of the violation.

The perception and use of smell, scent, and odor.

Identifying and excluding a person from a social group, placing him or her at the margins of society, where social norms do not apply.

Paying attention to the needs and desires of the other party in a conflict.

Describes the reductive action of labeling a person as someone who belongs to a subordinate social category.

A group to which we do not belong and which we often treat differently from those in our in-group Pluralism: Used here in the sense of Cultural pluralism is a term used when smaller groups within a larger society maintain their unique cultural identities, and their values and practices are accepted by the wider culture.

Attributing negative characteristics to people not in your ingroup.

Exaggerating accommodating someone else's verbal and nonverbal communication style.

Characteristics of the voice, such as pitch, rhythm, intensity, volume, and
rate.

Aspects of spoken communication that do not involve words, i.e., sighing, laughing, etc.

The physical space immediately surrounding someone, into which any encroachment may feel threatening or uncomfortable.

Smallest unit of sound, as in a consonant or vowel.

Description and classification of sounds and the study of their production and perception.

Study of sound systems and sound change, usually within a particular language or family of languages.

A simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common.

Cultural pluralism refers to small groups within a larger society maintaining their unique cultural identities and having that accepted widely.

Time as cyclical, people perform multiple tasks simultaneously.

A person who knows and is able to use several languages.

The extent to which members of a culture expect and accept that power is unequally distributed.

The ability to perform speech acts such as apologies or requests appropriately using a range of linguistic expressions.

The ability to use language effectively in a contextually appropriate fashion.

Refers to words in two languages having the same effect on the reader/listener in both languages.

The inability to understand the meaning of what is said.

The influence of learners' pragmatic knowledge of language and culture other than the target language on their comprehension, production, and acquisition of l2 pragmatic information.

The study of how language is actually used and the effect that language has on human perceptions and behaviors.

An affix that is attached to the beginning of a morpheme or stem.

A rigid attitude based on group membership; involves making a prejudgment based on membership in a social category.

Rules of grammar brought about by grammarians' attempts to legislate what speakers' grammatical rules should be, rather than what they are

In sociolinguistics, the level of respect normally accorded to a specific language or dialect within a particular speech community, relative to other languages or dialects.

The patterns of stress and intonation in a language.

Hypothetical parent language from which actual languages are derived.

The perception and use of space, including territoriality and personal space.

The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior to another race.

The practice of analyzing and describing a complex phenomenon in terms of phenomena that are held to represent a simpler or more fundamental level; in intercultural communication, refers to reducing individual identities to perceived national characteristics.

The effects associated with the tension and anxiety of returning to one's native culture after an extended stay in a foreign culture.

A group to which we look for meanings and identity.

A person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster.

A variety of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting.

Behaviors/actions that govern, direct, or manage conversations.

A cultural context wherein the speakers of a language are limited as to what they can say or do verbally. a restricted code is a status-oriented system.

We realize that a culture is different from ours when we face some behaviors which we do not understand; rich points are those surprises, those departures from an outsider’s expectations that signal a difference between source language/culture and target language/culture.

The proposition that the structure of a language influences how its speakers perceive the world around them..

The process of maximizing the number of visitors to a particular website by ensuring that the site appears high on the list of results returned by a search engine.

Process of communication by which one person reveals information about himself or herself to another person.

Seeking one's own interest during conflict (primary interest in individualistic cultures).

Pertaining to meaning.

Systematic study of meaning in language, especially word and sentence meaning.

Space bounded by movable objects, such as furniture.

Study of signs, symbols, and signification; how meaning is created.

Mode of acculturation in which there is voluntary segregation in ethnic group from dominant culture.

The meaning or idea expressed by a sign, as distinct from the physical form in which it is expressed.

A sign's physical form (such as a sound, printed word, or image) as distinct from its meaning.

The idea that similarity leads to attraction.

Process which allows people to communicate directly across language and cultural boundaries using specialized technology and professional interpreters who are trained to listen to one language while speaking simultaneously in another.

References both the process of learning a second language as well as the academic field dealing with that process.

Small social groupings or activities wherever there are cohesive behavior patterns and practice.(from Adrian Holliday)

Polite conversation about unimportant or uncontroversial matters, especially as engaged in on social occasions.

The total combination of one's group roles; a part of the individual's self-concept that is derived from the person's membership in groups.

The study of how language is used in society, including its differences among cultures, age groups, genders, social class, etc.

The ability to use correct linguistic forms within particular speech communities.

Person staying for an extended period of time in a place as a traveler, student, or worker.

An approach to news reporting that focuses on the responses to social issues as well as the problems themselves.

A hybrid language combining words and idioms from both Spanish and English, especially Spanish speech that uses many English words and expressions

An utterance that has performative function in language and communication.

A group of people who share a set of linguistic norms and expectations with regard to how their language should be used.

A particular approach to how one expresses oneself.

A set of characteristics that a group or individuals in that group are assumed to have; a generalization about what people are like; an exaggerated image of their characteristics, without regard to individual attributes.

A speaker's ability to adapt use of language to compensate for communication problems caused by a lack of understanding.

The idea that participating in a particular discourse involves creating a particular perspective which allows full access to the discourse community.

An affix that is attached to the end of a morpheme or word.

Subtle and indirect form of racism, often expressed in US towards Blacks.

Systematic ways in which words combine to create phrases, clauses, and sentences.

How people use space to communicate ownership/occupancy of areas and possessions.

Description of a human behavior that explains not just the behavior, but its context as well, such that the behavior becomes meaningful to an outsider.

Process of cultural adaptation in which representatives of different cultures merge together aspects of their cultures into a new hybrid (different from concept of "third culture kid", children raised in a culture other than their parents' for extended period of time.

The use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning – that is, to distinguish or to inflect words.

A type of organization in conversation and discourse where participants speak one at a time in alternating turns.

The degree to which members of a particular culture feel threatened by unpredictable, uncertain, or unknown situations.

Theory whose major premise is that when strangers first meet, their primary goal is to reduce uncertain.

Noam Chomsky's theory that all the world's languages share a common underlying structure.

Mostly involuntary vocal utterances such as laughing, crying, sighing.

The cognitive and affective lens through which people construe their experiences and make sense of the world around them. (AACU)

Intense or irrational dislike or fear of people from other countries.