Volume 3, No. 2.
INContext: Studies in Translation and Interculturalism
This issue, 3(2), takes a slight departure from the usual composition of our Journal: three research articles in Translation Studies, another three in Intercultural Studies, and a special article addressing one of the two realms alternately. Five papers, including the special article, deal with issues of Interculturalism. This is unusual since the TS submissions have always outnumbered those of Interculturalism. We at the board welcome this for it signals the growing interest of Interculturalism Studies researchers who find our forum meaningful. That two of the above look at cultural aspects of language use and language education, issues closely connected to TS, is another encouraging development as the Journal seeks to marry TS with intercultural approaches.
The special article, Communicating Your Way Through Clashing Cultures: Tools and strategies for addressing socially acute questions in the English language classroom (Timothy Byrne), ties the concept of “intercultural communicative competence (ICC)” to language teaching. Despite the social consensus of its significance in the modern world, the author notes that ICC remains not fully tapped into in English language classrooms. He proposes a toolbox in the belief that a transdisciplinary approach incorporating emotional considerations and cross-cultural pragmatics is needed for effective language teaching. Developed as a customizable, actionable roadmap, the toolbox, when successfully implemented, can help meet the stakeholders’ academic expectations and emotional needs.
English as Lingua Franca or World Englishes: Two approaches to achieving linguistic justice for all (Ying-Ying Tan) compares the two different perspectives and proposes a way to solve the issue of linguistic justice definable in terms of inequality in communication, unfair resource allocation, and lack of speaker dignity. Media Construction and Cultural Sustainability—A Chinese perspective on K-content media and its reception in China (Lin Deng, Shengchao Yuan, and Zheng Yang) discusses the process of the surge and arguable decline of K-culture’s influence in China due to the influenced country’s endeavors to protect their cultural identity and avoid its weakening by utilizing a helpful concept of “media memory”. Indigenously Doing Disney: How the House of Mouse portrays indigenous populations (Soyoung Kim and Christian James Gregory) attempts to assess the efforts of the film manufacturer, who has had a prominent global presence for over a century, to respond to the persistent international criticism by the audiences and critics. The depictions of, and cooperations with, indigenous ethnic groups have been compared over time. Intercultural Legacies in Shaping the British-Korean Relations Between the 1880s and 1920s (Sangsoo Kim) draws our attention to the interplay of cultural engagement during the period and the bilateral diplomacy and collaboration of today’s world. Isabella Bird, Sir John Jordan, and Ahn Changho, among others, are discussed as the source of the depth of the cross-cultural exchanges.
Simultaneous Interpreting with Accented Mandarin: A study on the perception of quality in Taiwan (Boon Yee Lim and Damien Chiaming Fan) explores the relationship between accented language and interpreting quality perception based on a controlled experiment. The study reports the influence of accents on interpreting quality perceptions and raises the need to enhance accent tolerance and reduce accent-based judgments while encouraging linguistic diversity. In Research Ethics and Church Interpreting (Jonathan Downie), the author notes the tendency of interpreting research to lead to inexorably reputational risk for research participants by focusing on locating problematic aspects and proposes that researchers shift their focus toward finding evaluation methods to help research participants and, thus, building greater trust with them.
Locating appropriate authors interested in the approaches we have specified in our Aim and Scope and who have intriguing novel insights to share is always challenging. As we are still a “new kid on the block”, we optimistically await additional researchers’ submissions that reach the caliber we are becoming known for. You are always welcome at INContext.
Enjoy reading!