Few studies have considered the micro-analysis of written laughter in the digital world in its sequential context (beyond frequency and distribution). The present study fills this gap by examining "transcribed" laughter "[Chinese symbols omitted](haha)" in Chinese conversations on WeChat from a conversation analytic…

In the twenty-first-century working professionals need to possess strong Interactional Competence to handle professional communication in intercultural contexts (PCIC). However, the relationship among the three PCIC constituents -- culture, workplace and interaction -- is undertheorized in current research. This leaves PCIC practitioners…

The academic performance of students has been a subject of interest for educational researchers for a while; however, most of the research in this area was done outside of Somaliland. Therefore, this study examined factors affecting the academic performance of students in Burao, Somaliland. The study aimed to investigate the influence of…

Language is subject to a variety of pressures. Recent work has documented that many aspects of language structure have properties that appear to be shaped by biases for the efficient communication of semantic meaning. Other work has investigated the role of social pressures, whereby linguistic variants can acquire positive or negative evaluation…

This study explores the identity positions that L2 English learners/users would take in case of hypothetical miscommunications. Based on positioning theory, at the time of L2 interaction, L2 learners assign themselves and others specific positions which are established through their learning experiences. It was hypothesized that their current…

Health professionals who come from different cultural backgrounds are required to interact competently and at the most acceptable communication level that meets the demands of the multicultural context in which English is the medium of communication. Lack of proper communication in such contexts can establish a hostile work environment. Thus,…

The world has become seemingly smaller with the advancements of technologies, instead of taking days to receive a written letter, it takes seconds to get an email. While the connection is obvious there still seems to be a barrier between the majority of the world's population: Language. Though it seems irrelevant in people's small communities, the…

This article describes a wayfinding study conducted in an urban, academic library to better understand the experiences of multilingual student populations. The study, which incorporated traditional user experience methods and video ethnography, exposed communication obstacles and spatial challenges encountered by students of English for speakers…

Apart from providing a bird's eye view of a given domain of inquiry (Ioannidis et al., 2015), systematic reviews such as methodological syntheses offer a magnifying glass on prevalent existing problems in primary research and furnish empirically grounded solutions to rectify these issues (Page et al., 2021). As survey research in second language…

Second language (L2) international students are frequently blamed for miscommunication and even stigmatized and marginalized due to the way they sound. However, little is known about how their accent contributes to the L2 lived experience at foreign universities. Taking a mixed methods phenomenological approach, survey (N = 306) and…

We live in the age of globalization where diverse cultures and nations mix and mingle. A lot of us live in a multicultural society in which macro- and microethnoses coexist. Cultures enrich each other, collaborate…and sometimes clash. Misunderstandings happen when people speak the same language, but do not share the same cultural codes. Edward…

With this research, it is aimed to determine the problems faced by classroom teachers who have Syrian immigrant students in their classrooms in Turkey. The research was designed as a single case study, one of the qualitative research methods. Criterion sampling method, one of the purposive sampling methods, was used. The participants of the…

We should seek every possible method for educating immigrants and refugees and facilitating ­communication for them--especially during the current difficult times due to the spread of a killer-­ pandemic (i.e., Covid-19). To this end, I discuss the role which "metalanguage" could play in this regard, with reference to Natural Semantic…

The presence of Africans in China has been phenomenal since the late 1990s. In recent years, there has been a dramatic uptick in people from Africa coming to the major cities of China such as Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Macau, Yiwu, Shanghai, and Beijing. They are in the process of building linguistic, cultural, and economic bridges between their source…

Communication strategies (CS) have been generally used to overcome oral communication problems in delivering the intended messages. While studies on CS mostly involved simulated communication contexts, the current study deviates from the past studies on CS by identifying the types of CS employed by candidates of real job interviews and examining…