SOCIAL CAPITAL AND POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN FOSTERING ETHNIC RELATIONS IN MALAYSIA AND PHILIPPINES

Social capital helps in developing relationships among people in a community or from one community to the other. The concept of social capital focuses on social relationships or individual relationship which is an important tool in building a united and progressive society. It goes without saying that in a multi-ethnic and multilingual society, social capital is necessary to help foster unity and harmony among various ethnic groups. However, such socialization and sharing of knowledge can be obstructed in multi-ethnic societies by social barriers in the form of negative preconceptions towards other ethnic groups. Stereotyping is the result of distancing due to prejudice, which is usually the result of ignorance of the values and culture of other groups. The similarities of the cultural and social values among the Malays, Chinese and Indians for instance, the use of address terms, non-verbal signs and discourse norms in interaction as politeness strategies within their ethnic groups or across the major ethnic groups foster better and harmonious relationships. Similarly, in the Philippines different ethnic groups from the various regions of the country are able to share the same culture and values when interacting with one another

Social Capital and Politeness Strategies in Fostering Ethnic Relations in Malaysia and the Philippines

Social capital helps in developing relationships among people in a community or from one community to the other. The concept of social capital focuses on social relationships or individual relationship which is an important tool in building a united and progressive society. Social capital is essential for facilitating peaceful and effective relationships among people in a modern and progressive society

Discourse of Leader in an Academic Setting: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Email Messages

The focus of this paper is to examine the discourse of an academic leader through emails. This paper will examine the micro and macro level of leadership discourse. To analyze the data, Fairclough’s (1993) framework which includes the analysis of textual practice, discourse practice, and social practice will be used. In analyzing the discourse at the micro level, the paper will examine the textual practice which includes vocabulary, grammar, and text structure. In addition, genre and style of text and social practice will also be analyzed

Cross-cultural encounters in giving compliments and making requests through literary texts : pedagogical ramifications

People view the world according to their culture which may lead to cultural differences. However, these differences may eventually help people to learn and appreciate others. In fact, lack of awareness and understanding of other cultures may create miscommunication. To overcome this problem, it is therefore essential that people develop a better understanding of how other cultures function.peer-reviewe

Exploring Teachers’ Reflections and Narratives of Negative Language

Language is used to communicate, express feelings and emotions. In the teaching context, teachers use language to share knowledge and information with students. Teachers’ use of negative language, such as ‘duffer’, ‘stupid’, ‘lazy’, etc. may result in students feeling mistreated, discouraged and worthless. Such language can also negatively affect students’ cognitive processes, feelings and emotions and blunt their curiosity, and their interest in performing better may be reduced. The responses of students to negative language used by teachers has been documented but reasons for the use and purpose of such language by teachers has not been documented. Although much of the previous research has demonstrated the cause-effect relation between negative teacher talk and students’ unsatisfactory performance, none of the studies, to the best of our knowledge, explored teachers’ reflections and narratives of negative/positive language. Therefore, this study seeks to explore teachers’ attitudes to negative/positive language, reasons for using such language and ways of reducing the use of such language. Data collected through narrative inquiry from twenty teachers in Pakistan’s Sindh province will be qualitatively analyzed to demonstrate how negative language and its perception is shaped by teachers. Findings show that teachers tend to use negative language for a number of reasons, not always necessarily with the explicit intent of motivating students to improve. As humans, teachers do carry over to the classroom some anger, annoyance and irritation issues from the home and relationship domains. It is hoped that the findings will make teachers aware of their use of negative language and hopefully such awareness will reduce the use of such language which in many cases is detrimental to students’ well-being

Self-Repair Practices in Pharmacist-Patient Interaction and their Role in Preventing Misunderstanding and Maintaining Medication Safety

Effective communication between pharmacists and patients can prevent medication errors as it enhances patients’ understanding of their medication and increases their adherence. As misunderstanding may occur in any type of interaction and lead to communication breakdown, repair practices that speakers adopt to enhance understanding in interaction are an especially important area of research in Conversation Analysis (CA). As such, this study aims to identify and explain the self-repair practices used by pharmacists to increase patient understanding in spoken interaction. The study was conducted at the University of Malaya Medical Centre from November to December 2014. Four pharmacists and 27 patients were recruited to participate in an intervention study. A detailed sequential analysis of interaction data revealed the pharmacists’ use of replacement, clarification, verbatim repeat, and repetition with an elaboration designed to increase the clarity and accuracy of the intended message and improve patient understanding. Self-repair practices may have an essential role in increasing medication safety in the healthcare setting