Prerequisites:

45 or more credit hours including at least two lower division courses in Communication.

Recommended:

LING260 and/or SA101.

Effective communication between individuals, nations, cultures, etc. depends upon shared understanding and expectations regarding signs and sign-systems through which information is structured and exchanged. Increasingly, North Americans engaged in international activity today find themselves needing to communicate with non-Western counterparts whose expectations regarding interaction and communication differ significantly from their own.

In this seminar we will survey and interpret universals and variations in signification and sign interpretation in international communication. We will consider perspectives from which to identify and articulate differences as well as universal patterns in sign interpretation and communication in international relations, and particularly in development co-operation, economic and trade relations. Throughout the seminar, comparative and contrastive examples will be drawn from sign systems and communication practices current in the Asia-Pacific region.

Required Texts: (available from the downtown Bookstore)

McLaren, Margaret, Interpreting Cultural Differences: The Challenge of Intercultural Communication. Norfolk, UK: Peter Francis Publishers, 1998.

Samovar, Larry A. and Richard E. Porter, Intercultural Communication: A Reader
(9th edition). Toronto: Wadsworth, 1999.

Requirements: (subject to confirmation in first week of class)

1. Mid-term and final exams. Essay questions.
Mid-term covers lectures and readings for first half of course; final covers second half. Mid-term 20% + Final 20% 40%
2. One term paper (10-12 pages double-spaced typewritten) on an aspect of International Communication to be determined in discussion with the instructor. 40%
3. Presentation 10%
4. Tutorial participation 10%

The School expects that the grades awarded in this course will bear some reasonable relation to established university-wide practices with respect to both levels and distribution of grades. In addition, the School will follow Policy T10.02 with respect to "Intellectual Honesty" and "Academic Discipline" (see the current Calendar, General Regulations section).