서울과학기술대학교 국제교류처 외국어교육팀에서는 아래와 같이 언어교육 학술교류(LEC, Language Education Colloquium)를 실시하오니, 관심있는 분들의 많은 참여바랍니다.

35th LEC Colloquium
Rhetoric in Intercultural Communication: A Focus on English- and Korean-Speaking Cultures
By: Seongha Rhee (PhD in Linguistics)

Schedule
Date: Thursday, November 24th, 2022
Time: 5:00-6:00 pm
Place: Zoom Meeting
Zoom Link: https://seoultech.zoom.us/j/85781862401 (Meeting ID: 857 8186 2401)

Abstract
It is a truism that language reflects culture, and, thus, learning a second or foreign language involves learning and getting adapted to a new culture (cf. ‘languaculture’ Agar 1994). Culture encompasses all aspects of human activities and thinking, most notably, the thought patterns, which are often mirrored in rhetorical structures. Despite the presence of universal features in interpersonal interaction, such as ‘politeness’, their actual manifestations may vary across cultures.

This talk focuses on the differences in communication style, especially, with respect to politeness, between English- and Korean-speaking cultures. Meaningful differences occur not only at the lexical level (i.e., words) but also at the grammatical (i.e., structures) and discourse levels (i.e., speech acts). d on three relevant models, i.e., cultural contexts (Hall 1976), cultural dimensions (Hofstede 1984), and contrastive rhetoric (Connor 1996), this talk highlights the differences between the ‘thinkers’ and ‘feelers’ (Rhee 2017), observed in grammatical structures, discourse organizations, personal and public speech acts, and verbosity, among others.

The speaker
Seongha Rhee (CV available here) is a professor of applied linguistics at the Faculty of Liberal Arts, Mahidol University, Thailand and professor emeritus at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Korea. He received his Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Texas at Austin in 1996 under the supervision of Professor Dr. Manfred Krifka, now at Humboldt University, Berlin. He taught and researched at Stanford University as a 2003-2004 Fulbright lecturer. His primary research interests are, among others, to identify cognitive and discursive mechanisms that enable language change from the crosslinguistic and typological perspectives; to analyze cultural influence that shapes linguistic structure and triggers language change; and to investigate the socio-cultural, rhetorical, discursive aspects that influence language learning. He can be contacted by email at: srhee@hufs.ac.kr  

More information about the speaker is available at: www.srhee.net/en

References
Agar, Michael. 1994. Language Shock. New York: Morrow.
Connor, Ulla. 1996. Contrastive Rhetoric: Cross-cultural Aspect of Second-Language Writing. Cambridge: CUP.
Hall, Edward T. 1976. Beyond Culture. Garden City: Anchor Books.
Hofstede, Geert H. 1991. Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind. London: McGraw-Hill.
Rhee, Seongha. 2017. Cultural clash and language learning: The case of English for Asians. Special lecture at Sun Yat-sen University, Zhuhai, China, June 18, 2017.

Resources
Rhee, Seongha. 2022. Rhetoric in Intercultural Communication: A Focus on English- and Korean-Speaking Cultures [Presentation slides, The 34th LEC]  - PPTX ; PDF