UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Another Thanksgiving Dinner: Language, Identity and History in the Age of Globalization Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2qw7f7qv Author Uryu, Michiko Publication Date 2009 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Another Thanksgiving Dinner: Language, Identity and History in the Age of Globalization by Michiko Uryu A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Education in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Claire Kramsch, Chair Professor Ingrid Seyer-Ochi Professor Daniel O’Neill Fall 2009 Another Thanksgiving Dinner: Language, Identity and History in the Age of Globalization © 2009 By Michiko Uryu Abstract Another Thanksgiving Dinner: Language, Identity and History in the Age of Globalization by Michiko Uryu Doctor of Philosophy in Education University of California, Berkeley Professor Claire Kramsch, Chair Intercultural communication is often discussed with reference to the participants’ culturally different knowledge, its impact upon their conversational styles and the accompanying effect on success or failure in communicating across cultures. Contemporary intercultural encounters, however, are more complicated and dynamic in nature since people live in multiple and shifting spaces with accompanying identities while national, cultural, and ideological boundaries are obscured due to the rapid globalization of economy, the accompanying global migration and the recent innovations in global information/communication technologies. Re-conceptualizing the notion of context as conditions for discourse occurrences, this dissertation research aims to explore the social, cultural, ideological and historical dimensions of conversational discourse between participants with multiple and changing identities in an intercultural global context. An ethnographic research was conducted during 2006-2007 in an American non-profit organization founded 50 years ago to foster social and cultural exchanges among female foreign visitors at a prestigious American university in New England, USA. Building on Deborah Tannen’s famous Thanksgiving dinner (Tannen 1983), a 30 minute conversation among a Russian, a German and two Japanese speakers, who participated in the Thanksgiving Program, was tape-recorded and analyzed together with playback interviews and participants’ journals. The study disclosed that participants not only brought ideological and historical elements in the given intercultural communicative context but also started viewing themselves in the mirror of the “Other” and ultimately constructed their “Self” in “Other” with reference to their cultural memories of WWII and their postwar histories. The following contrastive study of three German and three Japanese subjects’ journals and the transcriptions of their interviews with the researcher further confirmed history’s impacts upon intercultural communication research. The result shows the benefits of triangulating the relationship between Japan and Germany with the U.S. from inclusion of a third participant and/or a third perspective in the studied context. Accordingly, it suggests the need for a post-structuralist approach to discourse analysis in our globalized world (Blommaert 2005). Conversational style in intercultural encounters needs to be researched from an ecological perspective that takes into account the ideological and historical dimensions of speaking subjects. 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: Introduction Overview of the Research Site 1 University Community, History and Discourse Preliminary Observation of the Research Site 4 CHAPTER 2: Literature Review, Theoretical Framework, and Research Questions Intercultural Communication - Its History and Main Scope 7 Critical Discourse Analysis and the Poststructuralist Theories 12 Language, Power and Identity Theoretical Framework Text and Context on the Interactional Level 16 Social and Cultural Identity and Positioning Context on a Larger Social and Ideological Level 18 Global Capitalism, Neo-Colonial Discourse and Linguistic Imperialism Third and Fourth Dimensions of the Context 22 History and Ecological Perspectives CHAPTER 3: Methodology Research Site – Community and Organization 27 Recruitment of the Subjects 28 Description of the Studied Subjects German Subjects Martha 29 Angela 30 Bianka 31 i Japanese Subjects Tomoko 31 Kayo 32 Miki 33 Data Sources 34 Researcher and Researched 35 CHAPTER 4: “Another” Thanksgiving Dinner Conversation Background 36 Analysis I: Fostering International and Intercultural Understanding (Line 001-134) 37 Analysis II: Omen (Line 135 -182) 43 Analysis III: Communication Breakdown 48 Misunderstanding and Change of Frame from Culture to History (Line 183-233) Analysis IV: Application of the Legitimate Genre 54 Talking About Political Issues in the Apolitical Context (Line 234-277) Analysis V: The Second Communication Breakdown 59 Clash of two Cold War Ideologies Over the WWII History (Line 278- 317) Analysis VI: Anti-Americanism at the Thanksgiving Dinner Table 64 Alternative View of the WWII History (Line 318- 332) Rethinking of Tannen’s Study and Blommaert’s “Forgotten Context” 69 CHAPTER 5: Who Is Speaking? The Historical Construction of Subject Positions and The Role of the Researcher in Intercultural Communication Research German’s Sense of “Otherness” and European’s Guilt over Non-European 76 “Other” German’s Practices and Construction of New “European” Identity in the 83 Mirror of “Non-European” Researcher The Colonial Discourse and Japanese Subjects’ Sense of “Otherness” in the 94 Mirror of Westerners ii Racism, Linguicism and Linguistic Vulnerability 99 Construction of an Alternative “Cosmopolitan” Identity and Linguistic 107 Survival History’s Impact upon Intercultural Communication 111 CHAPTER 6: Conclusion The Role of the Researcher and Methodological Considerations 114 After the Research - The Research Site and the Participants Afterwards 118 BIBLIOGRAPHY 120 APPENDEX Transcript of Thanksgiving Dinner Conversation 129 iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to my academic advisor, Prof. Claire, Kramsch, whose knowledge, understanding and encouragement have been critical for the progress and completion of this dissertation. Throughout writing this thesis, her scholarship, deep insight and advice have been precious as they provided both comprehensive guide to the field and support for the development of my ideas. I would also like to thank my research subjects who allowed me to study their everyday experiences in the U.S. and shared their very private memories of history. Among them, I am especially grateful to two participants of Thanksgiving Dinner Conversation, Bianka and Olga, who were courageous enough to express their honest thoughts and open a new “domain of sayable.” Finally, I would like to thank my family, especially my husband, Yuan, for his uncompromising support at every stage, and my daughter, Aki, who is born in this new age with an intercultural and interethnic background. iv CHAPTER 1 Introduction Overview of the Research Site – University Community, History and Discourse Newtown is a beautiful city located in the New England region of the U.S., whose historical, traditional, cultural and religious connections to Europe date to the colonial era. It is also internationally well known as the home of East Coast University, one of the oldest and most prestigious American universities. The institution is respected for its tradition of attracting and producing numerous figures of state and intellectual authorities, including future and current American presidents, foreign heads of state and preeminent scholars. The university’s reputable name attracts socially and culturally privileged people from both inside and outside of the U.S.; thus, the university community traditionally has a large foreign population of scholars, researchers, and students as well as their families. In order to support these international visitors, the university, like many other prestigious American universities, has a number of organizations aimed at assisting them in their social and cultural adjustment to life in the U.S. The Office for International Students and Scholars, for instance, offers various cultural resources and social activities such as English conversation classes, language exchange programs, social gatherings for international spouses and partners, and so forth. These programs not only serve to help foreigners improve their English language skills, but also provide them with a social setting in which to meet other members of the university community and share information with one another. The city of Newtown similarly offers many social and cultural activities that give foreign visitors opportunities to participate in and integrate into the local community. Both university and local communities openly welcome these international visitors and celebrate their ethnic diversity, in the hope that they will enjoy their stay at the university. The research site, “Organization for World’s Women” (OWW), is one of those aforementioned non-profit organizations, which is specifically aimed at assist female internationals’ “orientation and adjustment to the new community”1. It is composed of welcoming, hospitable and supportive volunteers, both American and foreign, who “not only meet with new members every