In 2008, Europe sponsored the Year of Intercultural Dialogue. In 2009, the National Communication Association created a summer conference on Intercultural Dialogue drawing together an international group of scholars and professionals working on policy, research, and advocacy in the area of intercultural dialogue. And in 2010, ICA will host a follow-up preconference on Intercultural Dialogue jointly sponsored by the Language and Social Interaction Division and the Intercultural Communication Division. Within all of ICA's Divisions and Interest Groups, many of us do work that deals with intercultural dialogue including its successes, its failures, and its conflicts.
This preconference emerged out of a basic yet essential recognition that scholars and professionals throughout the world who study and work with issues related to intercultural communication often use terms and terminology that are specific to a particular geographic area and/or disciplinary history. In order to also do the work that we study - to cross cultural boundaries and dialogue about these issues, we must understand one another's terms. This preconference creates spaces for dialogue about the key terms that we all or individually use to promote and examine intercultural dialogue. Conference participants will discuss and examine real intercultural communication encounters in an effort to establish and define the key terms that lay at the heart of intercultural communication research.
Preconference participants are asked to submit any important intercultural communication key term and your own definition of that term to the wiki: http://interculturaldialogue.wikispaces.com/. This wiki has been serving as a public forum - open to all interested - for promoting intercultural dialogue research.
The preconference will open with a keynote address from intercultural communication scholar Dr. Kristine Munoz (Fitch) from the University of Iowa. Participants will then discuss and debate their key terms. Following a lunch (provided with registration), the preconference will focus on examining empirical work related to key terms in intercultural dialogue. These break-out discussions will follow keynote remarks regarding Chinese-English cross-linguistic communication from Dr. Jock Wong of the National University of Singapore and Dr. Todd Sandel of the University of Oklahoma. The preconference will end with structured time to discuss and develop concrete research plans for future and continued studies of intercultural dialogue.
Virtual Participation!
In an effort to accommodate increased international participation, if you can't make it to Singapore this year for whatever reason, this conference can be attended virtually! ICA has opened registration for online virtual participation since regular registration closed on 7 May 2010. Participants can participate by watching real-time videos (or recorded if the time change is too drastic) of the keynote addresses and participate via an instant message-type platform with other virtual participants. If you are interested in virtual participation, please e-mail Dr. Evelyn Ho at eyho@usfca.edu.
