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Critical to communicative success in this era of globalization are pragmatic awareness and competence. A promising instructional approach for attaining these traits is project-based learning (PBL), as it promotes the development of problem-solving skills as well as deeper engagement in course content. This paper describes how PBL was used in a university-level intercultural communication course to sensitize learners to the pragmatics of disagreement, mediate analysis of its expression in authentic discourse, and provide opportunities for authentic practice. グローバル化時代においてコミュニケーションを成功させるためには、語用論的な認識と能力が重要である。これらの特性を獲得するための有望な教授的アプローチとして、課題解決型学習(PBL)がある。この学習法は、授業内容への関与をより深めるとともに、問題解決スキルの発達を促進するからである。本論では、大学の異文化コミュニケーション講座において、PBLの採用がどのように学習者を意見相違の語用に敏感にさせ、実際の議論でそれがいかに表現されているかについて分析する助けとなり、実践的学習の機会を提供したかについて報告する。

Social changes, such as a stagnant economy and the uncertainty of securing stable employment, have altered the social landscape of contemporary Japan. Charlebois conducts an analysis of the emergence of herbivore masculinity within this period. Unlike their more aggressive “carnivore” counterparts, herbivore masculinity refers to men who are more passive in their personal and professional lives. In contrast to an era when acquiring a car and involvement in a romantic relationship were well-established signifiers of masculinity, herbivores invest in their appearance through the purchase of beauty products and apparel and are not necessarily involved in a romantic relationship. At first glance, herbivores appear to reject many elements of archetypical masculinity, and in the process contribute to the formation of a more gender-equal society. Charlebois critically examines herbivore masculinity within the genderscape of contemporary Japan and demonstrates how more seemingly “democratic” forms of masculinity can actually sustain the status quo.

This entry discusses the relationship between gender and communication style. There is a tendency to distinguish between discretely masculine and feminine communication styles that are supposedly predetermined by biological sex. Gender miscommunication theory or a cultural differences approaches posits that men and women possess different assumptions about communication and thus draw on distinctly gendered communication styles in social interaction, which often results in systematic miscommunication. This entry argues that, while masculine and feminine communication styles exist, individuals can and do draw on both styles. Not only gender but also age, ethnicity/race, sexuality, social class, and the communicative context all potentially influence the communication style a speaker deploys. Communication styles are flexible discursive resources that speakers accept, contest, or even reformulate in social interaction. This entry discusses three empirical studies that demonstrate how speakers use gendered communication styles in specific social contexts and dispel the validity of gender miscommunication theory. Keywords: discourse; evolutionary psychology; gender

The end of World War II saw the emergence of a gendered division of labour in Japan where ‘salarymen’ committed themselves to their workplaces, while ‘professional housewives’ devoted themselves to domestic work and childcare. Masculinity can therefore be seen as ‘bounded’ since social norms constructed men as family breadwinners. On the other hand, femininity can be seen as ‘unbounded’ in that women were released from the pressure to assume a breadwinning role. This article draws on critical discursive psychology to investigate the subject positions that a group of Japanese men and women assume in relation to a ‘bounded masculinity/unbounded femininity’ interpretative repertoire during group interviews. Results of the analysis indicate that a majority of the participants assumed complicit subject positions in relation to these repertoires and in the process normalized a traditional gendered division of labour. Those participants who took up more resistant subject positions can be seen as contesting and p...

Recent instructional trends in the field of TESOL emphasize teaching language through course content. The dual focus of content-based English instruction (CBI) provides a way for language teachers to engage learners with challenging material while increasing their linguistic proficiency. This article describes a unit in a CBI course at a Japanese university that was designed to promote the development of critical consciousness (Freire, 2005) through the analysis of a film. Students identified race- and gender-related issues, engaged in discussions about these issues, and finally wrote a critical response paper to the film.