This paper investigates the circumstances under which the use of ‘(mepa wo kyɛw’ (please) functions as an indicator of politeness and the extent to which gestures influence its interpretation within the Ghanaian Akan community. Using participant observation as the primary data collection method, the study qualitatively analyses the data through the politeness frameworks of politeness theory. The findings reveal that in the Akan context, ‘(mepa wo kyɛw’ ((please) does not always signal politeness; rather, it serves to mitigate potential threats to the hearer’s negative face in certain utterances. Moreover, the study establishes that the expression of politeness in Akan interactions depends not solely on the use of ‘(mepa wo kyɛw’ ((please), but also on accompanying gestures, contextual cues, and cultural knowledge. The research concludes that politeness is contextually and culturally bound, challenging the notion of universalism in politeness theory. Overall, ‘(mepa wo kyɛw)’ (please) in the Ghanaian context functions primarily as a face-saving device aimed at emotionally minimizing potential communicative damage rather than as an inherent marker of politeness.

Sexual objectification causes women to view themselves as objects, a phenomenon known as self-objectification. While empirical studies on self-objectification have primarily focused on women in Western contexts, comprehensive investigations within the Japanese context remain limited. This study aimed to address this gap by empirically testing objectification theory through survey research. Two studies were conducted: Study 1 targeted college-aged women, and Study 2 focused on women in their twenties, with participants recruited via crowdsourcing. In both studies, regression analyses revealed significant paths from sexual objectification to self-objectification in interpersonal contexts, supporting the hypothesis that experiences of sexual objectification promote self-objectification. Subsequent path analyses further demonstrated that self-objectification was positively associated with disordered eating tendencies in both studies. Additionally, the indirect effect of self-objectification on disordered eating-mediated by body shame-was observed. These findings underscore the need to further develop objectification theory in Japan, particularly to shift societal awareness regarding women’s bodies and to combat inappropriate and unwanted objectification of Japanese women.

In an increasingly globalised world, bicultural intimate relationships have become a common feature of contemporary social life. While research has extensively documented challenges associated with cultural difference, much of this work treats culture as a stable background variable and frames conflict primarily as relational strain. Less attention has been paid to how bicultural couples make difference workable through everyday interaction, and how such interactional work sustains intimacy. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with three bicultural couples residing in France, this qualitative study examines how partners interpret, manage, and integrate difference based on their narrated accounts of everyday interaction. Using an interactional, process-oriented view of culture and inductive thematic analysis, the study foregrounds negotiation practices rather than cultural comparison. Findings identify three interrelated patterns. First, language-related misunderstanding is a recurring site where difference becomes visible, but it is often addressed through communicative repair rather than avoidance. Second, conflict is experienced less as cultural clash than as everyday relational work through which expectations and norms are negotiated. Third, across partners’ accounts of their relationship trajectories, repeated negotiation contributes to the emergence of a shared “couple culture” that can reduce the everyday salience of cultural difference. By treating communication as a relational and interactional process, this study advances a nuanced understanding of intercultural intimacy and shows how difference can be rendered workable through everyday communicative practices.

With the rapid advancement of technology, the location of teaching is no longer limited to the classroom. Mobile learning platforms break the barriers of time, location, and space, allowing teachers and students to achieve their teaching and learning goals through these platforms. It is worth exploring factors influencing the continuous use of mobile learning platforms. This study developed an integrated model from the Achievement Motivation Theory and the Information System Success Model to investigate determinants of users’ intention to continue using mobile learning platforms in Taiwan. An online questionnaire was employed to collect empirical data to examine the research hypotheses using structural equation modeling (SEM). Our findings confirmed that (1) system quality, service quality, individual orientation, social orientation, and achievement need positively influenced satisfaction, while information quality did not have a significant effect on satisfaction. (2) perceived privacy and security, trust, entertainment, and mobility positively influenced perceived usefulness; (3) satisfaction and perceived usefulness positively influenced continued intention to use. Practical recommendations were provided to relevant stakeholders in mobile learning applications.

In many global cities, interaction among people from different cultural backgrounds has become a routine part of everyday life. Dubai represents a particularly striking example of this phenomenon. Due to extensive international migration, workplaces in the city are highly diverse, and employees regularly interact with colleagues from a wide range of cultural backgrounds. While previous research has examined intercultural competence mainly in educational contexts such as study abroad programs, less attention has been given to how intercultural awareness develops through everyday workplace experience. This study examines how employees working in Dubai’s hospitality industry describe their experiences of communication in multicultural workplaces. Drawing on qualitative data collected through an anonymous survey, the study explores how participants perceive intercultural interaction, how they adjust their communication practices when working with colleagues from different cultural backgrounds, and how these experiences influence their awareness of cultural differences. The findings suggest that intercultural awareness often develops gradually through routine workplace interaction rather than through formal training. Participants described becoming increasingly attentive to differences in communication styles and expectations as part of their daily work. The study highlights the role of multicultural workplaces as environments in which intercultural understanding can emerge through everyday professional interaction.

This study investigates the normalization of whiteness through a multimodal construction of “Frenchness” and its ideological implications for the intercultural identity formation of Indonesian learners. Utilizing a triadic Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA) framework, the research deconstructs (Mon Alter Ego A1, a French textbook widely used in Indonesian higher education, by synthesizing Text (Cultural Content), Image (Visual Transitivity), and Task (Verbal Transitivity). Analysis of eight dossiers reveals a persistent regime of representation that prioritizes a narrow, idealized image of French culture. Findings indicate that visual participants are predominantly white, middle-class, and urban, effectively normalizing “metropolitan whiteness” while marginalizing the ethnic diversity of the broader Francophone world. Spatially, the textbook reinforces a Paris-centric worldview through iconic landmarks and curated urban lifestyles. The study demonstrates how high-modality tasks and selective imagery function as cultural gatekeepers that obstruct the possibility of reciprocal intercultural dialogue. By erasing learners’ local cultural resources and plural Francophone realities, the textbook reproduces postcolonial hierarchies and positions Indonesian learners as perpetual “outsiders” rather than active intercultural mediators. This research argues that the dominance of “Whiteness” as a singular cultural benchmark creates identity dissonance, hindering students from engaging in a genuine, bi-directional exchange between their own Indonesian identities and the Francophone world. The findings contribute to discourses on the politics of representation in educational media and offer recommendations for developing more culturally equitable materials in Asian higher education.

This paper aims at discussing the influence of prosodic factors in the perception of English and French. Two experimental studies were conducted at doctoral level in order to investigate how prosody can influence perception and comprehension in foreign languages. To achieve the goals, perception tests were applied. The first study investigated the perception of English cognate words lexical stress by Brazilian Portuguese (hereinafter BP) native speakers who learn English as a second language (hereafter L2). The second study investigated the participation of prosodic clues as disambiguating elements of utterances spoken in French. The results showed that a set of prosodic clues were related to the perception of English and French, suggesting that prosody interacts with other linguistic levels, playing an important role in the perception and comprehension of linguistic information. The findings may be of interest and also contribute to intercultural communication (IC) studies that focus on L2 teaching.