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Interculturality as social capital at work: The case of disagreements in American-Japanese interaction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2019

Stephen J. Moody
Stephen J. Moody*
Affiliation:
Brigham Young University, USA
*
Address for correspondence: Stephen J. Moody Brigham Young University3069 JFSB Provo, UT 84606, USA[email protected]
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Abstract

Theories of social capital hold that strong interpersonal relationships can be leveraged to facilitate information sharing, gain trust, and strengthen group solidarity. Thus, it is often predicted that international workers are disadvantaged in these areas because they lack established social ties. Using data from disagreements between American interns and their colleagues in Japanese companies, this study critically examines this prediction by illustrating some ways participants use socially constructed representations of intercultural ideologies in ways that facilitate similar outcomes and substitute for their lack of relational histories. Specifically, these representations temporarily reverse flows of information, resist restrictions stemming from perceived lack of trust, and create shared humor that helps redefine in-group boundaries. By using a formal social capital model to interpret these results, this study helps position socially constructed representations of interculturality within a broader theoretical account of the potentially many forms of symbolic ‘capital’ that enable action. (Social capital, interculturality, disagreements, workplace, social identity)*

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 48 , Issue 3 , June 2019 , pp. 377 - 402
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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Footnotes

*

I am grateful to participants at the 2016 meeting of the American Association for Applied Linguistics for feedback on the data analysis, as well as to the editors and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on an earlier draft. I am especially indebted to the student interns and companies who graciously allowed me to observe and record their interactions. All remaining errors are my own.

References

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