Assessing needs for intercultural communication within three Japanese corporations: An interpretive qualitative approach

Socioeconomic changes in the last ten years have changed the use of English in Japanese business communities. English is being used more frequently for interaction between Non-Japanese English-speaking business people and Japanese-speaking business people.; This dissertation reports on three needs analysis projects conducted by the author to assess the employees' English business communication needs in three Japanese business corporations. In order to assess needs for intercultural business communication in the complex situations of the participating companies, it was critical to take into account all the relevant contextual factors. To deal with such complexity, a qualitative and interpretive approach was employed to examine the research questions: (1) What are the participating Japanese business people's difficulties or constraints in acquiring western business Discourses? (2) What other than language knowledge prevents the participating Japanese business people from communicating with English-speaking business people?; Gee's notion of Discourse was used to examine socio-cultural differences between Japanese and non-Japanese business communities that possibly interfere participants-with successful intercultural business communication. The author focused on various levels of differences among the participants. The data showed that non-linguistic factors that past research paid little attention to, as well as linguistic factors were a critical source of difficulties. The data also indicated that the participants' identity influenced their English communication with their non-Japanese counterparts. In addition to such institutional and socio-cultural elements, individuals' different ways of utilizing micro-communication skills were found to be critical.; Finally the theoretical contributions of this dissertation to studies of needs analysis, cross-cultural pragmatics, and motivation/investment are discussed. First, these studies showed a way to use qualitative research methodology for holistic business communication needs. Second, the analysis of the participants' turn taking, and back channeling suggested the possibility of applying the assumptions of qualitative research to cross-cultural pragmatics studies. Third, the data supported Norton's argument of native speakers' command of English as their cultural capital.