Intercultural language socialization of a Chinese MBA student in an American negotiation class

Journal of Pragmatics 42 (2010) 2475–2486

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Intercultural language socialization of a Chinese MBA student in an American negotiation class Xingsong Shi * Language Research Center, University of International Business and Economics, Beijing, China

A R T I C L E I N F O

A B S T R A C T

Article history: Received 29 August 2008 Received in revised form 27 October 2009 Accepted 6 February 2010

By incorporating the analytic power of language socialization and intercultural communication, this study looked into the influential factors involved in a Chinese MBA student’s intercultural language socialization in an American negotiation class. The framework of intercultural language socialization functioned to organize crossdisciplinary concepts and analytical tools to unveil some of the subtle but interweaving links among different temporal phases and domains of the cross-cultural newcomer’s developmental process, mainly from the perspectives of cross-cultural transfer, the interactive routine in the local communicative context, the influence of one’s home cultural language socialization, and the individual’s gradual incorporation of the locally practiced communicative norms. ß 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Intercultural language socialization Cross-cultural transfer Routine Dynamic

1. Introduction As an interdisciplinary approach to the joint processes of enculturation and language acquisition, the language socialization (LS) paradigm is located at the crossroads between anthropology, developmental psychology, and sociolinguistics. This domain of study grew out of concerns with the narrowness of child language acquisition theories in the 1960s and 1970s (Schieffelin and Ochs, 1986). It emphasizes that ‘‘novices across the life span are socialized into using language and socialized through language. . .not only in the immediate discourse context but also in the context of historically and culturally grounded social beliefs, values, and expectations’’, that is, in socio-culturally ‘‘recognized and organized practices associated with membership in a social group’’ (Ochs, 2002:106–107; Schieffelin and Ochs, 1986). In language socialization study, it is increasingly acknowledged that people not only experience their primary language socialization during childhood but continue to experience secondary language socialization throughout their lives as they enter new socio-cultural contexts, join new communities of practice (e.g. a workplace, an educational program) (Lave and Wenger, 1991), assume new roles in society, and/or acquire a new language. As Ochs (1996) notes, any expert-novice interaction involves language socialization. This expansion in the realm of LS allows it to stretch beyond its initial research interests in first language acquisition into the fields of bilingualism, multilingualism and second language acquisition. While most of the pioneering studies in language socialization were ‘‘conducted in small-scale societies’’ or in ‘‘relatively homogeneous monolingual communities’’, more recent studies have begun to pay attention to the particularities of secondary language socialization processes ‘‘within linguistically and socioculturally heterogeneous settings’’ (Garret and Baquedano-Lopez, 2002:340; e.g. Bayley and Schecter, 2003; Katz, 2000; Talmy, 2008).

* Tel.: +86 10 64493112; fax: +86 10 64493896. E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected]. 0378-2166/$ – see front matter ß 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2010.02.005

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This study emphasizes that for second language (L2) learners/users who have both physically and symbolically crossed the border their secondary language socialization is a process of intercultural language socialization. When the individuals venture into a new socio-cultural and linguistic environment, any of their conversational exchanges with a native speaker in the target culture can be a form of intercultural communication encounter. Situated in an intercultural communication context, cross-cultural interlocutors tend to use diverse culturally-based communicative strategies with different discourse conventions even though they share the same linguistic code (Scollon and Scollon, 2001). In this study, a theoretical framework of intercultural language socialization is sketched by infusing the intercultural communication perspective into language socialization theory. Then, a Chinese MBA student’s language and cultural behavior in an American negotiation class will be discussed and analyzed to explore the L2 learner’s intercultural language socialization in heterogeneous contexts. 2. Intercultural language socialization—the theoretical framework The theoretical framework of intercultural language socialization embodies four basic assumptions derived from language socialization theory and intercultural communication theory. Assumption 1: ‘‘Language learning and enculturation are part of the same process’’ (Watson-Gegeo, 2004:339). Heath (1983) once argued: ‘‘all language learning is culture learning’’ (p. 5). Promoting the same viewpoint, Agar (1994) coined the term languaculture to emphasize that ‘‘language and culture are so tightly interwoven that neither should be studied in isolation from the other’’, otherwise both concepts will be distorted (Ahearn, 2001:131). Such a belief in the inextricably intertwined nexus between language and culture forms the basic premise of language socialization theory. In LS, language and culture co-constitute and co-contextualize each other. Language learning is regarded as the simultaneous acquisition of both linguistic knowledge and sociocultural knowledge (Schieffelin and Ochs, 1986). In the languacultural acquisition process, language is ‘‘the primary symbolic medium through which cultural knowledge is communicated and instantiated, negotiated and contested, reproduced and transformed’’ (Garret and Baquedano-Lopez, 2002:339); while culturally based practices, settings and interactions are the primary vehicles which ‘‘powerfully and necessarily affect both language teaching and learning processes’’ (Poole, 1992:610). Assumption 2: Languacultural knowledge, as a sociocultural and contextualized phenomenon, is acquired through interactive practices and socializing routines. Language socialization theory cautions against regarding language only as an intra-psychological cognitive system and development. Instead, LS argues that knowledge, including knowledge of language, is not only transmitted but also used, acquired and created through concrete interactive practices in specific historical, political, and sociocultural contexts. As Watson-Gegeo (2004) argues, ‘‘there is no context-free learning’’ (p. 340). Knowledge should be properly viewed as interpsychologically distributed and constructed. Thus, a complete and valid interpretation of many significant aspects of languacultural acquisition and performance in immediate contexts (micro) cannot be fulfilled apart from the relevant sociocultural and political contexts (macro), which mediate ‘‘which linguistic forms are available or taught and how they are represented’’ (p. 340). Under this dialectical and holistic theoretical umbrella, LS contends that the socio-cultural ecology of home, community, school or workplace impacts strongly on the second language learners’ communicative practices, which shape and reshape, construct and reconstruct the learners’ interactive routines and strategies. In LS, the focus of research tends to be located on the socioculturally contextualized routines, which are formed through recurrent, sociohistorically grounded as well as contextually situated activities. LS emphasizes the role of interactive routines since they ‘‘provide structured opportunities for children to engage with caregivers and other community members’’(Garret and Baquedano-Lopez, 2002:343; Schieffelin and Ochs, 1986). Theorists contend that as repetitive routines become increasingly proceduralized in learners’ interactional ability, the structural and predictable properties of the interactive practices facilitate novices’ increasing participation in them, which forms a vehicle for learners to acquire both target language proficiency and socio-cultural norms (Poole, 1992; Schieffelin and Ochs, 1986). Assumption 3: With dynamic subjectivities, L2 learners actively participate to co-construct their intercultural language socialization. In the host culture, it is usually the dominant group’s languacultural conventions that are more widely acknowledged as the norms. This bestows the dominant group higher symbolic power (Bourdieu, 1991) to orient what is legitimate, who is legitimate (Blackledge, 2001). However, as LS scholars contend, children/novices do not passively absorb or internalize the repertoires of communicative norms and behavioral values promoted in the local environment. With their own subjectivities (Norton, 2000), they may actively participate to co-construct their socialization (Garret and Baquedano-Lopez, 2002; Schieffelin and Ochs, 1986). In the co-construction process, novices do not simply co-construct conformity or acquiescence;

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rather, they sometimes resist and reframe their participation in socializing interactions, or even reconstruct the sociocultural patterns in the new community (Cole and Zuengler, 2003; Talmy, 2008). As such, language socialization is not a one-way transmission-acceptance process. Instead, individuals may actively negotiate and reestablish their own multiple subjectivities and ideologies, evaluate and contest the target cultural values and beliefs, and invest in diverse forms of second language practices to broaden their individual agendas during the socialization process. Situated in a multifaceted social, political and intercultural construction, novices’ or newcomers’ intercultural language socialization can go through multiple, dynamic, challenging, and sometimes conflicting subjectifying or identification processes (Norton, 2000). Assumption 4: During the process of intercultural language socialization, cross-cultural transfer and cross-cultural adaptation naturally and necessarily happens. Intercultural language socialization is situated at the interface of individuals’ home cultural language socialization and host cultural language socialization. Intangible as they may appear to be, L2 learners’ originally socialized interactional routines, languacultural beliefs and behavioral norms can be cross-culturally transferred to mediate and complicate their host cultural language socialization, especially at the initial stage of their cross-cultural experience. During the intercultural language socialization process, cross-cultural newcomers often find their primary languacultural norms ineffective or problematic in the host cultural contexts. In order to carry out their daily activities smoothly and/or achieve improved quality of life in the new environment, people may find it necessary to balance themselves between the instinctive resistance to change of their original cultural beliefs and their practical need to meet the demands in the local context. Accordingly, they may be stimulated to make critical inquiry and self-reflections to explore the preconceptions formed in their primary socialization, to heighten their awareness of themselves and the others, and to promote their intercultural communicative competence in the new languacultural context. From different approaches (e.g. Bennett, 1993; Gudykunst and Kim, 1997; Kim, 2001), researchers contend that newcomers’ intercultural contact with a new and unfamiliar languaculture environment prompts them to make cross-cultural adaptation at different paces and with different intensities. The adaptation or reconstruction process may result in discomfort but at the same time create the potential for individuals to transcend what they perceive to be the absolute truth and to open up new possibilities of functioning and existing (Kim, 2001). For adult L2 learners, cross-cultural learning is seldom a process of replacing one worldview for another. Instead, it is more likely for learners to add new skills or ‘ways of being’ to their original repertoire. The intercultural language socialization process for learners, thus, is an additive process of building up languacultural beliefs that integrate and identify with more than one worldview. Ideally, at a higher level of cognitive complexity, the individuals can raise their levels of languacultural capability to be more creative and inclusive. Through engaging in the cross-cultural self-renewal process, individuals may extend their repertoire of languacultural knowledge, and allow for the coexistence of diverse language behaviors and cultural realities. In their meaning systems, there can be a coherent coexistence of various forms of languacultrual knowledge derived from their home cultural language socialization, their host cultural language socialization, and a transformed hybridity of both (Bhabah, 1994; Kim, 2001). 3. Background This study is situated in an LF MBA Program (a pseudonym), which, every semester, sponsors a group of Chinese MBA students to study in a Southwest American business school for around five months. Once admitted by the program, the Chinese exchange students enrolled in full-time business graduate coursework alongside American students for one semester. In a spring cohort of the LF MBA students, on which this study was focused, Cai (this and all the other names used in this study are pseudonyms), together with four other LF students registered for an Effective Negotiating Class. The Effective Negotiating Class (henceforth the negotiation class) had fourteen students (5 LF Chinese, 8 Americans, and 1 Korean). The professor of this course was a very intelligent Caucasian woman who had not had concrete contact with Chinese students before having the LF students. In the negotiation class, she organized classroom activities around the experiential learning principle. In order to explore the art and science of negotiation within formal and informal competitive settings involving individuals, groups and organizations, the course utilized pseudo-realistic/simulation negotiation practices to organize and stimulate dual- or multi-member group discussions. With the objective of promoting students’ negotiation skills, the course was inherently interactive in nature. The class met every Monday in the evening, but participants were responsible for scheduling alternative times to negotiate out of class before they returned to discuss their negotiation results and reflections. During the semester, each student practiced his or her negotiation skills in ten different negotiation exercises. The students practiced their negotiating skills in different role-play situations in pairs, with multiple parties or as a team, for example, to conduct negotiations between job interviewers and interviewees, among different departments within a company, or among different companies/institutions. For each negotiation exercise, there was a particular grading system listed on the reading material in the form of numbers or percentages. This served as a rubric for the students to make judgments about the bottom line, the deficits, or benefits they could make from the bargaining. It also helped the professor evaluate the students’ performance in negotiating. At the beginning of every Monday class, the professor would bring

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handouts to give a statistical demonstration of each groups’ negotiation outcomes. In class, each student was supposed to briefly discuss the process and the results of their negotiation, followed by the professor’s comments and suggestions. 4. Research method In order to capture the fluidity (Risager, 2006) and multiplicity of the L2 learners’ language practices within various sites of language activity and participation, ethnographic techniques were employed. In the study, the negotiation class was observed intensively from the beginning to the end of the semester. The LF students in the class were interviewed at least twice. Cai, the focal participant in this study, was interviewed five times. In addition, both her classroom activities and her out-of-class simulation negotiations were closely observed and tape-recorded. Immediately after each observation, I listened to the recordings repeatedly, transcribed and analyzed all the relevant data and took detailed notes. These helped me elicit questions and assumptions that could be asked and clarified in the following interviews. In semi-structured interviews with Cai, I took care to synthesize her accounts in previous interviews as well as my reflections on the observation data, so I could secure a better continuity as well as higher sensitivity to changes or discrepancies appearing across time. This, in turn, helped me initiate more penetrating questions in order to achieve deeper understandings of her current status. Towards the end of semester, I did a structured-interview with Cai to confirm her former input, and to clarify any discrepancy between the input she gave in the previous interviews and what emerged in the structured interview or in the observation data. Since most data collected from interviews are relevant to this study, they were fully transcribed and analyzed. In addition, the reading material of each class, the outcomes of each negotiation, and the emails among the students and the professor were collected and detailed field notes were taken. Overall, observation and interview transcripts, together with field notes, became the major products of the data collection and the source of the data analysis. 5. Cai’s initial cross-cultural conflict in the negotiation class The focal research participant Cai was thirty years old. She received her bachelor degree in Business English and then worked for a state-owned international trade company as a project head in several southern African and south Asian countries for more than two years. After attaining concrete international business experience, she attended an IMBA (International MBA) program in a highly prestigious university in China. The IMBA program is specially designed to cultivate managers for international companies. Partly due to the potential socio-economic advantages that can be gained from the booming international businesses in China, students go through severe competition to get accepted into this full-time MBA program. In this highly competitive IMBA program, however, Cai won the First-class Fellowship as well as several other scholarships. Literally speaking, Cai was the top student in the top university’s top MBA program before being recruited by the LF MBA program to study in the U.S. for one semester. Getting into the LF program, however, especially in the negotiation class, Cai felt frustrated from the beginning of the semester, mostly because she had lost face for winning several negotiations. Four weeks after the beginning of the semester (i.e. after three rounds of negotiations), Cai had established her reputation as a tough negotiator. She had negotiated with an American man, a Korean man, and a Chinese woman, and had won each session. When the American student, Wayne, sent an email to inform the professor of their negotiation outcome, he commented: ‘‘Dear Lord, she is a hard cookie.’’ While being a tough negotiator and gaining high scores according to the grading system might be a thumbs-up for many people, in this course, this type of negotiator was not favored. The theme of the course, as repeatedly emphasized by the professor, was to teach the students to move away from a win-lose situation to a win-win solution. The professor quoted from the textbooks, gave examples, and organized discussions to stress the harm of being too positional, as a contrast to the merits of making proper concessions to achieve the best outcome for each party by taking the others’ needs into consideration. Going right against the theme of the course, however, Cai won the first three negotiations by adopting a rather aggressive and persistent negotiation approach. Consequently, she was easily targeted and criticized as a typical tough negotiator. In a series of classes, for example, the professor commented on Cai’s toughness, which was usually followed by warnings on the potential jeopardy: Cai is obviously a tough negotiator. She is, isn’t she? . . . See, the next time, when Wayne goes up with Cai, he is not gonna wanna do it, or he is gonna be more demanding himself. That is the point, so that is why the whole approach (win-win solution) of negotiation is being taught. Teacher’s comment in the second class Cai, no one wants to negotiate with you if you are always so hard. Teacher’s comment in the third class The common myth is, if you are a good negotiator, you are like Cai: you stick out, you take your position, and you don’t budge. But in reality, that is not good negotiation. It only works, and I keep saying this, if you never gonna see this person

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again or when you negotiate with the terrorists. Most people have to negotiate with their business partners again, however. In the long run, if you are too pushy, you are gonna lose business. Teacher’s comment in the fourth class Whenever the professor made such comments, Cai either kept silent or smiled slightly. In the third negotiation, Cai negotiated with Ying, another LF female student, on transferring the right of using a newly developed product to another division of a company. In the negotiation, Cai played the role of the manager whose division designed the product. Ying was the manager for the Distribution Division, who wished to buy the right of producing and distributing the product. In the negotiation, Ying insisted on an unreasonably low offer (lower than the initial investment in the product). No matter how Cai argued that it was illogical for her to agree on such an offer, Ying simply refused to budge. Ying argued that since the two divisions belonged to the same enterprise, Cai needed to take the whole company’s benefits as the priority. After arguing for more than half an hour on why the offering was un/reasonable, Cai began to show her firm position, as can be seen in the following episode. Negotiation Episode 1 (Y = Ying, C = Cai)1 Y: I think you should not limit our distribution effort. C: Why? This is product mine. I invest the money. The know-how is mine. I should get compensate if I transport this technology to you. Y: We should all take our whole group/// C: I am not a charity organization. I must, my people and I must, you know, get money to survive. ... Y: I know you have, you have all the right, you can responsible for your product lines, and you are the profit centers. But as the manager of your own division, you should take account of our whole company/// C: I am not the communist, right? (said very seriously) Y: Maybe, maybe I think the president of the company should realize this point. C: Then you can talk to him. Y: (laughs) C: I don’t mind. ‘‘The communist’’ in Chinese civilians’ understandings refers to a person who is ready to contribute to the society and share everything with others selflessly. Being a communist could be an utmost stage of being a collectivist. Although the ideal of ‘‘striving to be a communist’’ has been fading quickly in recent years, it had been advocated and worshiped for several decades before China opened its door to the world around 1980s. In the above episode, Cai seriously claimed that she was not ‘‘the communist’’, nor was her division ‘‘a charity organization’’. In addition, by stressing ‘‘I’’ and ‘‘mine’’ in her argument repeatedly, Cai explicitly asserted her individual needs and agenda, and renounced being a collectivistic communist who might contribute her product at her own cost just for the benefit of the group. Their first time negotiation broke after more than an hour’s argument. When Ying went back and found her miscalculation of certain numbers, they had their second time negotiation and reached an agreement very quickly. In the classroom discussion of this case, Ying admitted the mistake she made in their first time negotiation, but bluntly accused Cai of ignoring the whole (simulated) company’s profit to pursue benefit for her own division. The professor did not comment on Ying’s performance, whose unreasonable initial offer was the direct reason for Cai to toughen up and show her rejection. Instead, the professor once again drew the other students’ attention to the negative results that could be caused by Cai’s positional negotiation approach: In management, one of the things that so often happens in organizations is that departments or units will, the term we use is sub-optimize, in other words, they focus on the departments’ goal at the expense of their organizations’ goals, and that’s never what you wanna do as a manager, ok? Because, Cai, even though you may win, according to you, but anyway, even though you win that battle, you lose the war. You know what I am saying? . . . The organization’s goals can’t be achieved if one department is trying to achieve their goals at the expense of the whole organization’s as a whole. Teacher’s comment in the fourth class In that round of negotiation, although Cai won the case, her score was by no means the highest. In the seven groups for that negotiation session, the seven students, who played the same role as Cai did, got 13, 11.6, 9, 4, 3, 2.5, and 2.3 million dollars respectively. Cai, among them, got the medium 4 million dollars. Based on her understanding of the reading material, as she reflected in an interview, she knew that the theme of that round of negotiation was to practice making concessions for the overall benefit of the organization. Keeping this in mind, she believed that she had already made the necessary 1 Transcription conventions: Blackened words are emphasis added; italicized and blackened words are original emphasis; /// indicates speech interrupted; . . .indicates speech omitted; (laughs) indicates laughter; (pause) indicates pause.

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compromises. Under such circumstances, when the professor did not make any comments on Ying’s mistake, but singled her out as a negative example of being tough again, Cai could not bite her tongue any longer. Feeling chagrined for the whole night after the class, she sent the professor an email to clarify her position. In the e-mail (the selected part is kept in its original form), she said: After class, I came back to my dorm and sat on the floor, thinking for two hours about what happened in class. Actually I was awful sad because I was regarded as a tough person again and again. I thought I should say something about my point of view. The initial offering by Sal (the role Ying played) was only 1 million, much lower than my expectation.. If I accepted this proposal, I would absolutely take the risk of loss because my initial investment was 1.2 million. . . Live and Let Live, I think, it is a basic rule to reach a win-win agreement. . . I personally felt that it was unfair for Sal to criticise me not to consider the whole company’s interest under such circumstance. 2. Is it necessary to reach a win-win agreement for each negotiation? My personal answer to this question is that: yes, it is necessary, but it depends, for example, depending on the situation, your counter party, time limitation and so on. . . It seems that I have the bad reputation as a hard cookie. But I think I must have reasons to make concession in negotiation, otherwise it is just for making the counter party feel happy about the result. In the e-mail, we can see that Cai was very concerned about getting the ‘‘bad reputation as a hard cookie’’. She argued that it was unfair for Ying to criticize her. In addition, she explicitly expressed her suspicion towards the win-win principle as an ‘‘all-purpose’’ negotiation approach. In fact, Cai was not the only tough negotiator in that class. A couple of other students had been regarded as aggressive negotiators as well. Among the tough ones, however, Cai was the only one who became annoyed and frustrated by being labeled tough. She was the only student who actually negotiated with the professor via email to contend the appropriateness of being aggressive in negotiations. To understand Cai’s reactions to her label as a tough negotiator, the complex Chinese ‘‘face philosophy’’ may help shed some light. Although face is a universal concern, the Chinese concept of face is closely tied up with collectivistic ideology. In Chinese Confucian tradition, face is an essential element that mediates various aspects of Chinese personal and interpersonal communication. As a culturally grounded concept, ‘‘face’’ is conceptualized in two ways in Chinese culture: as lian (face) and as mian or mianzi (public image). Hu (1944) defines lian as something that ‘‘represents the confidence of society in the integrity of ego’s moral character, the loss of which makes it impossible for him or her to function properly within the community’’ (p. 45). The Chinese concept of mianzi, according to Mao (1994), advocates that individuals should subordinate their wishes to those of the group or community to establish public prestige and reputation. It regards self-cultivation as an act of communicating with, and sharing in, an ever-expanding circle of human-relatedness. Thus, Chinese face is within the purview of the community and depends on how individuals think their character or behavior is being judged or perceived by the people around them. If others’ remarks are positive, one’s self-esteem is boosted and, consequently, one has face. Otherwise, one feels disgraced or loses his/her face. A person is supposed to act in accordance with external expectations or social norms, rather than from internal wishes or personal integrity. When Chinese communicate with others, they tend to be more other-face and/or mutual-face oriented in order to preserve relational harmony. In this way an individual would be able to protect his/her face or social self and function as an integral part of the social network (Gao, 1998). In the negotiation class, although Cai won the first several negotiations, she actually lost the games because she failed to use the legitimate negotiation strategy acknowledged and advocated in the negotiation classroom. In the class, being tough and positional was warned against rather than encouraged. As a result, Cai’s ‘‘success’’ in negotiation was evaluated as ‘‘not good negotiation.’’ Cai’s negotiation approach and results were assessed as leading to ‘‘destructive’’ consequences, ‘‘no one wants to negotiate with you if you are always so hard,’’ ‘‘even though you win the battle, you lose the war,’’ and ‘‘you are going to lose business’’. The professor’s negative evaluation of Cai’s negotiation style in the public sphere was an open threat to Cai’s face or public image as a qualified negotiator and a good student. She was especially disturbed by her classmate Andrew’s comment that Wayne would not like to negotiate with her in the future. Having been socialized in the Chinese culture, she was particularly concerned with others’ opinions and the harmony of the local community. With a strong sense of face, Cai could hardly ignore a ‘‘bad reputation’’ and the threat of damaging social relationships in the learning community. Seen from a different perspective, only a few weeks before, Cai was a star student in a top Chinese university, who held several prestigious fellowships. In her Chinese learning contexts, in other words, Cai had earned very favorable face or public image as a successful and well-acknowledged student. Several weeks later in an American academic setting, however, Cai was suddenly ‘‘degraded’’ to a cross-cultural newcomer, whose academic performance was publicly criticized. To regain her lost face, consequently, Cai took abrupt measures in the following negotiations to adjust her communicative practices. 6. Cai’s hesitant compromise at behavioral level Although Cai was not ready to embrace the win-win principle, realizing the interactional routine exercised in the negotiation class to promote the win-win approach over a win-lose orientation, she could hardly cling to her original negotiation practices, which were unacknowledged in the local academic context.

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In the fourth negotiation, for example, there were altogether four groups negotiating on the same topic. In the three-party negotiation, Cai, and two American students Dianna and Wilson were supposed to negotiate on a possible cooperation. The negotiation centered on dividing the potential profits of one hundred and twenty one thousand dollars among the three parties. As each party had a different amount of starting capital, each individual brought a different amount of negotiating power to the table. Cai played the role with the highest power, Wilson had the medium power, and Dianna had the least. During the negotiation, although Cai had the strongest position in allocating the money, she did not show any intention of utilizing her advantage to win over her opponents, as can be seen in the following. Negotiation episode 2 (C = Cai, D = Dianna, W = Wilson) W (to C): So, since you are the biggest, what would you consider a fair///? C: Actually, I don’t have any figure in my mind. I think we three can talk and decide that. D (to W): I would think if you took basically 40 (thousand dollars) as an average, then taking that, I would be like at 20, and she would be at 60. O.k.? W: O.k. D: O.k. And that would be o.k. with me. That’s just a matter whether that’s ok with y’all. Or we can divide these percentages somewhat differently. That’s the best case-scenario I think in terms of breakdown. W (to C): Did you have a number in mind when you are coming in? What are you looking for? C: Um, basically what I am looking for is just more than 59. D & W (simultaneously and surprisingly): More than 59? D: See if you got 60, would that be acceptable in your opinion? C: Mm, let me think. (Long pause) Mm. Yeah, acceptable. D & W: Great! In that case, there were four students that played the same role as Cai took. Their outcomes were $83,100; $80,000; $73, 000; and $60,333 respectively in the four groups. Cai’s outcome was $60,333, the lowest one for that round of negotiations. After the negotiation, both of her American opponents said that they came to the negotiation table with thorough preparation and were ready to fight for at least an hour when they knew that Cai was in that group. It turned out to be a big surprise for them that the negotiation finished peacefully within 15 min. Actually, the result was surprising not only to Cai’s opponents, but the instructor and the whole class as well. In a follow-up interview, when I asked whether she had changed her negotiation approach so abruptly simply due to the comments made by the others after the previous negotiations, she said, Interview data 1 Maybe. . .I came to the negotiation with a bottom-line in my mind, and determined to speak less and observe more. . . I am always very much sensitive to the others’ evaluations on me. I felt so bad when the professor kept giving me as a negative example of tough negotiators, and I was literally hurt when Andrew (an American student) said in class that Wayne would never want to negotiate with me again. Despite the deliberate adjustment, at this stage, Cai’s compliance to the win-win principle was more at the behavioral level than at the ideological level. As Scott (1985) suggests, a recognized ideology is by no means ‘‘a guarantee of consent or harmony’’ (p. 338). As Cai contended in her email to the professor, she had strong suspicion to the practicality of the win-win principle. In a follow-up interview, she further argued that win-win was an ideal but not necessarily a realistic solution, Interview data 2 In the fierce competition in the market, to make a concession on one cent may mean a huge loss of the final profit . . . I don’t believe Americans are ready to consider the others’ needs and make concessions in real cases. Otherwise, how can American businesses be so affluent, and how can China’s negotiation with Americans on the issue of joining into WTO (World Trade Organization) be that difficult and time-consuming? American businessmen in real life must be very tough and positional. To fully understand why Cai took a critical attitude to approach the business ideology promoted in the local academic context, we need to look into the preconceptions and sociocultural beliefs that she had internalized at different phases of her home cultural language socialization. 7. Multi-faceted factors involved in Cai’s intercultural language socialization This section explores multi-faceted factors that could coexist and collaborate to complicate Cai’s intercultural language socialization process in the negotiation class.

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7.1. Primary socialization at the familial level As Cai understood it, she was not a talkative person, and certainly not an aggressive negotiator by nature. Interview data 3 To tell you the truth, I am not a talkative person. I would never have talked with you for such a long time if I had not been influenced by the trainings in the IMBA program. I was born in a big family, and the personal relationships among my relatives are very complex and difficult. My parents especially my mum tried very hard to maintain the harmony with other relatives in the family. I learnt from my childhood on that it was more prudent to keep quiet, to observe the others’ facial expressions, and to avoid talking about things wrongly. The family atmosphere taught me from the beginning to avoid troubles by keeping silent. Cai’s initial socialization at the familial level is typical of the widespread Chinese ideology of collectivism. As she said, she had learned from her mother and family the importance to keep quiet, to ‘‘observe the others’ facial expressions,’’ and thus to avoid trouble and maintain harmony. Having been raised in a big Chinese family and influenced by ideas of restraint, face, and indirection, Cai was initially socialized to be a quiet thinker rather than a talkative speaker. 7.2. Secondary socialization in her Chinese IMBA program Cai claimed that things did not change until she entered into her original IMBA program. The IMBA program Cai entered, in order to cultivate transnational managers for international businesses, made special efforts to keep up with the most advanced MBA educational systems. To achieve this purpose, it formed an alliance with the MIT MBA program and sent faculty to MIT to study the courses they were supposed to teach for at least half a year. The instructors, who had been trained at MIT, tried to adopt a student-centered pedagogy, which emphasized the importance of classroom participation. To motivate the usually taciturn Chinese students to speak in class, the instructors of the MBA program made classroom participation a significant element of overall score. Interview data 4 Although the professors never explicitly encouraged us to be aggressive, the classroom activity gave us the sense that we had to be an aggressive speaker to stand out. Actually, no matter what we talked about, as long as we participated, as long as we managed to take the floor and to maintain the dominant position, we could expect good grades for the courses. The contents, the accuracy, or the rationality of our speech might not be as important. When students found that talkative people were given higher grades in evaluations, while taciturn people could not even if they did well in exams, there gradually formed a very competitive atmosphere among the students, who would take whatever means to dominate the speech. I personally have been socialized to believe that in business communications like negotiations, we have to try every means to take the dominating position from the beginning to suppress the opponents’ ability to charge. When I negotiate with my classmates in China, I simply can’t make concessions easily. Otherwise, I could be easily devoured by my opponents. As Cai contended, the teaching style in China had changed dramatically in the last couple of years, especially in MBA programs. To be quiet and obedient might have been the norms in school before, but it was out of date and against the current tide. In the IMBA program Cai participated, obviously, active participation and involvement in classroom activities was advocated and encouraged. However, one ‘‘unintended consequence’’ of adopting interactive teaching style in the Chinese academic contexts might have occurred. Generally speaking, American teachers encourage students to engage in interactive classroom activities, in order to stimulate intellectual exchange and creative thinking, to promote acquisition and insight from testing and exploring diverse viewpoints, and to develop skills of communication and cooperative learning. While all these could be accomplished in the IMBA classroom interactivities as well, one ramification of transferring the American teaching style into the Chinese IMBA context is that students were stimulated to become very competitive and aggressive communicators. Basically an introverted person, Cai was convinced by the IMBA program that if she could not become aggressive enough she would not survive academically or professionally. Fearing she would not secure a job if she kept being quiet and soft, she quickly adapted a new tactics and became a go-get-it kind of character in classrooms. 7.3. Professional socialization in the modern Chinese socioeconomic contexts The change in the teaching approach in the IMBA program, in fact was a reflection of the quick transformation in Chinese business culture. Due in part to the unprecedented economic development in China, the suffocating forces of competition pervade in the modern Chinese markets. As Cai reflected, Interview data 5 If the company told me to spend ¥ 5.8 to buy that stuff, I will try to get it at or below ¥ 5.8 at whatever cost. . .The competition in the market is intense. If one company doesn’t sell the good at that price, there will always be another

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company willing to do so. Many businesspersons focus on one-time deal. Few people care about future cooperation nowadays. The fierce competition in the market not only socialized Cai to be persistent in negotiations but also gave her the impression that it was not necessary to strive for long-term relationship. As Cai reflected, the competitions in current Chinese business ecology have fundamentally shaken Chinese businesspersons’ beliefs in equalitarianism and collectivism. Although Cai had internalized the collectivistic ideology from her primary socialization, her professional socialization in the currently profit-driven Chinese market had taught her to take winning in competition and earning profits as the ultimate goal. Therefore, in her negotiation with Ying (see negotiation episode 1), Cai was not persuaded by Ying’s call for prioritizing the company’s collective interest. Instead, she was more oriented towards protecting her and her division’s benefits. In her arguments, such as ‘‘I am not a charity organization’’, ‘‘I am not the communist’’, Cai showed overt disobedience towards the traditional Chinese ideology on collectivism, and took a straightforward egoistic approach to business competition. In other words, her professional training in addition to her IMBA education had socialized Cai to comply with the individualistic business culture. When she entered the pseudo-business environment in the negotiation class, she directly transferred her newly internalized Chinese business ideology into her negotiation practices in the local contexts. 7.4. Primary socialization in terms of gender expectation However, Cai was not completely comfortable with her egoistic business approach. In one interview, when Cai was explaining why she felt so disturbed to be labeled as a tough negotiator, she mentioned the dilemma she felt as a traditional Chinese woman and a businesswoman at the same time. Interview data 6 Actually, I am a very traditional type of woman. I feel like I am ready to make any sacrifice for my family. If there is a serious conflict between my job and my family, I believe I will choose to take care of my family first. At the same time, however, I have a strong in-depth desire to be acknowledged and appreciated in my career. . . As a traditional type of woman, I hope I can be nice and gentle. As a career woman in business, however, I have been trained to be tough and determined. Anyway, I have got onto such kind of career track. I have come onto an irreversible road. From her narration, we can see the painful struggle in Cai’s mind between her identity as a traditional Chinese woman and her intention to be an ‘‘acknowledged and appreciated’’ businesswoman. When to be a businesswoman required her to be tough; to be a traditional Chinese woman, however, she was supposed to be tender, submissive, nurturing, and in no way to be tough or aggressive. Although Chinese gender roles have gone through tremendous transformation in the last couple of decades, females are still under stricter sociocultural constraints with lower social status. Under Chinese social structure, women are constantly kept at a lower level than men. If Chinese are always regarded by westerners as indirect, elusive and submissive communicators, traditional Chinese women are supposed to be even more so in interpersonal interactions. If the Chinese ideology of collectivism discourages people from open confrontations, arguments and aggressiveness, Chinese women are supposed to be even less assertive in their demands. Cai’s frustration, therefore, was partly due to the fact that an evaluation as a tough negotiator was an open denial of the gendered identification she wished to maintain. 7.5. Negotiation between home and host language socialization As Cai explained, even before her taking this negotiation class, she was not really at ease in behaving aggressively in communication, although she had been socialized to be more assertive in negotiations. However, hardly had she finished her secondary socialization in her original Chinese IMBA program when she plunged into the American academic context. In this context she discovered that her newly acquired approach was not favored in the new community. This sharp juxtaposition aroused considerable discomfort, which finally propelled Cai to take abrupt measures quite early in the semester to fit into the micro local community and to relieve pressure and regain her lost face. From the example of Cai, we can see that intercultural language socialization is a much more complex process than the primary language socialization experienced by young children in their home cultural contexts. The cross-cultural newcomers arrived at the new cultural context with a complicated array of knowledge and cultural values, which all involved in competing with the new ideological system. On Cai’s way to acquiring the win-win principle in the negotiation class, for instance, multiple elements coexisted and competed to manipulate her language practices. Any of her communicative interactions could be impacted by the complex negotiation of (1) the initial socialization she received from her family which discouraged explicit expression and aggressiveness (interview data 3); (2) the implicit encouragement of aggressiveness in her secondary socialization in her home country IMBA education (interview data 4); (3) the instrumental business ideology internalized during her professional socialization, which made her believe that ‘‘making concession on one cent may lead to a huge loss eventually’’ (interview data 5); (4) the dilemma as a traditional Chinese woman and as a competitive businesswoman (interview data 6); and (5) the interactive routine in the host academic context promoting compliance to the win-win solution. These intricate sociocultural and personal factors

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contributed to complicate Cai’s cross-cultural language practices, and led to her dynamic trajectory of intercultural language socialization. 8. The gradual intercultural transformation During the whole semester, Cai very mindfully questioned, evaluated and tested the practicality of applying the win-win strategy to international negotiations. She talked with her professor and classmates about this issue, and she very actively analyzed and reflected in the interviews about why or why not she could accept the win-win principle. She commented that she paid special attention to this negotiation strategy, not only because her professor and classmates’ criticisms made her very self-conscious of her own negotiation approach, but also because she just received a job offer to work for an American investment company as an associate manager in its Chinese branch, which meant she might frequently negotiate with Americans in her future job. In other words, she seriously inquired into the feasibility of using the win-win principle in negotiations partly because she wanted to acquire appropriate and effective negotiation strategies to prepare for her future communications with Americans in international business settings. Due to this and above mentioned reasons, from the fourth negotiation on, Cai began to suspend her original communicative strategy and utilize the locally acknowledged negotiation approach. If her compliance was more at the behavioral level than at the ideological level (see in section 6), from the middle of the semester on, however, she became more receptive to the win-win solution. Once after a negotiation, she talked with an American student about the drawbacks of being too aggressive in negotiation. She commented, I prefer yours and Dianna’s style — to show your interest, to show your reasons, and negotiate by making sense of everything. I think I learn from my own mistakes, and I think I am getting better now. Also, I feel very well because nobody will criticize me any more. From the above comments, we see that Cai felt relieved that nobody would criticize her any more. At the same time, her praise of her classmates’ strengths in using the win-win principle indicated her acknowledgement of the positive effect of that negotiation strategy. Although in the following negotiations she still took a trial-and-error approach to using the principle, in reality, she began to use the ideas taught in the negotiation class to rationalize what should be the more reasonable negotiation strategy. For example, in a follow-up interview, she very explicitly expressed her readiness to use the win-win approach in negotiations, Interview data 7 In fact, I personally always feel intimidated by aggressive persons and don’t like such kind of persons at all. For me, it is irrational to forcefully turn down all the others’ opinions and stubbornly insist on one’s own idea as the only truth. I understand perfectly well that personal relationship can be a very important element in business. If you are too aggressive all the time and don’t pay attention to relationships, you may destroy the others’ evaluation on you and jeopardize your business opportunities. I increasingly realize that one does not have to be forceful to win a negotiation. I have been trying to switch my gear to win through reasoning rather than pushing. Through constant self-reflection and gradual acceptance of the win-win solution, Cai became more cooperative and began using the win-win principle as an effective strategy to operationalize several negotiations. By the end of semester, for example, in a negotiation with an American student Jason on buying and selling a TV show, both parties used the win-win approach and they achieved a deal within 20 min. Negotiation Episode 3 (J = Jason, C = Cai) J: I want to do a deal that makes sense that makes you happy. C: Yeah, also make you happy, yeah, and we have the, you know, future cooperation because I know that you will have the new program — that is, Junior, right? J: Yeah. C: It will be launched in the future. J: You wanna be the first one to buy it. C: Of course you want to sell to us. J: Absolutely. C: With a good offering. J: Right. C: So we have a huge space to negotiate this time. J: If you do a good deal in this program, you will be the first in line to buy Junior.

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C: O.k. great, and also I know although we are subsidiaries of the, you know, Mul Limited and you — Hollywood (names of companies) is also large media company, and we have the long-term relationship in our business. Right? J: Yeah. C: So I think everything, yeah, we can negotiate that. J: O.k. C: Yeah. So what your quotation makes sense to you also must make sense to me, and to see, you know, which is optimal for both of us (emphasis added). Two months earlier, Cai uncompromisingly refused to take a collective approach in her negotiation with Ying. In that case (see negotiation episode 1), Cai straightforwardly refused to make concession, and overtly refused to take care of the whole company’s interest at the cost of her own division’s benefit. By the end of the semester, however, she demonstrated her readiness to strive for win-win to maximize benefits for both parties. As illustrated in the above episode, Cai incorporated several major elements of the win-win principle to facilitate her negotiation with Jason. For example, she placed an emphasis on future cooperation, long-term relationships, and stressed the importance of achieving an optimal outcome for both parties. This change in Cai’s negotiation strategy attested her cross-cultural adaptation socialized in the local academic context. Despite the adjustment in her negotiation approach, in the final interview, Cai once again commented that accompanying the drastic economic development in China, some illogical (even immoral) but very lucrative and effective business tactics had been developed. She believed that the elusive and elastic business cultures in China made it dangerous to apply a fixed approach to the Chinese market. She contended that with the process of globalization, western and eastern (business) cultures were converging and transforming. Western businesses were investigating the tenets of Confucius and Sun Tzu, while Chinese businesspersons were learning the benefits of direct communication and how to take a ‘‘business is business, friendship is friendship’’ attitude in negotiations. She went on to claim, Interview data 8 When we try to do as the Americans do, we suddenly find that Americans, at least in theories, are promoting the win-win approach to establishing long-term Guanxi (personal relationship) or social network. I think we are both trying to learn from each other, and we are both thinking about making necessary adjustment to facilitate our communication in business. It is hard to say which is right, which is wrong, or what can be the all-purpose solution. What I can do now is to get familiar with all of them and try to be conscious to use the proper strategy at the proper place and time. Although Cai rejected using any fixed approach in business, she acknowledged the position of the win-win principle as a viable alternative that could coexist with other negotiation strategies, and which would be pulled out to use under the proper circumstances. So far, she had enriched her repertoire of business skills, increased her opportunities of meeting the demands in international business, and accomplished her intercultural language socialization in the local academic context (see in assumption 4). 9. Conclusion In conclusion, through analyzing Cai’s discursive process of adopting the win-win principle in the American negotiation class, this study contended that it is appropriate to take an intercultural perspective to explore the complexity, multiplicity and fluidity innate in an adult’s L2 socialization process, because it usually involves the confrontation, negotiation, and gradual integration of multiple socio-cultural norms and systems. By incorporating the analytic power of language socialization and intercultural communication, this study looked into the influential factors involved in an individual’s intercultural language socialization from the perspectives of cross-cultural transfer, the interactive routine in the local communicative context, the influence of one’s home cultural language socialization, and her gradual incorporation of the host cultural communicative norms. The framework of intercultural language socialization functioned to organize cross-disciplinary concepts and analytical tools to explain the student’s host cultural language socialization processes in a more refined and comprehensive fashion. With this interdisciplinary research approach, the study managed to unveil some of the subtle but interweaving links among different temporal phases and domains of the cross-cultural newcomer’s developmental process. It demonstrated that one’s previously socialized homecultural mentality could, to a considerable extent, mediate and reorient his/her trajectory of intercultural language socialization. Due to different subjectivities and diverse socio-cultural beliefs, individuals may elicit dynamic, hybrid and unpredictable senses of subjectivities in their immediate second language contexts. As such, their language socialization may not present fixed or inevitable trajectory of development. Their second language practices, consequently, may show fluctuating, discursive, and sometimes contradictory characteristics. In all, intercultural language socialization could be an approach to enrich the research paradigms of language socialization and intercultural communication, and compensate for the dearth of research in this interdisciplinary field. Further studies need to be done to develop this theoretical approach into a more tightly integrated model to look into

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different types of L2 learners’ intercultural language socialization, as well as other situations where such a model might be relevant. Acknowledgements The work was supported by National Social Science Fund in China (project No. 07BYY024) and Beijing municipal education commission co-construction project funding. The author is very grateful to professor Robert Bayley and the anonymous reviewers for their generous help. References Agar, Michael, 1994. Language Shock: Understanding the Culture of Conversation. William Morrow, New York. Ahearn, Laura M., 2001. Language and agency. Annual Review of Anthropology 30, 109–137. Bayley, Robert, Schecter, Sandra R. (Eds.), 2003. Language Socialization in Bilingual and Multilingual Societies. Multilingual Matters, Clevedon. Bennett, Milton J., 1993. Towards ethnorelativism: a developmental model of intercultural sensitivity. In: Paige, R.M. (Ed.), Education for the Intercultural Experience. Intercultural Press, Yarmouth, ME, pp. 21–71. Bhabah, Homi K., 1994. The Location of Culture. Routledge, London. Blackledge, Adrian, 2001. The wrong sort of capital? Bangladeshi women and their children’s schooling in Birmingham, U.K.. International Journal of Bilingualism 5, 345–369. Bourdieu, Pierre, 1991. Language and Symbolic Power. Polity Press, Oxford. Cole, Kim M., Zuengler, Jane, 2003. Engaging in an authentic science project: appropriating resisting, and denying scientific identities. In: Bayley, R., Schecter, S. R. (Eds.), Language Socialization in Bilingual and Multilingual Societies. Multilingual Matters, Clevedon, UK, pp. 98–113. Gao, Ge, 1998. An initial analysis of the effects of face and concern for other in Chinese interpersonal communication. International Journal of Intercultural Relations 22 (4), 467–482. Garret, Paul B., Baquedano-Lopez, Patricia, 2002. Language socialization: reproduction and continuity, transformation and change. Annual Review of Anthropology 31, 339–362. Gudykunst, William B., Kim, Young Y., 1997. Communicating with Strangers: An Approach to Intercultural Communication, 3rd ed. McGraw-Hill, New York. Heath, Shirley B., 1983. Ways with Words: Language, Life and Work in Communities and Classrooms. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Hu, Hsien C., 1944. The Chinese concept of ‘face’. American Anthropologist 46, 45–64. Katz, Mira-Lisa, 2000. Workplace language teaching and the intercultural construction of ideologies of competence. Canadian Modern Language Review 57, 144–172. Kim, Young Y., 2001. Becoming Intercultural: An Integrative Theory of Communication and Cross-cultural Adaptation. Sage Publications, London. Lave, Jean, Wenger, Etienne, 1991. Situated Cognition: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. New York, Cambridge University Press. Mao, Luming, 1994. Beyond politeness theory: ‘Face’ revisited and renewed. Journal of Pragmatics 21, 451–486. Norton, Peirce B., 2000. Identity and Language Learning: Gender, Ethnicity and Educational Change. Pearson Education. Ochs, Elinor, 1996. Linguistic resources for socializing humanity. In: Gumperz, J., Levinson, S. (Eds.), Rethinking Linguistic Relativity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 407–437. Ochs, Elinor, 2002. Becoming a speaker of culture. In: Kramsch, C. (Ed.), Language Acquisition and Language Socialization. Continuum, London, pp. 99–120. Poole, Deborah, 1992. Language socialization on the second language classroom. Language Learning 42, 593–616. Risager, Karen, 2006. Language and Culture: Global Flows and Local Complexity. Multilingual Matters, Clevedon, p. 212. Schieffelin, Bambi B., Ochs, Elinor (Eds.), 1986. Language Socialization Across Cultures. Cambridge UP, Cambridge. Scollon, Ronald, Scollon, Wong S., 2001. Intercultural Communication: A Discourse Approach, 2nd ed. Blackwell Publishers. Scott, James C., 1985. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. Yale University Press, New Haven. Talmy, Steven, 2008. The cultural productions of the ESL student at Tradewinds High: contingency, multidirectionality, and identity in L2 socialization. Applied Linguistics 29 (4), 619–644. Watson-Gegeo, Karen A., 2004. Mind, language, and epistemology: toward a language socialization paradigm for SLA. The Modern Language Journal 88 (3), 331–350.