Intercultural Communication professor grateful to help shape China’s burgeoning IC discipline

(Steve’s library room is full of intercultural research literature and textbooks.)

In 1995 Steve was thrilled to learn of the founding of the China Association for Intercultural Communication (CAFIC) in Harbin, and in 1997 he attended its second conference at BFSU. Since then, that association has been his domestic academic home. Its members are mostly teachers and scholars from various fields like FLT (Foreign Language Teaching), TCFL (Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language), linguistics, translation studies, communication, and psychology, who gather to share their latest work on intercultural research and education. Seeing a need for stronger academic publications to develop the field, Steve initiated a thematic book series called Intercultural Research (published by SISU’s press, SFLEP) though he and his co-editors have recruited top scholars from China and abroad to publish on topics like identity, values, adaptation, and interculturality (the series has been recognized for several best book awards).

Thanks to the relationships built through the association’s annual conferences, in 2003 Shanghai became the first, and still sole, city recognized with an official branch. Compared with other Chinese cities, Steve thinks Shanghai has past and present advantages in terms of intercultural communication research. “There are quite a few universities in Shanghai interested and engaged in this area because of the need to communicate with the world, and Shanghai has a history of being an international city.” In addition to annual faculty meetings and an important conference series, the Shanghai CAFIC branch also organizes inter-school graduate thesis competitions to promote mutual interaction and collaboration between universities. “I’ve been very lucky to grow up with the discipline here,” said Steve.