Journal of Asian Pacific Communication - Volume 34, Issue 1, 2024

Abstract

As populist leaders leverage disparities across geographic and language communities, democracies are threatened by an increasingly divisive political climate that compromises public discussions. This study evaluates how the basic communication strategy of utilizing local languages in information campaigns can help overcome divides by encouraging engagement and discussions. We conduct a field experiment to assess whether using the four most prevalent languages in the Philippines (Cebuano-Bisaya, Ilonggo-Hiligaynon, Ilokano, and Waray-Samarnon) can increase engagement in online materials for targeted linguistic groups. Through split-testing on Facebook, we find evidence that local language materials are more likely to catch the attention of the audience and increase engagement. Qualitative validation shows that local language use is an effective tool to build self-efficacy for linguistic groups to join in on national conversations, and serves as an identity marker to evoke a sense of pride and community. These findings open opportunities for evidence-guided social media campaign strategies.

Abstract

This paper is a sociolinguistic study of the linguistic landscape of signboards in Singapore hawker centres. It examines the language(s) displayed on the signboards of 2,145 stalls in the 20 largest hawker centres in Singapore. Hawker centres in Singapore are open-air eating places patronised by thousands of people each day. With less government intervention in the languages that can be displayed on hawker centre signboards, the signs reflect the languages used and identities adopted by the masses in a multilingual setting. This language ecology enables us to observe how languages interact at individual and societal levels in hawker centres and how linguistic diversity is maintained despite the apparent widespread use of English in Singapore. We examine how besides the monolingual, bilingual and multilingual and hybrid signboards, hawker centres are unique habitats in this language ecology where non-Mandarin dialects are preserved, and traditional Chinese characters are commonly seen, in a globalised Singapore. The hawker centres showcase a linguistic landscape of identity, diversity, and continuity.

Abstract

In this cross-sectional study, a total of 394 U.S. American and Thai college students took an online survey investigating how they perceived humor used by their foreign-born instructors and how those perceptions then predicted their self-perceived cognitive and affective learning. Moderated mediation analyses revealed both student groups understood affiliative humor and considered it appropriate and humorous which then enhanced their learning. Aggressive humor positively predicted Thai students’ learning through the mediating role of humorousness and negatively predicted U.S. students’ learning through the mediating role of appropriateness. Self-defeating humor enhanced U.S. students’ learning through the moderating role of appropriateness. This study clarified the influence of different humor styles on learning and extended the instructional humor processing theory by demonstrating the moderating effect of culture. With the internationalization of higher education and increasing number of foreign-born instructors, this pioneering study provided preliminary suggestions for effectively using humor in cross-cultural classrooms.

Abstract

Medical tourism industry is currently viewed as one of the lucrative sources of income for some countries and in essence, owes much of its reputation and success to private hospitals and the Internet (Connell, 2006). However, how these private hospitals discursively present themselves to prospective health tourists in order to entice them to use their medical services rather than their rivals’ still remains under-researched. Following the ESP genre school, this study seeks to explore the “About Us” sections of private hospitals’ websites and aims to see how such sections are rhetorically designed and constructed. Using Bhatia’s (1993, 2004) move structures for promotional texts, this study examines the rhetorical structure of the constituent webpages of the “About Us” sections of forty-one Malaysian private hospitals’ websites. Our study demonstrates how Malaysian private hospitals utilize a number of cognitive structures to present and promote themselves in their “About Us” sections. Our findings are, in general, beneficial for the private hospitals in Malaysia or elsewhere in the world, and in particular, are helpful for novice medical website designers.

This article reviews Silencing Shanghai – Language and Identity in Urban China

This article reviews Is English an Asian Language?

This article reviews Power, Media and the Covid-19 Pandemic: Framing Public Discourse$ 141.84