This cross-sectional self-report study investigated associations between exposure to digital media art and Taoist music and mental health indicators (well-being, anxiety, and resilience) among Chinese college students. It also examined stress reduction as a statistical indirect pathway and social support as a contextual moderator. A total of 341 Chinese college students completed a structured questionnaire comprising multi-item measures. The data were analysed in SmartPLS by assessing the measurement and structural models. Both exposure variables were positively associated with well-being and resilience and negatively associated with anxiety. Specific indirect associations between both exposure variables and all three mental health outcomes, mediated by stress reduction, were statistically significant. Social support significantly moderated all three associations between stress reduction and mental health outcomes: greater social support strengthened the positive associations of stress reduction with well-being and resilience, and weakened its negative association with anxiety. The findings are consistent with Stress and Coping Theory, Broaden-and-Build Theory, and the Buffering Hypothesis, suggesting that culturally relevant and digitally delivered art experiences may be associated with students’ mental health through stress-related and supportive social processes. Because the findings are correlational, they do not demonstrate temporal mediation, causal effects, or clinical efficacy. Digital creativity and Taoist musical aesthetics may nevertheless be considered culturally situated complements to student wellness programmes, while professional counselling remains necessary for students with clinical needs.
The present study explored the pragmatic functions of Mʕliʃ in Jordanian Arabic. The data consisted of 175 tokens of Mʕliʃ compiled from naturally occurring interactions among speakers in the sample. The objective of the present research was to investigate the pragmatic functions of Mʕliʃ through a qualitative discourse-analytic approach, supported by descriptive quantitative analysis. Findings revealed that the Jordanian speakers in the sample utilized this discourse marker to perform 11 pragmatic functions: reassurance, politeness marker of requests, consolation, apology, disapproval, disagreement, asking for permission, conflict-calming, threat-making, turn-taking, and conversational closing. The data also showed that some functions, such as consolation, politeness markers of request, reassurance, and apology, were produced more frequently than others (e.g., disapproval and disagreement), which may reflect broader cultural values of harmony, solidarity, tolerance, and empathy. The study also suggests a possible association between gender and the distribution of these functions. The study indicates that women tended to use Mʕliʃ to perform politeness and supportive functions more than men did. Using a three-domain framework (facework-oriented functions, interactional management functions, and stance-marking and evaluative functions), the analysis of the research outcomes demonstrates that Mʕliʃ serves as a multifunctional pragmatic marker and that its interpretation depends on the situation or context.
Creative idea withholding constitutes a significant yet insufficiently examined obstacle to organizational innovation, as unexpressed ideas cannot be evaluated or implemented. Although previous research has generally depicted emotional environments as uniformly advantageous for creativity and voice, recent perspectives indicate that emotional norms may also restrict expression by fostering self-censorship. Drawing on emotional culture theory, the present study investigates how shared norms of emotional expression influence employees’ intentional withholding of creative ideas and introduces a curvilinear framework to reconcile these divergent views. Survey data from 451 employees in Islamic banking institutions in South Punjab, Pakistan, supplemented by contextual information from managers, were analyzed using a moderated curvilinear model in Mplus. The findings reveal a U-shaped relationship, with creative idea withholding being highest when emotional culture is either weak or excessively strong, and lowest at moderate levels. Furthermore, the communication climate was found to moderate the relationship between emotional culture and creative idea withholding. By reframing creativity from a cognitive capability to a strategic behavioral choice, this study advances emotional culture theory, extends research on voice and silence, and underscores the paradoxical influence of emotional norms on the expression or suppression of creative ideas. The results suggest that organizations should foster balanced emotional cultures that support emotional norms without imposing excessive pressure for conformity. Additionally, the importance of open and dialogic communication practices in mitigating employees’ tendency to withhold creative ideas is emphasized.
This study aims at revising the onto-epistemological consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic among the Awajún, an ethnolinguistic group inhabiting the Northern Peruvian Amazon, and how, in a context also fueled by historical marginalization and exclusion, this group experiences, confronts, and makes sense of public policy while developing agency, resistance, and knowledge production. For this purpose, we analyze the material, epistemological, and ontological aspects of the hierarchical relationships between the Peruvian state, its majority or core culture, and those categorized as ‘indigenous peoples’. In parallel, we collect and analyze the voices situated in the ethno-linguistic and socio-geographical discursive sphere of the Awajún to learn about their local interpretation of nation-wide political processes amid a global health crisis, the impact of such processes on their lives and experiences, and their own response mechanisms to such a crisis. As our findings indicate, while ontological insecurity and, more specifically, a fear of population control were present among the Awajún, they also implemented ontological translation and equivocation control, as well as identity politics by means of religious boundary blurring and self-reliance on formal and informal institutions. This allows us to conclude that, to them, COVID-19 meant both a health and an onto-epistemic crisis. The present article seeks to expand the rather limited research on the ontological and epistemological aspects that divide Peruvian society into ‘worthy’ and ‘unworthy’ in relation to the categories ‘non-indigenous’ and ‘indigenous,’ respectively.
This article seeks to highlight the experiences and agency of KwaZulu-Natal women through the theoretical lenses of African Feminism and the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA), foregrounding intersectional dynamics of gender, class, and rurality. The paper explores how rural women negotiate structural poverty, climate vulnerability, gender inequality, and socio-cultural constraints while exercising agency in livelihood strategies. Hence, it focuses on rural women’s ability to survive in environments beset by poverty and limited resources, and deems this laudable. The study adopted a qualitative approach and was guided by a phenomenological research design. In-depth face-to-face interviews were conducted with eighteen (18) participants who were purposively selected. Data was analysed using thematic analysis. Findings reveal that rural women articulate diverse self-definitions and community roles shaped by intersecting socio-economic and environmental factors, and that climate change exacerbates livelihood insecurity, gendered labour burdens, and resource scarcity. The findings also revealed that although climate change negatively affected rural women, they demonstrated agency through collective and individual livelihood strategies, including stokvel participation, informal women’s credit clubs, craft and agricultural micro-enterprises, and adaptive water-harvesting practices. The study contributes empirically to African feminist scholarship by illustrating how rural women’s agency is embedded in relational, communal, and ecological contexts, and extends the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach by integrating feminist insights on power, patriarchy, and gendered resource access. Policy implications include the need for gender-responsive rural development, support for climate adaptation, and recognition of informal women-led economic institutions in national development planning.
This article examines how highly educated Hungarian migrant women living in Vienna perceive the differences between the expressive possibilities available to them in Hungarian and the communicative possibilities they experience in German and how these differences relate to their identity, emotions, social relationships, and tendencies toward self-segregation. The study is based on a qualitative secondary discourse analysis of 25 anonymised in-depth interviews collected in 2023 as part of a broader research project on women’s social and labour market integration involving participants with self-reported German proficiency of at least B2 level. The results identify three recurring patterns. Women often associate the German language with feelings of shame, insecurity, and an inability to express themselves. In the participants’ narratives, this experience is linked to identity-related tensions, a diminished sense of competence, and a subjective loss of status. Ultimately, these experiences are associated with more selective social networking, more cautious participation in German-language contexts, and a preference for Hungarian-language networks as emotionally safer spaces. The article introduces the concept of code reduction to describe this identity-related experience of expressive narrowing, interpreted not as an objective linguistic decline but as a subjective experience in which one is unable to reproduce one’s usual native-language repertoire in the second language. The study argues that the linguistic experience of migration should be understood not only as a matter of language proficiency, but also as an emotional and identity-related dimension of social integration.
This study, grounded in a mixed-methods framework, examines the hindrances affecting the speaking skills of low-proficiency ESL undergraduates at a public university, with a specific focus on the perceived role of language anxiety. The study collected quantitative data by using a well-structured questionnaire, whereas qualitative insights were captured through semi-structured interviews to examine learners’ reported classroom experiences. Speaking proficiency has long been a persistent challenge, given its importance for English as a Second Language (ESL) learners, who need extended exposure yet have limited opportunities within formal language instruction, particularly in non-Anglophone higher education contexts. Descriptive statistical analysis indicated that psychological factors, especially presentation anxiety, fear of making mistakes, and low speaking self-confidence, were reported as key barriers alongside classroom-related and linguistic challenges. The thematic analysis of the interview data further suggested that English-only instructional approaches, teacher-dominated pedagogical practices, linguistic insecurity, and crowded classrooms were perceived to heighten learners’ anxiety and reduce their readiness or willingness to communicate. From a pedagogical perspective, the current study highlights the significance of affectively sensitive teaching strategies, including carefully scaffolded collaborative interaction, helpful feedback, and flexible language use, for developing communicative self-confidence.
National security culture has emerged as an important factor shaping state behavior in contemporary international relations. In the current geopolitical environment, culture increasingly functions as a dimension of warfare and of national security, including information security. Drawing on a qualitative scoping review and grounded-theory-informed coding within a constructivist framework, this article examines the role of culture in the formation of nation-states’ security visions and behaviors, with particular attention to education as a mediating domain in these processes. The analysis shows that security-related patterns are increasingly embedded in educational discourses, while education itself is evolving into a distinct site of ideological formation that influences the broader culture of national and information security. Particular attention is given to identity, the securitization of education, and the risks associated with this process, including over-securitization, constraints on academic openness, and vulnerabilities within higher education and distance-learning environments. The article also proposes a conceptualization of the securitization landscape as contributing to the emergence of an inertia-based self-developing system in education. The study contributes to the literature by advancing the understanding of education as an underexplored yet strategically important domain of national security culture in the information age.
This study examines the use of suggestion speech acts in Instagram comments, with particular attention to how Saudi EFL users demonstrate pragmatic competence in digital communication. Drawing on Martínez Flor’s taxonomy of suggestion strategies, the study analyzes 103 suggestion-oriented comments selected from an initial dataset of 150 Instagram comments. A mixed-methods design was adopted: qualitative analysis was used to classify suggestion strategies into direct, conventionalized, and indirect forms, while quantitative frequency analysis was applied to identify their distribution across the dataset. The findings show that indirect strategies were the most frequently used, accounting for 40 instances, followed by conventionalized forms (33) and direct strategies (30). At the sub-strategy level, impersonal constructions were the most dominant form, indicating users’ preference for mitigating imposition and reducing face-threatening effects in online interaction. The qualitative analysis further reveals that Instagram users employ suggestions not only to advise or recommend actions but also to express critique, negotiate social distance, and maintain politeness in public digital discourse. The study contributes to research on interlanguage pragmatics and computer-mediated communication by showing how suggestion speech acts are shaped by platform-based interaction, sociocultural norms, and digital politeness practices. However, the findings should be interpreted within the limits of the selected dataset and the specific Instagram context examined.
This research aims to investigate the structural mechanisms underlying tourist loyalty in emerging ecotourism destinations. Using the Stimulus-Organism-Response framework, it examines how cognitive and affective dimensions of destination image influence loyalty intentions, while exploring the mediating role of cultural intelligence. A quantitative design was deployed, based on a survey of 720 ecotourists in Tunisia, with Structural Equation Modeling used to test the hypothetical relationships. The empirical analysis confirms that while both image dimensions promote loyalty, cognitive image appears to be an important predictor of cultural intelligence. Results demonstrate that cultural intelligence serves as a significant partial mediator, linking knowledge-based perceptions of the local context to loyalty intentions. Contrary to approaches prioritizing pure emotion, this study reveals that ecotourism loyalty is strongly dependent on cultural learning processes. For Destination Marketing Organizations, these findings suggest placing greater emphasis on cognitive positioning within existing destination marketing strategies. Strategies must invest in strengthening the cognitive image through rich educational content (traditions, ecology, local norms) and active learning experiences that foster cultural adaptation. Developing visitors' cultural intelligence thus constitutes a lever for competitive differentiation and sustainable loyalty. This research offers a threefold contribution to tourism marketing literature. First, it extends destination image theory by validating cultural intelligence as a psychological mediator that clarifies the perception-behavior relationship. Second, it repositions cultural intelligence as a dynamic, situational capability shaped by tourist experience. Finally, it fills an empirical gap by validating the SOR framework in a North African context, providing contextual legitimacy for sustainable tourism theories in emerging destinations.
This study aims to examine the intercultural sensitivity (IS) of in-service teachers in Greece by providing a nationwide profile across the five dimensions of the Intercultural Sensitivity Scale (ISS). Addressing a gap in previous Greek research, which has largely focused on pre-service teachers, specific specializations, or geographically limited samples, the study investigates whether Greek teachers’ intercultural sensitivity is balanced across dimensions and how selected demographic factors relate to their IS levels. Methodologically, the study employed a quantitative, cross-sectional survey design. Data were collected from 409 in-service teachers working in primary and secondary education across all 13 administrative regions of Greece, using the ISS and a supplementary demographic questionnaire. The findings revealed that teachers reported a generally high level of overall intercultural sensitivity. However, the dimensional analysis indicated a clear values–confidence imbalance: participants scored highest on Respect for Cultural Differences but lowest on Interaction Confidence. This suggests that, although teachers demonstrate strong positive attitudes toward cultural diversity, they report comparatively lower confidence in managing intercultural interactions. Furthermore, postgraduate qualifications and non-urban residency were associated with higher levels of intercultural sensitivity, while other demographic variables showed more limited or inconsistent effects. The study concludes that Greek in-service teachers possess a strong affective foundation for intercultural education, but practical interactional confidence remains less developed. These findings imply that teacher training and professional development should move beyond reinforcing positive attitudes and place greater emphasis on experiential, skills-based approaches that strengthen teachers’ confidence and effectiveness in culturally diverse classrooms.
Professionals in engineering and many other fields are often expected to work on global teams, setting the stage for frequent interpersonal interactions that span cultural boundaries. To further investigate the nature of such experiences, the findings presented in this paper are based on data collected via interviews and focus groups with 23 technical professionals who had varying levels of exposure to intercultural teamwork. Using an inductive thematic analysis approach to our data, we initially observed contrasting patterns of dyadic interactions in the examples and remarks of our study participants. Through further analysis, we developed a two-dimensional framework for such interactions that takes into consideration a given individual’s orientation toward both their own cultural defaults and the defaults held by others in interpersonal teamwork situations. The five specific orientation patterns we identified are arranged from lesser to greater levels of individual concern for one’s own cultural defaults, along with the defaults and norms held by others. In addition to representing a novel contribution to the existing research literature, we anticipate that our findings are useful for intercultural education and training initiatives, including raising awareness of cultural adaptation strategies and orientations among students and professionals. We also hope that our results help stimulate further research on intercultural adaptation, especially in the context of dyadic and other collaborative interactions that are commonplace in global work settings.
Healthcare organisations are increasingly intercultural workplaces in which leadership, knowledge sharing, and innovation are shaped through ongoing communicative negotiation across cultural differences. However, much existing research treats culture as a static background condition and under-theorises how leadership communication constitutes organisational realities. Drawing on intercultural communication theory, the communicative constitution of organizations (CCO), and leadership sense-giving, this study examines how culture is communicatively constituted through cross-cultural leadership and how these cultural processes shape knowledge sharing and individual innovation in culturally diverse healthcare organizations. Using a sequential mixed-methods design, qualitative interviews were first conducted to explore how healthcare professionals interpret leaders’ sense-giving as cultural cues that define legitimacy and participation. A subsequent quantitative study tested a sequential mediation model. The results show that leadership sense-giving constitutes an inclusive organisational culture, which fosters knowledge sharing and enables individual innovation. By foregrounding culture as an emergent communicative process, this study advances intercultural communication research by explaining how leadership communication becomes consequential for innovation in healthcare contexts. Practically, the findings suggest that culturally inclusive leadership sensegiving can be enacted through everyday healthcare routines, such as team meetings, clinical handovers, and shared decision-making processes, to support knowledge sharing and innovation.
This SLR was conducted in the field of digital communication in the specific context of intercultural communication. The main purpose of this SLR was to assess studies on psychological outcomes, anxiety, self-efficacy, and social media fatigue (SMF) among digital natives and digital immigrants who use social media and experience social media overload (SMO). Unlike meta-analyses, which statistically combine effect sizes, the present study was qualitative in nature; therefore, it employed a thematic Systematic Literature Review (SLR) adhering to PRISMA guidelines to ensure the reliability and transferability of the study, specifically the methodological process. A total of 45 studies were chosen using a Boolean search in Scopus. The studies range from 2000 to 2025. To focus on more recent research, most studies are from 2020 to 2025. Older studies were included only if they provided essential empirical support. The Boolean search included relevant predefined keywords aligned with the objectives of the SLR, such as coping patterns, generational adaptation, and stress responses. Due to social comparison, digital natives exhibited higher emotional dysregulation, with psychological outcomes and digital stress as foci, focusing on mobile social media. The SLR addresses the divide between digital immigrants and digital natives, particularly in Asia, Central Asia, and other regions transitioning from classical to digital communication. Additionally, this study found gaps in psychological outcomes and infrastructural issues, alongside the primary technological barriers, according to the objectives of the SLR. For example, immigrants experienced higher stress, including coping mechanisms, anxiety patterns, and barriers to digital literacy, offering psychological implications and recommendations to manage excessive digital exposure and SMO.
This study examines the relationship between team performance and subjective well-being in multicultural organizational contexts, and the mediating role of cultural integration in these relationships. Existing research highlights that understanding well-being is essential in enhancing team outcomes, yet limited studies have explored this link across diverse work settings. These findings support using well-being as a significant predictor when evaluating performance, helping identify how subjective well-being contributes to improved team performance through cultural integration. This study produced 400 valid responses using a quantitative survey. Descriptive statistics, multiple regression analysis, and mediation analysis were used to test the hypotheses and validate direct and indirect interactions between the variables. The well-being framework, rooted in capabilities approaches and examined by international experts, was used in this study to understand subjective well-being. The study's findings reveal that the well-being variables Life Satisfaction, Flourishing, and Domain Evaluation significantly affected Team Performance. The mediation analysis results indicated that cultural integration mediates the relationships among all four constructs of well-being and team performance. Overall, the findings confirm that team performance is strengthened when employees experience high levels of subjective well-being and cultural integration is effectively fostered within the team. This study adds to the knowledge corpus by offering suggestions for predicting the effectiveness of a multicultural workforce by providing empirical evidence supporting the integration of well-being and cultural diversity in organisational performance models.
Poetry is a form of literature that depends on artistic images to express emotions, feelings, attitudes, etc. It is, however, assumed that poetry is a difficult genre to translate, since some of the poet's feelings, emotions, and visualizations are untranslatable despite the translator’s professionalism and experience. This study aims to shed light on the translatability of the figures of speech in Moore’s English translation of Qabbani’s Arabic poem, ‘Letter from Under the Sea'. The ST and its translation are compared, analyzed, and discussed to see how figures of speech are rendered. Moreover, twenty native speakers of English were surveyed to see how they perceive the aesthetic effect of the poem, taking into consideration that they had no idea that the poem was a translation from another language. Throughout the analysis, it is found that figures of speech are translatable, but the degree of the aesthetic effect is distorted, thereby affecting the poem’s artistic and poetic images. The findings indicate that, while meaning is preserved in translation, the aesthetic effect of figures of speech is often diminished, underscoring the need for creativity-oriented, culturally informed translation strategies. The study highlights the partial un/translatability of figurative language in Arabic–English poetry and emphasizes the importance of sensitivity to aesthetic and imagistic dimensions beyond semantic equivalence. It also contributes to translation studies by providing insights into readers’ aesthetic reception, with implications for translator training, literary translation practice, and future research.
The Publisher [1] has retracted this article in agreement with the Editor-in-Chief. Upon investigation, we identified serious concerns regarding the integrity of the submission and the reliability of the publication record. Specifically, the journal found serious irregularities in the supporting documentation submitted for the article, including materials concerning institutional verification and ethical approval that could not be accepted as authentic. The review also identified serious concerns regarding authorship changes that appeared to involve authorship-for-sale issues and unresolved issues relating to image rights and permissions. In addition, when the authors were asked to provide copyright documentation for images included in the article, the images were replaced rather than the requested documentation being supplied. Taken together, these matters led the journal to conclude that it can no longer maintain confidence in the integrity of the submission and the publication record associated with this article. For this reason, the article is hereby retracted. We regret that these issues were not identified during the standard quality-control procedures. We have since implemented additional editorial safeguards and strengthened verification checks to ensure the highest standards of research integrity. The corresponding author, acting on behalf of all listed authors, was given the opportunity to state their agreement or disagreement with this retraction. We have kept a formal record of all responses received. This retraction is issued in accordance with the COPE Retraction Guidelines and forms part of ICR Publications’ commitment to maintaining the accuracy and integrity of the scholarly record. The original article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.36923/jicc.v26i1.1258
This paper aims to examine how the Arab-British novelist Leila Aboulela portrays the distinctive relationship between her protagonist, Akuany, and the Nile in her recent novel, River Spirit (2023), set during the Mahdist Revolution (1881–1898). This study employs the geocritical approach to examine the interaction between physical spaces and human experiences, highlighting how landscapes influence identity and memory. It analyzes the river not as a mere physical entity but as a personified character with profound cultural and political significations, demonstrating Aboulela’s ability to make geography a means of conveying emotional and historical resonance, playing a vital role in the narrative. Born in a village in South Sudan, Akuany remains attached to the river despite being forced to peregrinate around the country because of the ongoing armed conflicts. Aboulela frames Akuany’s circular journey, from Malakal to Al-Ubayyid, to Khartoum, to Omdurman, and back to her village, as both a physical and spiritual passage in which the Nile emerges as a living, unifying force that transcends colonial and political borders, shaping Sudanese identity through memory, belonging, and resilience. Akuany’s views on the places she is taken to, as well as her feelings towards the individuals she encounters, are influenced by their proximity to the river. Her feelings towards the individuals she encounters are shaped by their perceptions of the river. Hence, this paper investigates Akuany’s thoughts and emotions about the river to explore how Aboulela aesthetically transforms the Nile from a natural body of water into a breathing soul that speaks and listens. This study further emphasizes the novel’s contribution to postcolonial and environmental literary studies by connecting human experience with natural landscapes. In a novel that traces the shifting fortunes of prominent leaders, the Nile remains unchanged, as does Akuany’s unwavering devotion to it.
This qualitative study investigates the persuasive strategies employed in 100 textual advertisements on OpenSooq, a major online sales platform in Jordan. Guided by Beebe and Beebe’s (2013) model of persuasive communication, the analysis examines how credibility, emotional, and logical appeals are discursively realized in Jordanian digital contexts. Using thematic coding supported by ATLAS.ti, the findings show a marked preference for credibility-enhancing strategies (60.4%), followed by emotional appeals (37.4%), whereas logical reasoning (2.2%) remains marginal. These patterns reveal that persuasion in Jordanian online advertising reflects a value-driven communicative culture that prioritizes trust ‘thiqa’, sincerity, and interpersonal harmony over rational argumentation. By linking rhetorical strategy with cultural pragmatics, the study demonstrates how global persuasive models are re-contextualized within Arabic digital marketplaces, thereby offering new insights into the intersection of language, culture, and persuasion in the Arab world.
The Publisher has retracted this article in agreement with the Editor-in-Chief. Upon investigation, it was found that the submission involved fraudulent practices and unauthorized third-party involvement in the whole editorial process. Additionally, a third party was also involved in issuing the fake acceptance letter in PDF format. The journal has no affiliation with any third-party agent involved. This retraction is made in accordance with COPE guidelines to uphold academic integrity. Retraction
