• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.33
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• pp.77-94
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• 2013

This article aims at analyzing melodramas in films of Northeast Asia for seeking comparative studies of popular narrative which have been widely favored in Korea, China and Japan since the 1990s. It is explored of expectation and desire of public who have taken pleasure in watching the films in each countries of Northeast Asia as well. It is selected to Letter(1997) made in Korea, The Road Home(1999) in China and Love Letter(1995) in Japan for the research as above Melodrama of each countries has been searched at not only maintaining the traditional melodramatic convention but also corresponding to sociocultural environment of each countries for meeting tastes of public 'in the 1990s' when cultural interchanges have been more active along each countries of Northeast Asia. It will be concretely pursued to the interchanges and influence-reception relation of melodrama for follow-up research as it has been sprightly enjoying as well as transforming common cultural contents at each countries of Northeast Asia since the 1990s.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.19
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• pp.411-444
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• 2010

This paper explored the academic socialization of a group of Mongolian college students, learning Korean as their L3 (Third Language), by focusing on their uses of an electronic communication channel. From a perspective of the continua of bi-literacy, this case study investigated how Mongolian students who had limited exposure to a Korean learning community overcame academic challenges through the use of a written communication channel as a tool in the socialization process. Data were collected mainly through three methods: written products, interviews, and questionnaires. The results from this study were as follows. Interactional opportunities for these minority students were seriously constrained during the classroom practices in a Korean-speaking classroom. They also described the lack of communicative competence in Korean and the limited roles played by L2 (English) communication as key barriers to classroom practices. However, students' ways of engaging in electronic interactions differed widely in that they were able to broaden interactional circles by communicating their expertise and difficulties with their Korean peers through the electronic channel. More importantly, the communication pattern of "L2-L2/L3-L3" (on a L2-L3 continuum) emerging from data demonstrated how these students used a written channel as a socialization tool to mediate their learning process in a new community of learning. This study argues that a written communication channel should be taken as an essential part of teaching practices especially for foreign students who cannot speak Korean fluently in multi-cultural classes.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.20
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• pp.295-321
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• 2010

The trend of globalization has sharpened the debate on interculturality, which scholars examine from different and often conflicting points of view ('content' vs. 'practice', 'culture-specific' vs. 'universal', 'communication (meta)theory' vs. 'communication practice', 'individual' vs. 'collective', etc.). Whereas all these approaches are necessary to describe the multiple dimensions of interculturality, their dichotomous nature does not help to account for its internal complexity, which cannot be dissociated from the connections that exist among all these dimensions. The difficulty posed by the essentialist interpretations that tend to result from these dichotomies is compounded by the fact that in postmodern debates priority has been given to approaches that emphasize individual or collective agency over structural constraints which have to do with political economy or with cultural and linguistic codes and traditions. This paper aims mainly at suggesting that the dissolution of the boundaries that exist between these approaches should be pursued in order to get a fuller and richer approach to their common object of study. After discussing, by way of illustration, content-based and practice-based perspectives, we suggest that one way of getting beyond these dichotomies consists in focusing on the 'interactional' dimension of interculturality, which means laying emphasis on intersubjectivity and, particularly, on the individual subjects considered as members of different cultural communities who strive to transcend their sociocultural boundaries in order to reach harmonious interactions in a world in which inequality and the de-territorialization of people and cultures are central features.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.21
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• pp.139-164
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• 2010

Sung Yung Shin was adopted as a Korean infant to an American family. She is now one of the most important writers in Asian American literary field. This paper analyzes the characteristics of her literature, focusing on Skirt full of Black (poetry)and Cooper's Lesson(children's book). Sun Yung Shin uses collage in Skirt full of Black as an effective rhetorical device because it can express her experience as an adopted other in the multicultural American society. She rewrites the fairy tale of Swan Prince in the viewpoint of silence. For a yellow Asian adopted woman, speaking is suppressed. In the end, the attempt to escape from silence is the writer's resisting activity, and the rewriting of the tale is her questioning in place of the princess. I analyses Cooper's Lesson in the viewpoint of transcultural assimilation. Cooper's lesson is accomplished not by his white father but by a Korean settler, Mr. Lee. Cooper's family is a hybrid composed of white American father, Korean mother, and their half son. So this family has many complicated difficulties, though it's small. Mr. Lee who accepted a new language to establish a new identity teaches Cooper the importance of cultural assimilation, which is not a one-sided integration to dominant culture but an intercultural communion while sustaining each culture's singularity. Cooper learns that he should live in an harmonious and balanced life in a multi-cultural society while keeping his own subjective point of view.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.21
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• pp.271-288
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• 2010

In their everyday life, people form social phenomena and relations through the shapes and habits of animals. Therefore, animals contain the idea of the way of life of certain nations, spiritual and cultural feelings, and the symbolic meaning which can be recognized between the members of the unique nation. The symbolism of animals varies depending on different nations, because the adages are the essence of the language including their culture, thought, custom, and life. Examining their own adages can be one of the ways to find out what the animals symbolize in different nations. Another reason is that they are the dictionaries, reflecting their own way of thinking and traditional values, so to speak. The research shows that, between Korean and Chinese adages, it is in a similar frequency, using materials such as mammals, birds, fishes, reptiles, and insects. The adages are focused on the 12 animals which is familiar to both nations, a rat, an ox, a tiger, a rabbit, a dragon, a snake, a horse, a lamb, a monkey, a rooster, a dog and a boar. We compared the symbolism, the surface meanings in adages, and the figurative meanings of these animals in Korea and China. As a result, it is found that some are almost the same in usage. However, some are totally different such as expressions related to the animals, the cultural differences and clear understanding. It is necessary to do comparative researches in a detailed and various way by studying the issues derived from verbalism.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.25
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• pp.35-54
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• 2011

Magnum Korea, a 2008 exhibit at the Hangaram Art Museum in the Seoul Arts Center, introduced representative images of Korea to commemorate the 60th year of the founding of the nation. Twenty photographers of various backgrounds participated in Magnum Korea. This study focuses on one of the exhibited photographers, the French photographer Bruno Barbey. Born in Morocco, Barbey occupies a special position in today's modern photography not to mention in the Magnum group of traditional medium of photography. His photographic world is affiliated with the humanism of Robert Diosneau, particularly as his photographic medium is based on communication and code. Among the photographs in the Magnum Korea collection, Barbey's photographs can be organized into six different subjects: industrial structures in nature, industrial buildings, traditional relics of culture, terminals, markets and restaurants, and daily life. This paper takes special interest in Barbey's unique perspective on Korea's traditional cultural assets focusing on 'Seoul, Jogyesa'. What is the uniqueness of our culture as contained in Barbey's works? In other words, how did he capture the special characteristics of our culture that are often overlooked or ignored because they are so familiar to us? A semiotic approach is used to discover what common but special situations and realities of Korea attracted this photographer and how he managed to capture them in his photographs.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.34 no.10
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• pp.1731-1741
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• 2010

Personal appearance attitude about the ideal beauty is influenced by the context of the culture one belongs to. In a cultural sphere the higher public self-consciousness individuals have then the more sensitive one would be to the sociocultural pressure about thinness and thus the higher the expectations about the ideal appearance. Accordingly, in that culture one would have more body shame when they do not reach the ideal beauty standard. This study examines the difference between Korean and German culture, with a focus on the age group of university students who are especially sensitive to aesthetic consciousness. The results are as follows: There were differences of public self-consciousness, perceived sociocultural pressure, appearance internalization, appearance awareness and body shame between the two cultural spheres; in addition, Korean female university students were significantly higher in all the variables when compared to German female university students. The higher public self-consciousness and perceived sociocultural pressure then the higher the internalization of the ideal appearance; the ideal appearance awareness increased the body shame. In the case of the German female university student group, public self-consciousness influenced body shame directly; however, in case of the Korean female university student group public self-consciousness were not directly affective. Rather, perceived sociocultural pressures directly affected body shame and showed the difference between the cultural spheres. Finally, in regards to the direct effect about body shame, the German female university student group noted the influence of public self-consciousness as the most significant; however, the Korean female university student group noted the influence of sociocultural pressure as the most significant.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.43
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• pp.139-170
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• 2016

Through the process, it is possible to understand the meanings of specific numerical symbols that are present in our daily lives, rather than regarding them as abstract symbols. The symbols can be efficiently utilized for cultural communication between Korean teachers and foreign learners, and between learners with different cultural backgrounds. A symbol that intensively shows Korean culture can be applied efficiently to cultural education. This is because Korean identity can be understood by means of symbols that represent Korean thoughts and emotions. Therefore, this study intends to examine the contents of symbol education applicable to Korean culture education, centering on numerical symbols amid far-reaching symbol systems. For this purpose, this study analyzed how the application of numerical symbols is presented in Korean textbooks, with the intent to organize the symbols into 4 categories of myth, folklore, taboo, and idiomatic expressions, which might be actually helpful for understanding Korean culture.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.60-67
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• 2004

The purpose of this study was to examine fashion counterfeit purchasing behavior and purchasing intention among Koreans and Americans. 486 female college students were surveyed for this study. For data analysis, descriptive statistics, 2-test, and t-test were used. As the results, generally Korean consumers had purchased more fashion counterfeits than American consumers. There were significantly differences between two groups on 5 fashoin brand counterfeits. That is, handbag of PRADA or LOUIS VUITTON, shoes of Ferragamo, or Gucci, clothing of DKNY, PRADA, or CK, sunglass of Gucci or Channel, and accessories of Agatha, Cartier, or Tiffany were purchased by Korean consumers much more than by U.S consumers. Also, Koreans had more higher purchasing intentions toward fashion counterfeits than Americans except clothing. Based on these results, fashion marketing would be suggested.

• Journal of Information Technology Services
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.183-191
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to compare the impulsive purchasing tendency of Korean and U.S. college students. In particular, the study examined the effects of self-regulated learning and self-regulated consumption on college students' impulsive buying tendency. A total of 680 valid samples were obtained from online self-reported surveys in Korea and the United States. Both self-regulated learning and self-regulated consumption (self-control and self-supervision) were higher in US college students than Korean students. Self-regulated learning did not influence impulsive purchasing tendency. However, the impulsive purchasing tendency increased as the level of self-supervision among self-regulated consumption decreased. When purchases were made in stores, impulsive purchasing tendency increased in both South Korea and the US. Therefore, it is necessary to make efforts to decrease the impulsive purchasing tendency by fostering self-regulated consumption capacity of college students through consumer education.