Workshop "International bridge-building: Politeness in professional correspondence"

The presenter’s answer to these questions is yes, and if yours is too, this workshop is for you: Have you experienced (or caused) offense or embarrassment in an email with an international colleague? Does learning to work through email-based misunderstandings to build better cross-cultural relationships interest you? 

Using examples both public and personal, this session explores the functional language of politeness and its power in relationship-building in higher academia. What are the rules? How do we strategize past our blunders? Knowing how to use these tools generates an effective, compelling piece of dialogue in intercultural communication.

With a focus primarily (but not exclusively) on Russian-American correspondence, discussion will include do’s and don’ts, strategies, and an opportunity to practice both hypothetical and any real-life examples that participants would like to workshop. Editing and context considerations, as well as Q&A, will be included.

Speaker: Tamrika Khvtisiashvili, Ph.D. in Theoretical Linguistics and M.A. in TESOL (the University of Utah and University of Frankfurt), is an English Language Specialist, who has taught, given numerous workshops and facilitated Professional Development for teachers in the Unites States, Russia, Estonia, Uzbekistan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Germany, Tajikistan, India, and Palestine. She taught as an Assistant Professor at the University of Utah in the United States and Alfaisal University in Saudi Arabia, teaching courses in Linguistics, Methodology and Anthropology, as well as directing the University Preparatory Program for women. Her research interests are language teacher education, linguistics, anthropology, and intercultural communication.

Target audience: HSE teachers, researchers, and graduate students
Language: English
Date & Time: February 21, 17:30 - 19:30
Location: online