Student InvolvementJoan and Larry Cimino Award for Excellence in Intercultural Communication
Joan and Larry Cimino Award for Excellence in Intercultural Communication
The Joan and Larry Cimino Award for Excellence in Intercultural Communication is for the best paper or thesis on intercultural communication submitted by a student enrolled in a graduate course in a degree program offered through one of the departments in the School of Liberal Arts at IU Indianapolis. Larry Cimino, President of ProConsult, LLC., and a former Manager of Global Relations and Advocacy in Neuroscience for Eli Lilly & Company, is Chair of ICIC’s Advisory Board and has generously funded the scholarship program since 2004.
Understanding between and among disparate cultures has challenged humankind throughout history; intercultural communication is a key element in achieving that understanding.
The award is based on a belief that a disciplined approach to the study of intercultural communication can provide valuable insights toward achieving understanding among cultures. The study of intercultural communication is broadly defined to include research in areas such as language corpora, contrastive rhetoric, second language acquisition, second language pedagogy, language and communication theory, as well as other related fields.
While a paper or thesis from a graduate course in either English or Communication Studies would most readily fit within the award criteria, submissions are possible from a variety of courses within the School of Liberal Arts at IU Indianapolis.
Larry Cimino congratulates Kenneth Erny, 2014 Award for Excellence recipient
Past Recipients
Alexander Williams (co-author Miranda Rivas) for "Assessing Situational Motivation in Second Language Acquisition: Case Study of Jefe Oeste"
Megan Singh for "Identifying Genre Moves in Grant Proposals That Support Adult Learning: An Analysis of Written Discourse"
Monika Wathen for "English for International Hotel Resort Employees"
Xi Simon Chen
Jessica Heck (co-author Angie Gibbs) for “ESP Course Developed for Mainstreamed ELL Content-Area Teachers”
Nicole Griffith (co-authors Jelena Martic and Erin Miller) for “Analysis of a Japanese ESL Learner’s Grammar, Teacher Feedback, and Uptake in Second Language Writing”
Grady Kepler for “Advancing Intercultural Competency: Vygotskian-Inspired Instruction in English for Academic Purposes.” Written for Professor Estela Ene’s course, Second Language Writing, the paper examines the role of theoretical instruction in second language classes.
Jonathan Rodriguez for “Heritage Spanish Speakers and Their Acquisition of Standard Spanish.” This paper seeks to promote awareness and acceptance of the linguistic varieties in the Spanish speaking community.
Aoxuan (Jessica) Cao for "Metaphors of Cancer: Quantitative Research on Cancer-Related Reports in Chinese News." Written for Professor Beth Goering’s fall 2016 course, Topics in Applied Communication: Metaphors of Health, Disease, and Wellness, the paper examines the types of metaphors found in written Chinese to describe cancer. Through the rhetorical analysis of cancer metaphors found within a sample of online Chinese news sources originating from a variety of countries, the paper interestingly identifies four main types of metaphors to define cancer: as a process, as a supernatural power, as an organism, and as war. The paper persuasively shows how intercultural factors, such as these types of metaphors, could have a large influence upon the effectiveness of patient-provider communication, particularly between Chinese expatriates and native health care practitioners in the United States.
Matthew Hume and Kimberly Robertson for "Yin and Yan: Construction of Counterargument in Two Multilingual Learners." Written for Professor Julie Belz’s fall 2016 course, Individual Readings in English: Generation 1.5 Learners, this paper is a comparative case study of two, multilingual first-year Korean university students’ abilities to succeed at persuasive writing and to employ arguments and counterarguments in an introductory academic writing class designed for non-native speakers in a U.S. university. Through analysis of the qualitative data, the authors clearly demonstrate the challenges for students like them who attended high school in the United States but who never mastered the functional and critical literacy skills in their native languages to succeed at college-level writing. As such, the authors make a well-reasoned argument that teachers training for working in such a second language learning classroom must make greater efforts to study theories that apply to such multilingual learners.
Je' Nobia Smith for "Your Way Isn't Always Right: Constructing an Identity in the First and Second Languages." Written for Julie Belz’s Second Language Acquisition course (LING-L 532), this paper details and informs about the linguistic experiences of first-generation Americans for whom English is not their primary language. The concept of a "1.5" generation is an interesting inclusion in the paper and relates well to the study's participant as she navigates her identity within the contexts of various dialects of Vietnamese and learning English.
Brandie Bohney for "Moving Students Toward Acceptance of 'Other' Englishes." Written for Kim Lovejoy’s Topics in Rhetoric and Composition: Written Englishes: Living Cultural Realities course (ENG-W 600), this paper recounts a creative, classroom approach to academic, linguistic research about linguicism and other varieties of English. Additionally, the paper uses textual analysis from Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird to inform about and demonstrate code switching between different forms of English.
Devi Pandit for “Code Meshing and Teaching of Grammars: A Celebration of Plurality” written for Kim Lovejoy’s fall 2014 ENG-W 509 course, Introduction to Writing and Literacy Studies. The paper focuses on increasing “plurality” in second language learners with a thorough examination of the topic of code meshing, particularly focusing upon grammar instruction in a college composition class.
Angela Herrmann for “Translingual Writing: from Process to Product? Globalizing Written English in the Second Language Writing Classroom.” Written for the fall 2014 ENG-W 609 course, Directed Writing Projects, this paper emphasizes the significance of translingual pedagogy and its implementation in second language writing classrooms. Her work also emphasizes alternative methods for the teaching and study of writing dominated by monolingualist concepts of language and language relations.
Kenneth Erny for “Developmental learner corpus: A movement from the ‘concocted’ to the ‘authentic.’ ” This paper proposes the use of nonnative English learner corpora as a heuristic (or as output/auto-input) to engage learners in a comparison of the linguistic features of their speech against those of their native-speaker interlocutors.
James Marshall for “How the battles of English as the global language of science pose challenges to the teaching of written English to speakers of other languages.” This paper provides a historical perspective to neutralize the controversy surrounding the teaching of English as an act of linguistic imperialism.
Kelly Sumner for "Moving toward linguistic pluralism in higher education: A research proposal.” Written for Mel Wininger’s fall 2012 Introduction to Writing and Literacy Studies course, this paper emphasizes the benefits of teaching students how to incorporate their multilingual and multiliterate identities into academic writing.
Jennifer Wright for "Chaos as alternative: Illness narratives that matter." Written for Ulla Connor’s fall 2011 Intercultural Discourse in Health Contexts course, the paper shows how patient narratives can be used by healthcare providers to improve care by understanding patient agency and treatment adherence.
Kate Dobson and Jordan Gusich for their joint paper "The translation of an interview protocol for cross-cultural research." Written for Ulla Connor’s fall 2011 ENG-W 600 course called Intercultural Discourse in Health Contexts, this paper shows important considerations for adapting health literacy and medication adherence protocol in a linguistically and culturally relevant and valid manner for a Chinese audience.
Amanda Snell for "‘English for…’: A Short-term Adult ESL Course Model for the Indianapolis Marion-County Public Library.” This thesis addresses the importance of community-based programming to develop language and cultural knowledge for specific purposes and provides a promising model to meet this community need.
Amanda Snell for “His English or He’s English?: Teaching Spanish-Speaking Adult ESL Students to Distinguish and Pronounce English Phonemes-A Pilot Study.”
Michelle Hamstra for “The Impact of Service-learning on Second Language Writing Skills.”
Rasha Mahmoud El-adawy for “Teaching EAP through distance education: An analysis of an online writing course.”
Yannan Li for “Japanese boy-love manga and the global fandom: A case study of Chinese female readers.”
Sonya Lakey for “Making the case for credits for EAP courses.”
Clyde William (Bill) Strickland for “Grant proposal writing: A case study of an international postdoctoral researcher.”
Emily Davis for “Language and Disability.”
Lynne Rohmerien Martin for “A model for developing law lecture comprehension lessons for non-native speakers of English from video-taped authentic materials.”
Belinda Wheeler for “Nonverbal communication in the writing center: Not just a method for evaluating tutees.”
Regan Zwald for “Culture in ESL textbooks: A textual analysis.”
Mary Ann Cohen for “Dear birthmother.”
Alan Williams for “Logging in, blogging ‘Out’: LGBTQ students’ public queer identities in the blogosphere.”
Miki Hamstra for “Service-learning: A pedagogical approach to incorporating affective and sociocultural aspects of second language acquisition in the second language classroom.”
Molly Anthony for “Contrastive rhetoric applications for the classroom and the writing center.”
Amy Gillie for “Madagascar: An intercultural communication case study.”2004 Recipients (inaugural awards)
Cathy Beck
Sharon Gunason
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