The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has led the way in constructing the East Asian region with China, Japan, and South Korea, and an inter-regional entity with the European Union (EU)--known as the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM). The initial aims were security and trade. Recently, however, higher education has been brought into these…

This study examines imagined interactions (IIs) among young adults in the United States, Thailand, and Japan. A comparison of means across cultures on II characteristics reveals that the Japanese participants have the widest variety of II partners, whereas the American participants are the most self-dominant in their IIs and demonstrate the most…

From the social constructivist perspective, this paper examines speech style shifts in academic consultation sessions between professors and students in Japanese universities and demonstrates that politeness is an interactional achievement. The paper attempts to show how what has previously been described as a display of discernment can be…